This Past Weekend - E562 Richard Reeves

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Richard Reeves is a British-American writer, speaker and social scientist. He is also President of the American Institute for Boys and Men Richard Reeves joins Theo to talk about why he thinks many men are struggling to find purpose in today’s world, how becoming a role model or mentor can change your life forever, and the key difference in how men and women communicate.  Richard Reeves: https://x.com/RichardvReeves ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit  https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ  Valor Recovery: To learn more about Valor Recovery please visit them at https://valorrecoverycoaching.com or email them at [e-mail] Blue Cube: Head over to BlueCubeBaths.com and get $1,000 off when you mention Theo’s name. Symmetry Sauna: https://www.symmetrysauna.com/theo ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: [e-mail] Hit the Hotline: [phone] Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Cam https://www.instagram.com/cam__george/  Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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He's the president of the American Institute for Boys and Men. I'm grateful that he's here today. Today's guest is Richard Reeves. I don't care, and I will find a song I will sing and just go. Richard Reeves, thanks for joining us today, brother. Yeah, I'm really thrilled to be here. Yeah, we appreciate it. Man, you want to move that in a little bit for me if you don't mind? Yeah, sure.

And you're, um, you are British move that in a little bit for me, if you don't mind? Yeah, sure. And you're, you are British. By birth, I'm American now. Okay, you're American now. So yeah, I became a US citizen in 2016. So I'm very, very proud of this country. Oh, welcome. Nice. Thank you. And you're the president for the American Institute

for Boys and Men. Yep, new think tank. Like God knows we need more think tanks, right? That's what America is really clamoring for. It's like more scholars sitting in think tanks, producing charts. And honestly, I was in another think tank for 10 years before that, the Brookings Institution, huge think tank in Washington, DC. Great job.

And I got to tell you, it was not in my life plan. To be in a think tank? To create another one. No, actually being in a think tank is great. What that means is you basically just get paid good money to write stuff and say stuff that you're interested in. And what happens to a lot of that information from Think Tank? Well, that depends who you ask.

If you ask the critics, they say it just gathers dust on people's shelves. Maybe like two people in Congress read it. One New York Times journalist reads it. And so there is this whole thing now that think tanks used to like produce policy papers and then grateful legislators, members of Congress, would say, thank you, we'll go and turn that into a law and ta-da. That's not how it works anymore. And so the whole question of how do you influence law, like how do you influence policy, I think

is a really big question now. And so there's a big question mark against this whole idea about quotes think tank. I certainly didn't plan to start a new one, but. But it seems like this one is important. That's one of the reasons, yeah, that I wanted to get to talk to you today because a lot of our listeners are men and boys.

I know Scott Galloway was on and he had mentioned that you were kind of his godfather of information or somebody that he really looked up to, you know? Um, and I did also see you're born on the 4th of July. Is that right? Correct. Do they kick you out of Britain if you're on the- That would be great. I think it's just have a rule, right? Everyone who's born on the 4th of July gets automatic US citizenship, but then gets deported from, from the UK. Right.

But it's so it's kind of of weird because I've always had that. And then I actually came to the US in the 90s for the Guardian newspaper. I was a journalist for quite a few years. I just always loved America, ended up marrying an American. Do you think it was because of your birthday at all or no? You know.

Because it's just interesting. It would sound weird to say yes, wouldn't it? But if you think there's no such thing as a coincidence, I've always loved the fact that I was born on the 4th of July and now I'm here, it's great, everyone has a big party for my birthday. And actually one of the things that I've really thought about as an immigrant, right, I don't, when you say immigrant you probably don't think of someone like me, but I'm a proud immigrant, is that people who are born here don't actually appreciate what it means sometimes to be a citizen.

And my citizenship ceremony, which I did in a hurry actually, because I wanted to be able to vote and wanted to get into the, you know, get into the whole civic life, I was surrounded by people in tears. Right. Really? Yeah. There's people from Iran, there's people from Afghanistan, Iraq, whatever, refugees, a whole bunch of

different people, some people from Mexico, and they're waving their flags, saying the pledge of allegiance, you're welcome by the president. And there wasn't really a dry eye by the end of it. And so I actually now think that every high schooler in the US should go to a citizenship ceremony. Just experience it. Because I don't think if you're like, if you're born here, like you can take it a bit for granted what it means to be a citizen, but to go and experience what it's like for people to become a citizen,

I expected it to be more, I had a green card and I thought, yeah, but I need it. I want to be a citizen as well. I actually was incredibly moved by the whole experience. Yeah, you don't think about the gift of your own citizenship, right? And you don't think about what others go through to get it. Yeah. And that, yeah, they used to have, I know whenever I was growing up, you had the Pledge of Allegiance,

there was definitely a lot more, even though the Pledge of Allegiance was like a small thing, it's one of the like those traditional things that made you feel like a part of something, right? It was like a traditional practice that created a commonality between kids. We kind of thought it was lame sometimes, but sometimes you didn't, you know, like at certain points of the year, if certain things were going on in the culture, it meant more to you.

But yeah, that's- And it's also just a ritual. Yeah. And we've come to undervalue ritual. Oh, we're starting, they erode from our society. The point of a ritual, right? It's not just like you can overthink what the words mean. You can overthink exactly what it means,

but there's something about just the ritual of it. So my son is at the University of Tennessee and he explains- Go Vols, baby. Yeah, but actually when his friends come down to a Tennessee game, what's, and they're say at a Northeastern college or a small liberal arts college,

what really strikes them is less the game. And it's more the fact that there's the pledge of allegiance, that there's a prayer, that the jets go over, that there's fireworks, that they come out through the tea, that there's a whole bunch of ritual around it, which is actually really beautiful. And I think sometimes we overthink the content of the ritual and don't actually just recognize it's the fact of the ritual that really, really matters. Yeah. It's like, yeah, people start looking at, well, what are the words of the Pledge of Allegiance?

It didn't matter. It was just that we got up. Do I mean every word of this, right? That's kind of not the point. We got up and we did it together. And I don't think there's anything wrong if you live in a country and you're a member of it to pledge allegiance to that country. I feel like... Yeah, correct. You know, like, because otherwise, then what are you?

You're just, you're just a passerby. Are you like working for another country? Like what's your real modus operandi then I guess. I have one friend actually who's from Israel and when he came, he gave up his Israeli citizenship because he believes that you cannot have more than one citizenship. You cannot have dual citizenship is a contradiction because you can only be pledging your allegiance to one sovereign nation. I love that. I love that too. And I will confess that I have kept my British passport. Oh, you have? Yeah. So if you had to choose, what do you do then? Oh, you ask. No question. Wow. Yeah, I get it. I mean, there's

a reason why everybody wants to come here. Yeah, dude, the rock lives here. Right. You know? Yes. Is that the main reason people come here? No, I don't think so. But that would be a great idea if every class had to go watch that, had to go watch that ceremony. They always need volunteers of them as well

to help out with the paperwork and stuff like that. And so you could just have some going every time. I just think it'd be really nice before you graduate high school. And I would just say to anyone who's listening, if you're thinking about a good, cool thing to do, volunteer at your local citizenship center and watch the people go through the process

of becoming a US citizen, and that might make you appreciate it a bit more. I can't believe that it's not mandatory, like in classes or in school, that you have to go see that. Maybe that's something that one of these think tanks could change, you know? Well, I proposed it, but let's see if it'll change.

But we can do it ourselves as well. Yeah, we could. There's nothing stopping us. You're the president for the American Institute for Men and Boys. So what is that institute? So it's a research and advocacy organization. So what we're trying to do is,

the basic premise here is there are a lot of ways in which boys and men are struggling in our country right now. And there are no institutions, there's no organizations whose job it is to basically wake up every day and draw attention to that with data, with facts, in a way that will hopefully raise awareness of it. It's this huge asymmetry. I really noticed it in the pandemic. So when the pandemic hit, there

were a lot of reports about how it was going to affect women and girls. There was a lot of concern about employment, domestic violence, a whole bunch of real concerns. Yeah. So there's a lot of press coverage for that. And those were perfectly legitimate, coming from women's think tanks, from the UN, from the White House, et cetera. But I noticed that actually the college enrollment for men had dropped seven times more than for women in the first year of the pandemic. Seven times difference in the drop. Is that true?

It is true. Then the numbers got a little bit revised and it's partly because the men were more likely to be going to like trade school and stuff, which you just couldn't do online. But it couldn't do online. But it wasn't just that, it was just, it hit male education harder than female education, number one. Number two, men were dying a lot more from COVID.

COVID was killing a lot more men. You mean the actual disease or just the loneliness or the disconnection? No, the disease. Oh, the disease. Men were much more vulnerable to COVID. We lost, last time I checked, we'd lost at least a hundred thousand more men than women.

And that's not to be expected because actually it affected older people, right? COVID killed older people a lot more and there are more older women. So if anything you just think you go the other way, right? But it didn't because actually men were much, much more vulnerable to the disease. And no one was really researching that.

No one was producing reports on that. No one was writing articles about that. And it really occurred to me that that was because it was no one's job. Right. Right. Right. There wasn't an American Institute for boys and men, but I can assure you that if we'd existed then we'd have been pushing out lots of information about how COVID was affecting boys' education

and men's education and also killing men in massively higher numbers. Well, for sure, because I think also you, you, I don't know if ever in my life, there's been like a, like a lot of organizations where it's like, hey, men need help, you know? It's like everything is that women need help with this, children, you know, and it's like, Hey, men need help. You know, it's like, everything is that women need help with this children, you know, and it's certainly that makes sense.

Um, I always think back to like women and children first, like when the Titanic was sinking or something, you know, when something like that, it's like women and children first, right? And that's probably what most men would want as well. But at a certain point you're like, Hey, uh, we exist. What are we doing here? You know? Um, what was your, like, what was your first relationship like, like with your

dad or something like when you were like, how did you, like, just so we have a, some personal, uh, attachment to this conversation as well. What was it like with your dad when you were a kid? Cause that's usually people's first male role model. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My dad was amazing.

Oh, wow. Just amazing. Uh, and is an amazing granddad to my sons as well. And so I just, I was given the greatest gift that I think anybody can ever get, which is two parents who both loved me, still together, still loving us. And that sense of, somebody wants,

this sounds like a bit of a- It's crazy that I'm shocked to, you know, that it's, it's crazy that it's becoming this world that that's just shocking thing. Yeah, and it's not like, not like they were perfect. Yeah. To be clear. But, but it's like, like parenting is never gonna be about perfection.

It's, it's always gonna be about the arc, right? It's like a, I think you almost get like a parental grade point average, right? Across the whole decades it takes to raise a kid, right? It's like a, I think you almost get like a parental grade point average, right? Across the whole decades it takes to raise a kid, right? You're going to have bad days and good days. And you're going to get some days where you get a really bad grade, isn't right? That dad got, dad got an F today, right? He like said some stuff he shouldn't have said,

did some stuff he shouldn't have done to me. But then like you got a B the next day and an A, like what's my overall. And, and they were, they were genuinely like amazing. And I've come to realize that that is the most extraordinary gift. I was going to say, it sounds like a bit of a brag, but I remember someone coming up to me once after I'd done a talk or something like that. And, um, and there's your dad right there. Get a gander at him.

And they just, and they just said, his name Phil David. David. Yeah. That's a proper British name as well. They said like, this guy's dad loved him. You can tell his dad loved him. I was like, Oh, so I loved you. Right.

I was like, that's so weird. And I was like, I don't know that you can just, there's something in people, men who were loved by their dads and you could never quantify that. Right. There's no chart you could ever make about that. But I have, I've never doubted my father's love for me. And he was a coach for us. He taught us to swim. He taught us to drive, but he was also the breadwinner.

And I had this moment with my dad that made a huge impression on me. Where like his, of his generation, he had to be the breadwinner. I married very young and he lost his job. He became unemployed a couple of times. He worked in manufacturing during the eighties, which was a tough time, you know, in the UK and the U S and there was a time he was unemployed for quite a long time, but every morning he got up and he shaved and he put on a shirt and a tie. His concession was he didn't put a jacket on, right?

He didn't fully dress up, right? Cause he was trying to get a white collar job and he had breakfast with us. And I asked him one day, I said, dad, you're going into the spare room to type out like resumes to try and get a job. Why, why are you shaving? Why are you still putting a shirt on? You don't have a job. And he looked at me and he said, I do have a job.

My job is to get another job so that I can take care of you. And he worked as hard at getting a job as he ever had at his job, because he knew that we needed him. And although I think that fatherhood has really changed, it's been different for me, because the economic relationship between men and women has changed so dramatically,

which is a huge liberation, I think, from how I was able to be a stay at home dad for a few years in a way that he would never have been able to do. Right? So it's a different world now, but that basic idea that like, okay, you have this purpose in life now, which is I have to take care of you. It just changes you. And I had that directly from my dad. Yeah. And just seeing that example, like, okay, what does a man do every day? He gets up, he takes care of himself, he closed himself and he moves forward in the world in some process, you know, like, yeah, no, I think that that's-

It took him months to find a job and I've never been prouder of him. And I really realized that in retrospect. Oh, wow. And he passed away now? No. Oh, good. My parents are in their eighties now. They live in Wales. I'm half retrospect. Oh, wow. And he passed away now? No. Oh, good. My parents are in their eighties now. They live in Wales.

I'm half Welsh. Oh, you are? Yeah. And is that the bad one or what's the bad one? Bad in what way? Yeah, I don't know. That's a good point. I think you'd have to specify.

Yeah, I gotta look it up more. I mean, some people would say that the Welsh are bad. Yeah. But I'm not gonna say that. Okay, yeah. Okay, yeah. The Scottish, the Irish. Well, the Scottish is the easy way.

Yeah, everybody's like the Scottish are over there eating their own teeth, you know, but that's, you know, but it's also, yeah. Okay. No, I love the UK because everybody just, just rips on the other group, you know, rips on the other part of it. It's the best. Almost everywhere. It's like everything. It's like college football. It's like states, but nowhere stronger than in the UK. Yeah, no, it goes deeper. Yeah. You go on stage in Ireland, you're like, fuck England. And they just, they will cheer for the- Oh, that's right.

They cheer for the other side, right? So like if you, in rugby or soccer or something, like everybody will, it's like if England's playing Germany, the Welsh will support the Germans. And we have a history with the Germans, but it's like, even then, any basically anybody but England. Oh, so the English and the Welsh are against each other. Even. Oh, Christ. Oh yes. I didn't know that. Not quite as much as the Scots probably. Yeah. But it's, I mean, and also, of course these, they have deep history. So, I mean, it is, it is the United States.

It is, it is four nations. Yeah. And so there is always going to be that difference. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. That's, it always just seems so much fun over there. It's how passionate they are about it. That's great. I mean, it's a kind of tribalism can be good or bad, but, but the issue of, I know you're interested in fatherhood. Yeah, for sure. And I was going to talk, yeah. And just, and just, um, so I can just, so I'll relate my own. Yeah. My dad, my dad was older when I was born. My dad was 70 when I was born.

So he was an older guy. So I think I had this like, this almost like fear all the time that my dad was going to be hurt or die maybe, you know, because it was always just kind of scary. You know, like, um, you know, like he would drive and he would ask us where we were going or if we could turn. And I was just a kid, I'd be he just drove right out. You were literally having to be his eyes while he was driving. Yeah, I was helping out, you know, cause sometimes he would park too close under the lights or whatever, you know, he'd wait at an intersection

in the middle of the intersection. You know, he's just old, you know, he was just, you know, he was just, you know, he was just, you know, he was just, you know, he was just, you know, he was just, you know, he was just, you know, he was just, you know, he was just, you know, he was just, you know, he was just, you know, he was just, you know, he was

just, you know, he was just, you know, he was just, you know, he was just, you know, he was just, you, I was helping out, you know, because sometimes he would park too close under the lights or whatever, you know. He waited at an intersection in the middle of the intersection. You know, he was just, you know, he was like 80 something at that point. And so it was just bizarre, you know, I think it was a very bizarre kind of like, probably fatherhood connection.

And then my parents got divorced. And so then at that point, yeah, you kind of start to, and then my dad didn't live with us. And so my mom didn't want him to live with us. And so, you know, then you're kind of like in this, you don't even realize it as a kid, you're just a kid, but you're in this starvation space for where do you get, probably role models.

And where do you, who do you look to, you know? And I had my brother around for a couple years and then I was like a huge wrestling fan. Like I really idolized a lot of those guys. Did you do it? Were you a wrestler? No, I got into steroids, but I never did the wrestling. You did the steroid bit, but not the.

Yeah. So I did, yes, I guess. But yeah, I mean, I remember collecting all the figurines and we would watch it. I had a neighbor and his dad was, his dad was like kind of dialed in. And so that was helpful. What did he, he was almost like a dad to you as well?

Like, cause you can share it around. I think that's part of the point. Oh, for sure. I think you can get your father, you can get your father little pieces from different men. Right? You can, I believe that like, yeah, the basketball coach that, you know,

showed me like care and affection and included me in things that his family was doing. And then I ended up moving out and living with a different family when I was like 14. And that family had a stable father in the home. And so that, that helped a lot. But yeah, not trying to like make it about me. I'm just trying to like put both of our stories out there.

Yeah. And I think it's important people know. But one of the things my dad also did, he was a coach. Like he was there, he coached rugby and stuff. And I think particularly in the US, I've become really interested in the role of coaches. So my basic view is that coaches, especially for boys, we're actually seeing like sports is going down for boys in the US now.

Boys are less likely to play sports than in the past. Is that true? Bring it up. It's going up, yeah. The Aspen Institute has a really good project called Project Play where they actually track the data. It's going up for girls and down for boys. Now, it's always been higher for boys, but sports participation is going down for boys. One reason for that is coaches. You need coaches to do that.

And we can maybe get into male teachers, because actually one of the things that male teachers do, and my son has just become a teacher. Oh, wonderful. Yeah, he's teaching fifth grade in Baltimore. And like within a day of starting, someone heard his accent, because he's still got a British accent,

heard his accent, he's a soccer coach now. And he actually is a good soccer player. But the point is, he's immediately a coach, right? And I think that coaches are basically mental health professionals in disguise, right? I think they're doing a lot of the work that you'd otherwise do in terms of mental health. And you can kind of see like there's,

there'll be a line from the Aspen. Okay, here we go right here says, uh, oh, we have fewer boys are playing sports in 2013. Half of boys, age six to 17 participated regularly in sports. According to SFIA data, only 41% of boys did in 2023. Right. Um, girls, age six to 12 had 34% and 13 to 17 age girls were 38% played at higher levels in 2023 than in any recent years. So girls is going up, like you said, boys is going down. Some of that could be attributed to also a lot more boys are like, they choose to become gamers and that sort of thing, but more sedentary things.

It could be, which is not necessarily a good thing. I mean, ideally you'd want to do a bit of both, but then the question is like, why are boys playing less sport than in the past? And what is this coaching thing? And you can't get coaches. I'd love to see something like a Coach for America program. You know, there's this Teach for America program, which gets people into teaching,

because I think there's a lot of men who are struggling to know how to kind of connect with their community or what they do. Oh, for sure. Some of the older institutions, maybe they used to do that with like through church or the scouts or whatever, maybe declined, they have declined.

And so if there was a way to kind of plug those men into a coaching role, I think that's important because when I, when you, I mean, maybe this is maybe your experience, but like, I think if you look at the image of a coach sitting on a bench, like with a student, you know, a boy or young man sitting next to him and he's like, how are you doing? Right? How are things at home?

You know, how are things with your mom? You know, et cetera. Is you kind of, that's counseling. That's therapy, but you're just not calling it that. And the other thing is critically, you're doing it shoulder to shoulder. Do you know this thing about the difference in communication style between men and women and boys and girls? Like men, men go shoulder to shoulder, women go face to face.

It's interesting how we're set up here. Um, once you've seen this, you can't unsee it. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Cause guys don't usually look at each other when they're sharing information that much. No, because actually that's a little bit of a threatening, that's a threatening stance for men. Like if men go face to face, that's, that might indicate something, some aggression or some like, it's a bit like you're, you're intimidating each other a little bit, right?

Yeah. There's a role for that probably. And so when you talk to someone, you rarely stand and look directly. There's always a little bit of an angle. Not if you're male. So my, we learned this a hard way, like even before I had any of the data and God, I wish I'd had this data

when we were raising our kids, right? But my wife would like, our kids would come home from school, all boys and the two that were in high school and middle school at the time, they'd come home and they'd like sit across the breakfast bar from her, right? And she'd be feeding them stuff, like she'd feed them protein, have some protein. And then she'd stare at them like this and be like, how was your day? How was your day? And they'd be feeding them stuff like she'd feed them protein, have some protein. And then she'd stare at them like this and

be like, how was your day? How was your day? And they'd be like, well, I'm fine. They'd look down. Fine. Did you learn anything? I don't know. Right.

What did nothing, right? Just nothing. And then later on we'd be driving with them somewhere or watching a game or video game or just something, something like that shoulder to shoulder and they would say, huh, you you know, this weird thing happened today, dad or mom, right? This girl said this thing at school today. Interesting.

And what we now know is that that's very, very common, that actually the communication style that men are most comfortable with is less face to face and it's more shoulder to shoulder. Now, think about this, fishing, road trips, watching sports, sitting on the bench, shoulder to shoulder. It is the only explanation I have for the existence of golf. What is golf about? Do you play golf?

Okay, good. I'd be willing to play it, but I just, I can't even calm down right now. But it's like, again, men have to be doing something else. And they have to be doing it like just so if you go to a party now, you, you, you will not be able to unsee this. Watch how the men stand in relation to each other. And there are people who've done whole PhDs on measuring the angle. We always stand a little bit catty corner, a little bit of an angle.

Cause I thought cause to go face to face is threatening. Now women on the other hand, very comfortable face to face, walk into a coffee shop and count up how many people are sitting opposite each other, staring each other in the face and then see what the gender is of them. Much more likely to be women. Now it's not like one is good or bad, but what you don't want is a mental health profession, like psychology or whatever it is based on the presumption that we're all supposed to sit like this. And so a lot of male therapists now, they're taking their male patients out for a walk. That's the thing to do. Walk and talk.

That's the best. Walk with them. Don't sit and stare at them. I've been saying that for years. As a man, it's like we don't want that. Yeah. Mike's girlfriend is a therapist now and she and I, whenever we really needed to discuss stuff, we go on a walk because you're in motion already. There's a part of you that feels like it's moving forward. Even if you're sharing something that's troubling, cause sometimes you get, you're sitting a sedentary sit, you're just sitting there in a room somewhere.

It's like, Oh, well you, you leave, you haven't really gone anywhere. Nothing's happened, you know, but on a walk, you? But on a walk, you're making progress no matter what, even by just like staying in motion. Same as a road trip. Yeah. But they've now got this physiological element to it too, which is that just how you're relating to each other physically, especially for men,

it's just very important that we are- I'm gonna try that next time I'm with my therapist in a room, it's like, yeah, why don't, yeah, like, maybe it's easier if I'm just able to share and have somebody there, right? I remember one time I was talking to my brother and I didn't know that this had been important in my life, but he said, he said, hey man, I can just,

I was having a tough day, man. I pulled over, I was like just, I was kind of like falling apart a little bit. And he's like, hey man, I can just sit here on the phone with you. We don't have to say anything. Right. And I'd never, he's like, I have some time, right. I have an extra 10 minutes. I can just sit here with you. We don't have to say anything. And I can just be here with you. You know? And man, I just, I mean, it was like a dam inside of me broke.

You know, it was like, literally there was tears coming out of my toenails, you know, like it was just like, you didn't realize all the time you needed someone just to be there. I didn't need to hear them say anything. I didn't need to hear how they thought I felt. I didn't need to hear a response to anything, no judgment, nothing.

I just needed somebody there, you know? And it was like, I mean, it like, I remember my hands vibrating, it shook me so much, you know? You're very lucky. That idea of being like with somebody, not necessarily for them. I think sometimes we think like we've got to be for them, we've got to be telling them what to do,

we've got to be advising them, we've got to be advocate, like somehow we've got to be doing something. And sometimes it's just being with. And for them to know that you're with, I'm with you, right? That's an incredibly powerful statement. And one of the things that I has really motivated my work around boys and men, which I didn't ever expect really to be doing, was just this sense that I had that so many boys and men now don't have that feeling that we are with you, that we have your back, we've noticed that you're struggling and we're with you.

And instead, there's sometimes been a sense sense a lot of men have felt, which is being neglected or sometimes even blamed for their own problems. Is pornography causing a problem in your life? Do you find yourself watching porno for longer periods of time and having trouble stopping is porn affecting your relationship or dating life? Well, you're certainly not alone. Watching pornography has become so commonplace today and oftentimes men use porn to numb the pain of loneliness, boredom, anxiety, and depression. Shame and stigma prevent men from talking about these

issues and getting help for them. I want to introduce you to my friend Steve. Steve is the founder of Valor Recovery, a program to help men overcome porn abuse and sexual compulsivity. Steve is a long-term sexual recovery member and has personally overcame the emotional and spiritual despair of abusing pornography and has dedicated his life to empowering men to do the same. Steve is an amazing person and he is a close friend of mine.

I mean that. Valor Recovery helps men to develop the tools necessary to have a healthier sex life. Their coaches are in long-term recovery and will be your partner, mentor, and spiritual guide to transcend these problematic behaviors. To learn more about Valor Recovery, please visit them at www.ValerRecoveryCoaching.com or email them at admin at ValorRecoverycoaching.com. Thank you. You all know I like to keep things cool,

even in the winter, and nothing is cooler than a blue cube cold plunge. I'm fortunate enough to have one at home. And let me tell you, it's like baptizing your soul, baby, getting that little crispy bucket, baby. It gets rid of them demons we all have and makes you feel great for seven or eight hours afterwards. It's good.

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Opt in on their website or give them a call. I am grateful for the one that I have and I feel honestly thankful to be able to have one. I know they're not in everybody's price range and that's understandable, but at the same I am grateful for the one that I have and I feel honestly thankful to be able to have one. I know they're not in everybody's price range and that's understandable, but at the same time I want to support my friend and his amazing company. So I think there are these real problems, right? So I know you talked to Scott Galloway about some of these issues.

Scott's been amazing on this, but the suicide rate among men under the age of 30 has risen by 40% since 2010, just since 2010, by 40%. Is that true? Bring that up. Yeah, look, yeah. The American Institute for Boys and Men did a suicide trends, uh, analysis. And if you go down, you can then see the shift

in, so up until 2010, it was much more older men who were, there you go, you got it. So if you go down, like there's a... Let me see, if male suicide rates had been the same as women's from 1999 to 2023, we would have lost 546,000 fewer men. So men are, since 2010, suicide rates have risen by 30%.

For 25 to 34, but we've updated that since. And for under 20s, it's 40%. So it was sort of interesting about the suicide. And where do you get this information from? From CDC, from the Centers of Disease Control. This is official. So we lose 40,000 men a year to suicide. And since 2010, it's all shifted to being younger men.

Right? So the rise up until 2010, the rise was middle-aged men really. And that was about deaths of despair. You can see it was partly about the economy, but since 2010, the rises have been among younger men. And so that's a very different thing. That's not about the recession. That's something different going on.

I think that's more cultural. I think it's more just a lot of these young men feeling lost, feeling unseen. Yeah, what am I a part of? Yeah, because you have to have purpose, right? And I think you have to have purpose. We've talked a lot about that on this podcast. I learned a lot about it. But yeah, we have to have something. We've talked a lot about that on this podcast. I learned a lot about it. But yeah, we have to have something to feel a part of.

Man, I remember there was a guy I went skydiving with and he'd listened to this podcast when it first started out and he and I kind of connected and we connected and like kind of like some emotional of us talking about life and stuff. And then there were a couple of times he'd messaged me and I didn't get back to him over like, uh, it was like six months or something. I mean, life, you know, you're busy life. Yeah. And then he took his own life. Not that I had, you know,

nothing I probably could have done, but just like, man, it's just like, Oh, I just like, sometimes that's that just all that stuff kind of haunts you. It's like, oh, I just like, sometimes that's that could just all that stuff kind of haunt you. It's like, but you don't, you don't know it's coming. And one of the things I, that stopped me in my tracks, you know how sometimes, so I, for a living, like I'm reading research reports and looking at data and stuff, but I've also been racing, you know, three boys, but even in the research, sometimes you get a finding that just stops you and affects you emotionally. And there's one study that looked at men who'd taken their own lives and then looked at the words they'd used to describe themselves before they'd taken their lives.

And the two most commonly used words that men were using about themselves before they took their own lives was, I'm useless and I'm worthless. And I think that sense of worthlessness, of genuinely feeling like maybe my family, my community will be better off without me than with me is what leads to that tragic outcome. And of course that's just the tip of the iceberg. If you then look at drugs, you look at substance abuse, you look at what's happening in the employment market. I think that sense that a lot of men have

is that there isn't really a script anymore to follow to manhood, to mature masculinity. And I think that in one way, that's for a good reason, but the way I think about this is you think about like the script that my dad had right about being a breadwinner. I was going to say, let's look at some previous scripts so we can examine those. So like my, like my parents are a good example, born, you know, uh, born in the forties, had the kids in there in the 1960s.

And then it was like, my mom knew that she was mostly gonna be the homemaker and the mom she worked as well. She was a nurse, but my dad knew that he was gonna be the breadwinner, right, the provider. There was not a discussion about that. There was no question about that. So they had pretty clear roles. Now the problem with that, of course, was that the roles depended on the woman, in this case my mom, being economically dependent on my dad.

Right, right. Right? That's the problem. And that's what the problem that the women's movement successfully, to a large extent, set out to solve. Right? But my dad was also quite emotionally dependent on my mom. Right? And vice versa.

But I do think there was like, it's a two-way street that was missing from the analysis. Anyway, we tore up these old scripts, right? And we said to women, you don't have to be a housewife and mother anymore, or at least that's not your only option. You can be whatever you want to be. You go girl, right? Be president, be an astronaut, be whatever, which is amazing. Totally amazing.

That message of empowerment we sent to women. So we tore up the old female script, provided a new one about empowerment and independence and you go girl. We tore up the old male script, provided a new one about empowerment and independence and you go girl. We tore up the old male script, which is you're going to be the provider and the protector. We don't really have new one. We didn't replace it. And so we're all improvising now. So basically we've gone from having some kind of script to improvisation.

And that's really, that's incredibly difficult to do. And so it's hard because the good news here is what's happened to women, right? Nobody wants to roll back the economic gains of women. But I think it's incredibly irresponsible and naive of us to think that that doesn't have consequences for how we think about the role of men. We've got to be able to think both of those thoughts at once.

It's good that women are gaining ground. It is bad that men feel lost and purposeless. And we have got to solve that problem as well. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's really cool information. It's good to look at, it's good to like, and it's really, it makes perfect sense, right?

And it's like, you want to have a reason, right? And sometimes I think women, yes, they didn't have the access to money, and in a capitalistic think, I think women, yes, they didn't have the access to money and in a capitalistic society, money is power, right? But also I think there was a missing respect there, right? There wasn't, I think if women had been, if it had been totally respected, the sacrifices that they made and the, the just intrinsic value of who they are as mothers and as caretakers and as bridges of empathy and affection and as homemakers, no matter where they are, whether they're in a home or

whether they're in a conversation, just being able to have that ability to create peace. I think if women had, if that had been more respected, then maybe they never would have felt as much of a movement or as much they never would have felt as much of a movement or as much of a desire to have so much of a movement. Because they had the power. Right, and the power, and the money is the power. And that's what that, that the women's movement had a huge fight about that

because there were some people in the women's movement saying, no, no, no, it's called the wages for housework movement, which was basically what we need to do is pay women to do the traditional women's role. Oh, that's a cool idea. And that lost out. That was a real idea?

Yeah. Bring that up, the Wages for Housework movement? Yeah. There's a big split in the women's movement between the ones who are saying we need to value care and value care work, like Wages for Housework. And then there's another movement, which is like actually you've got to be in the 1970s. I never knew about this. The Wages for Housework Campaign was a 1970s international movement

that demanded governments recognize the value of unpaid domestic labor primarily performed by women. Wow. The founders were Silvia Federici, Selma James, Marielsa D'Acosta, and Brigitte Gautier. Their goals were to change the dependency of domestic workers, reverse power relations and redistribute wealth.

Yeah. Dude, that's fascinating. That's another way we could have gone in theory, at least, right? Right, right. And I'm not saying that women didn't deserve to have all the jobs and whatever they wanted to do. I'm just saying if there had been a different level of respect and some, yeah, and this makes perfect sense and some financial equality, maybe they wouldn't have wanted that. I have no idea.

I'm just thinking. No. Well, this is a really interesting question because I now think we're at a point where a lot of men and women are feeling like this isn't quite working. We're trying to raise kids. We're trying to form families. We're trying to form families. We want to raise our own kids. Right, both parents are so stressed out

that they can't even have a relationship anymore. Right, we want to stay together and be married. We want to raise our own kids by and large, right? And we don't want to die of stress, right? So one of the ways to think about this is like, you had this old family system, right? Which was breadwinner father, homemaker mother, and it was unfair in many ways, but it was also pretty stable and very clear what everyone's role is, and it was pretty good for kids,

because of that stability, when it worked. We've replaced that with a different model now, where we don't want that economic inequality, so both men and women are going to work, that can create all kinds of stress. And maybe that relationship is hard to sustain, which means it might end up separating, which is not good for kids. Right.

And the rules aren't super clear. You don't know who's going to be doing what. You don't know who's getting certain things done. You don't know. I, the division of labor is not clear. And a division of labor, in other words, like being clear, like you do this. I do this like an organized business. Really?

Yeah. I mean, it's like, everybody knows that it makes more sense. Like you're in charge of X, I'm in charge of Y. So you get, you know, really good at X and I get really good at Y, right? And the interesting path we took instead was like, okay, women need to get into the labor market and have labor market power. I think that was almost certainly the, I mean, that's the right right I don't imagine a world where the wages for housework movement Like huge government subsidies to people who are staying at home was ever likely and there's all kinds of problems with that idea But it's an interesting idea

But thought behind it which is are we doing enough to support the people who? Want to raise their own kids the whole point of women's movement wasn't to turn women into their fathers It was to give everybody more choice. And we haven't achieved that yet because we haven't done the rest of it, which is to change the way the workplace works, to give more support to families. I know you had JD Vance on, right? And JD Vance has supported like a child tax credit, which is seen as a left-wing idea, to give more money to people who've got kids in the house.

And so that's not wages for housework, but it's in the direction of actually valuing care through government subsidy. But that has not been an idea that's been popular for a pretty long time. Really? Well, since the 70s, that would be great. Yeah, you're saying that.

Yeah, that's interesting. Right, so it's a similar idea. It's not the same. Yeah, and it wouldn't be framed as wages for housework anymore. And it certainly wouldn't be aimed just at women anymore. It would be for families, et cetera. But the idea that another way to go is to actually provide financial support,

like most European countries do, to parents who are at home and not just to parents who are in the workplace. That's an interesting discussion right now. And I think as long as it doesn't become a call to go back, we're going to help women stay in the home. Right. Instead, it should be to help parents figure out for themselves.

And I'm a huge believer that actually fathers, fathers are doing so much more than they were in the past. Fathers are doing so much more in the home, so much more childcare. And dads are saying they want to do more. Interestingly, now men are more likely to say that having children is important to them than women are. Men are more likely to say that getting married is important to them than women are. And so that's a really interesting moment in history

where if you've got this stereotype that it's like women who are obsessed with getting married and having kids, not anymore. It's now men who are saying that's a higher priority for them. It's almost like men are coming to the, to bridge the gap there of like making, cause there always needs to be some,

one of the parties has to be, until we can get both of the parties to be aligned, has to be the one that wants to bring it back to, let's have a family and move. Cause I think you have to do it. It's like, it's how we're built. Yeah. Exactly. So I think- How am I going to get that purpose that you talk about?

I think I've heard you say that you want to have kids at some point. Oh yeah, I would like to have some kids, man. I started this campaign, it's called 2020 Wive. That means like 2025, but it's like, this is the year I get a wife. Oh, I see. So that is-

I thought you meant you were going to get 25 wives. Oh no, now look, I'd be willing to have more than one wife, but... We would need a change in the law for that, Theo. Hey, I could be a dual citizen. You'd have to be a dual citizen with, I think, Afghanistan. Okay. Maybe Iran. I'm willing.

I could do it, man. You'd also have to convert to Islam. Oh, really? Well, Christianity doesn't look kindly on multiple wives. Can you convert to Islam online or not? Bring that up. I'm not the right person to ask that. How to convert to Islam?

Oh, good. And there's a 1-800 number? There is. Scroll up. Scroll down. Oh, it's an 866 number. Damn. That's great.

Does that mean you have to pay for it? I'm sure they hit you with something man. Converting it is on this very easy process and can be done online in privacy. Okay. If now that makes it sound very suspect. The fact that it has to be done. We could just tell someone, right? Oh yeah.

No one can know. Yeah. If it sounds like somebody is recruiting. I think a better route for you, if I can offer some advice, is to just have one wife. I think that there's that stood the test of time as a way of doing things. Right. No, actually I should be very recent time. I think most human societies have been polygamous have actually had.

Really? Yeah. It's like 95% of known human societies have been polygamous and almost always, I'll get the word wrong. It's polygamous, I think, which means men are allowed to have multiple wives, but not the other way around. Wow. Right.

Very rare to find it the other way around. And which is one of the reasons why, I don why, this is a fact that like blew my mind. I'm going to try on you. See what you think. We have twice as many female ancestors as male ancestors. Okay, twice as many. An ancestor means what? Across human history.

An ancestor means somebody that existed? So twice as many females existed as men? There are twice as many women in human history as there are men. Twice as many. The modern, yes, modern humans have approximately twice as many female ancestors as male ancestors. This is due to a number of factors. I love the fact that you're checking everything I say.

This makes me feel much more confident about saying it, because then you're gonna check it. Yeah, good, because we're going to check it. Yeah, good. Because we're trying to do a little bit better job. That's one of my goals this year is just to have a better, um, cause sometimes I just assume everything is true, right? And a lot of this stuff is just helpful information, but I don't understand though.

So how can you have twice as many females? You're just saying that two thirds of the people that have ever existed have been female. Yeah. Wow. But that, I guess it makes sense because, you know, there's mother earth, right? So obviously she's going to want more kind of babes around hanging out on her. And then you're going to have like, there's going to be, um, and females are the producers. They have like a, they have the womb and they're the makers. They're like the recipe, they're the chefs. So you need like more, you know, life is about creation. So I think it makes sense that you're going to have

more women around probably. Right. Does that make any sense? You think? No. Okay. Um, I just, I just think women are the ones who like keep things together. Sure. So I think you're going to need more of that probably to keep the world functioning. Okay. Oh, I actually, the idea. Do you know why they have more though? Yeah.

Oh, sorry. Jesus. No, I like, I don't, I mean, I don't hate your idea as a certain, like the idea of mother earth, like once more mothers around, I think it's kind of beautiful idea. Yeah. I think it checks out to me. Why aren't we Googling this? That's a good question. I mean, who wants a bunch of dudes loitering around anyway? Someone's going to call the police.

Every time I say something, you have this guy Googling it, right? Whereas you say stuff, Google his stuff. Like, there you go right there. Look at that lady right there. Like are there more women because mother earth wants likes women better? Oh, for sure. Well, she's obviously going to have a probably so like definitely, I don't know. Maybe mother earth is very jealous and she doesn't want women around. Could be the other way around. Yeah. Could be like, what wouldn't mother earth want lots of men? That's what I would think too. If she was straight.

But men are just men are just, they're just loitering around. They're jerking off in the parking lot or whatever. You don't want that. I don't think that's it. That's not what you want. You want some babes around, I think. Can I give you an alternative theory? Yeah.

Why? Which is that you, because you societies have been polygamous, right? You don't need that many men. Oh yeah. In order to have a lot of children. It's like the NBA. It's like NBA players kind of thing. What do you mean? Like a lot of those guys have who has the most kids in the NBA. Bring that out.

Wow. They get some idea. Are they NBA players? Well known for having lots of children. I think they're promiscuous type of, you know, so it's like Calvin Murphy, there we go. 14 children. So I'm just saying, yeah, these guys can definitely. Where you see on Tinder as well, you see on these apps, this, um, it's kind of like a

winner takes all type thing. And in other words, like the guys at the top. That's what Scott Galloway was saying that like the top 1% of men. Right. Whatever the numbers, but what's interesting about that is like that's human. That's basically human history. I actually showed that Tinder data to an evolutionary psychologist.

Someone who studies that whole history of humanity. And he's like, yeah, that just looks like human history to me, which is high status men mating with multiple women. And therefore we are kind of reproduced, but 50% of men across human history didn't have kids at all. They didn't reproduce.

Now what that meant was, there's all kinds of implications for that. Like one is first of all, um, I'm reading this book by Neil Stevenson now, um, it's called seven eaves and that we basically have to kind of send out a few people to survive and there's this passing comment because the earth's going to be destroyed. Seven eaves. Seven eaves. Yeah. Okay.

Um, and there's this passing comment there, which is like most of the colonists will going to be destroyed. Seven eaves? Seven eaves, yeah. Okay. There's this passing comment there, which is like, most of the colonists will have to be female. Right? And the reason for that is the ones we're talking about, which is you need a lot of wombs to keep the human race going, but you don't need as many men. Right. Right?

There's this guy, actually, I can quote him directly, this guy, Roy Baumeister, who says, we have a penile surplus, which is a kind of brutal way of putting it, but it's like, we just don't need that many men, right? Now one consequence of that is, and this is gonna get me back to your skydiving. I'm gonna loop this, if I'm successful here,

if I'm successful, I'm gonna loop this back to skydiving. I have zero percent chance of looping things. Okay, let me try. I believe in you, so, okay. So 50% of men have not reproduced in human history. So half the men have kids, half of them don't have kids. And it's the lower status men who are not gonna have kids, right?

Because the higher status men have multiple wives. They're actually, if you like, they're over consuming. And they can afford to do it. Correct. And so if you're a low status man, there's a good chance that you're just not going to reproduce at all. Right. You're going to be an evolutionary dead end. Your DNA is not going to go anywhere. And under those circumstances, you will risk almost anything to raise your status.

Go to war, go exploring, turn to crime, do anything to try and get yourself up that hierarchy so you have a chance of reproducing. If you stay down there, you ain't going to have kids. You're cooked. Right? And so you got to get up there. So you take risks. Oh yeah. You risk your life because actually if you die. Who cares?

Who cares? You only got a 50-50 chance of having a kid anyway. Right? You don't have any kids already. And if you're down there, it's not 50-50. It's maybe like, you're almost certainly not going to have a kid. So, so you take crazy risks to raise up the hierarchy.

And one consequence of that is men on average are more risk taking than women. Even today, which is why they go skydiving. Like, what do you, what do you think about skydiving? Like men are also twice as likely to drown. And then it's like it'd drown. Yeah. Yeah. All kinds of ways.

Like risky behavior, both good and bad, is higher among men, right? Good could be like being entrepreneurial, whatever. I don't know any women that have drowned, and I know some men that have drowned. Right, and so skydiving, you know what? I'm gonna say something, and I don't know if this is true, so you're gonna have to get your fact checker

in the sky to check, but I bet you more men skydive. But I know for sure that smoke jumpers are almost entirely men. Do you know what a smoke jumper is? Mm-mm, I don't think so. It's not a Native American thing, is it? No, you're from the South, right? Where are you from?

Yeah, I'm from Louisiana. Yeah, yeah, okay. So you'd know if you were from out kind of west, right? What does it say about men and women? Well, the number of men and women who try tandem skydiving is roughly equal to the sport of skydiving is predominantly male.

Professional skydivers, only about 14% of professional skydivers in the United States are women. Some reasons for the disparity, women may be more risk averse than men, just like you're saying. Yeah, that's number one. And women may be perceived as less interested in taking risks.

If you, so just from an evolutionary perspective, or if you're a woman, you are highly incentivized to protect your own body, right? Because you probably, this is just an evolutionary term. Yeah, you're the one who's got the future in you. Yes, and you're gonna have a kid, probably. Most women have reproduced, right? You're quite likely to have a kid.

Whereas if you're a guy, actually, if you've only historically had like a 50-50 chance, right. And you've got to get more status and your body is kind of less quotes valuable. Right. So who cares if you're nuts land out in the desert or whatever. Cause you shoot, didn't know you throw yourself out of the plane. So these, these smoke jumpers, smoke jumpers are highly trained firefighters who parachute from airplanes in a remote areas to fight wildfires. Wow. It's almost like, um, severe barbecue, like one of those TV shows or whatever. Smoke jumpers are really interesting because these are people who have chosen for a job.

Okay. That they will go up in an airplane, jump out of the airplane, even when there's nothing wrong with the airplane, which is what you do, apparently jump out of the airplane, but the difference is they jump out of the airplane into a blazing inferno in the middle of nowhere and stay there for days on end fighting that fire. That's an interesting job choice. Yeah. And it's almost all men.

Now there are some women and of course women should be encouraged to do that job and that's great if they want to do that job. But I'm just going to go out. I said this to a female friend of mine. I said, you know, this profession, I explained to her what it was and she said, you can keep that one. There is no big feminist movement to get more women into smoke jumping. Smoke is so bad for you anyway. I guess the point here is like there's there are ways in which on average men and women are different.

And one of them is that men have this different appetite for risk and if that... Do we think that that's good or bad is the wrong question? It's both good and bad. It depends how it's expressed, right? Because there are times when you want people to be willing to take risks, to put themselves on the line or to kind of try a new venture or something like that. And there are times when it's a really bad idea, right? To try a new drug when it's not a good idea or to jump too high off a bridge or whatever it is.

And so there's ways in which those differences between men and women can either become good or bad, but we don't get anywhere by denying that they exist. What we do is we say, there are these differences, how do we channel them in productive ways? And so if young men, for example, are a bit more risk taking, and there are a lot more risk taking when they're young, if they're a bit more, more potential for physical aggression, which is absolutely clear, et cetera. For sure. If they're a bit more driven by sex, for example, which is also absolutely true.

And we see that playing out in all kinds of ways around kind of pornography, et cetera. It doesn't do any good to just say that's not true, right? That those things aren't, they're all socialized. Actually instead, what we're going to say is they are true. So what do we do about that as a culture and as a society? How do we kind of take those differences responsibly and not fall into the trap of saying one is good or one is bad? We used to think that somehow the male attributes to call them that were better, right?

That's a patriarchy and the female ones may be more caring, more nurturing, et cetera. As you said a minute ago, right? We just, we valued them less, right? We don't want a society like that, but we also don't want a society where the male, the more male leaning attributes are seen as intrinsically bad. It's one of the reasons why I hate the term toxic masculinity, by the way. Well, also there's no toxic femininity either, which is interesting. You know, it's like, cause you, you gotta have one way and the other, no matter

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Symmetry Sauna, the perfect balance of form and function. Learn more about how to get your own premium home sauna from Symmetry Sauna at Symmetry Sauna.com slash T H E O. Just to kind of circle back to where we were, so there's a lot of men that are suffering, right? That's kind of improved, there's a lot more of suicide. There's uncertainty is what it means to be a man, masculinity, this kind of masculinity with this new femininity kind of being defined now, the new masculinity is kind of

undefined. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. And a lot of men are looking for their place. What do you feel like is causing that these days? Because it's not women causing it. It's not this equality of women. No, no, it's not. And I think that's really important thing to say, because that sometimes is what feels like might be the case and what some people are saying, including kind of online, which is what they do is they take two facts, which is women have risen significantly economically in terms of education now massively overtaken men, et cetera. Men are struggling and suffering. There's cul-de-sac of sorts.

Yeah. And like, so maybe that's because of that, right? Maybe the struggles of men are the result of the rise of women. That's completely untrue. They're for different reasons. So the economy has changed, right? So a lot of the jobs that men used to be able to do, especially without maybe that much education in manufacturing

and steelworks and mining and stuff, they've largely gone. Right? And so now are they going for good or they've just gone away from America? They've gone away from America. They've gone away from America. Yeah. And there's no serious prospect of those male jobs that required like strong physical labor. Like Bruce Springsteen type stuff. It's not coming back.

I mean, we can be nostalgic for them by and large. I mean, I'm not saying there's none of that. Right. But that's a huge shock. Right? It's a massive change in, in the workplace. It's just those jobs that men used to be able to do that their dad maybe did just, they're just not there. Yeah. I mean, that was a lot of the commercials when I was a kid, it was like, I was born in a small town. You know what I'm saying? There was that commercial, like somebody made something. And I remember my grandfather worked at the plant in his town and they made elevators

and stuff. They made parts for elevators and it was a small town, but he worked there and my grandma would take him lunch over there during lunchtime and they had a lunch whistle in town. And there was just these little things, you know, and whenever we drove past there, you know, like grandpa works there, you know, it was like, so there was, it added purpose to everybody's existence. Yeah. And there was a real structure to it. I mean, just think about my own family. I took my three sons to North Wales,

to a town called Blennerfus Styniog in North Wales. Blennerfus Styniog is a disease as well, I think. Oh, in a few minutes, it'll be a new drug available in America. Okay. This will fool your fact checker. They will not be able to even spell blind or first in yard. Uh, but it's a, you was the biggest producer of slate for a long time and generations of my family have worked in that slate mine.

Oh, really? We went there and we found their great, great, great, great, great grandfather's grave. No way. And went down into the mine and spent some time there, had a big effect on them. And it's like, what did you do? You did what your dad did.

Go down the mine. What your granddad did. Go down the do? You did what your dad did, go down the mine. What your granddad did, go down the mine. Go down the mine, go down the mine. And even when I was growing up, and I grew up in Peterborough, an industrial town, my mom was a part-time industrial nurse for a while. And the hooter for the ends of the shifts, we could hear it across the town.

And so we knew when she was coming home, because we would hear the factory hooter. Horn. Horn, yeah. Sounder. Sounder. Alarm. Thank you. Wow.

Yeah, so it's almost like as men we're out of the mines now. A little bit. Like we had that. Not everybody. Some people are still in there. And that's good. It was such a weird experience. So we went down to the bottom of the slate mine.

And there are these little huts in the bottom of the mine. And they would go in there for like 30 minutes at lunchtime and they would sing, this is in Welsh, right, so they'd sing. They'd sing and they'd eat and they'd talk and maybe do a bit of politics, right, and then they'd go back up and start coming out of the mine. Very dangerous, incredibly well paid for the time, but very dangerous work. And there was something about, I went into those huts and I sat in there like with my boys and we're kind of sitting there and thinking about

seven generations of our family being down there. And actually, this is going to sound a bit weird, but almost being a little bit envious of what it was like for those men to go down there and be in that little hut. And then of course you catch yourself and you think, you're an idiot. It was dangerous work. It was dangerous work. It was hard.

What are you talking about? Right. If you put me in there now, right, I probably wouldn't do great. Right. But I think what it was catching for me and with my boys especially was the sense of like male solidarity. Right. It just a sense, that visceral sense of like it did structure lives, male lives in particular.

And in that, in that town, when the men went down into the mines, all the wives would come out and the kind of children and stand silently. It was bad luck for there to be any noise. So they stood silently while the men went down into the mine. Wow. And hoped that they would come back. And so there's something very beautiful and nostalgic about that. And I get that nostalgia.

Yeah, it was a tradition. Right. But. it was a tradition. Right, but- It was a ritual. Ritual, tradition, purpose, space, clear script, right? What are you gonna do? Well, how about you do what your great, great, great, great grandfather did, and your great grandfather, and your grandfather, right?

How about just doing that, right? And I don't think we couldn't, even if we wanted to reconstruct that kind of world, but I do think we should't, even if we wanted to, reconstruct that kind of world. But I do think we should be honest about the fact that the collapse of that structure and those scripts has really left a lot of men incredibly uncertain about, am I going to be needed by my family? What am I going to do? What's my job going to be?

So we've had this massive economic change. And then alongside it, we've had this huge social change which has been the economic rise of women, right? And so it's no longer the case that women are now like looking for a man. Gloria Steinem is a very famous feminist still alive from the 1970s. I actually had a really cool meeting with her.

Really cool lady or not? Yes, totally cool. I gotta meet that lady. She's amazing. And she said, famously, she said, the point of the women's movement is to make marriage a choice for women, not a necessity. Ah. Right?

Because women needed to get married before to, you know. Right, it was the only way who's going to pay for dinner. Right. And not to eat. Not in a fancy restaurant. Right. Right. And so the whole point is in a fancy restaurant. Right. Right. And so the whole point is to make it a choice so that women have enough economic power to

choose marriage rather than being forced into it. She actually, this is a weird coda, but she actually just got married herself. I think she's in her nineties now. She's so cool. But she got married partly because same-sex marriage is legal now. And because she said we've made enough progress that marriage, she used to describe marriage as this Patriarchal citadel etcetera. Here's the weird thing. She got married to Christian Bale's father Wow

Which I just find a bit random and he's British isn't interesting. No, is he? I don't know I don't know either David Bale right there in 2866 the long single Steem married for the first time in a Cherokee ceremony in Oklahoma. So that was a while ago. It was in 2000, right? Her husband, entrepreneur and activist, David Bale sadly died of lymphoma four years later. Wow.

Yeah. So even in the end, even Gloria Steinem felt like it was okay to get married, right? We've made enough progress so that actually the women, marriage was no longer this kind of trap for women economically. But it was a choice. It was a choice. And so, but of course what that means is when it's a choice, there's a lot of women that might be like, I choose not to marry you.

I might or might not have your kids, but we're now in this world where there's a lot more freedom of choice. And of course that is a great and wonderful thing. But it's also created a huge amount of uncertainty, especially among men. Like they just, I think a lot of men feel now that they've been told a bunch of things that they know they shouldn't be.

Shouldn't be predator, shouldn't, you know, there's a lot of but right. Don't do this. You can't peep in time, you can't. And quite right too, right? But there's no like, I sometimes think that we have a long list of don'ts for men. Right, right.

But not very many dos. Yeah. Where's the list of to dos for men now? For sure, and it used to be that, yeah, almost every man was, you weren't guaranteed a wife, but everybody's gonna need to pair up because the way that the script was put together, you needed each other

because you needed someone to be in the home, you needed someone to be the breadwinner, the script was there, you had to partner up. So figure it out and let's move on, let's move forward in the world. Exactly. And what I fear now is that there are some more reactionary forces, voices saying, the way to actually for men to find purpose is to go back. Because it's very recently that there was a world where men felt purpose, which was the world we just escaped from, where women were economically dependent on men. And so I could totally understand why this is happening, where people are

saying, well, we used to know what our role was when women were economically reliant on us. Well, first of all, we ain't going back. There's no switch you could turn out even if you wanted to. Yeah. And we don't want to, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing more to help men move forward and actually having a bit of empathy for the fact that this is a difficult moment, a difficult transition for men.

And so rather than kind of pointing fingers at them, we should maybe offering them the occasional helping hand. And I think that lack of empathy and understanding and awareness of the genuine suffering of many of our men has created a huge vacuum in our culture and in our society, and we need to fill it fast. Otherwise we're going to lose more and more of our men. And we'll be right back. Wow.

Very true. So one thing you have to start to look at is then where do men start to, you know, or where do men continue to, uh, find these building blocks, right? To create the worth inside of themselves. Um, for me, one thing has been through other men, right? And, and, um, and even like you're saying shoulder to shoulder, like things that experiences that I've had that have been the best. Like even when I used to go to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and take classes there, it was really amazing because you're in this physical space, but also there's so much mutual respect in there.

It's not people trying to beat each other up, it's trying to help people, trying to help each other physically learn how to take care of themselves, right. Yeah. And, but with, with that, there's so much camaraderie and, um, and, um, love and compassion that comes along with having great instructors. And a lot of times it's just the guy next to you. He's your best instructor for the next moment. Um, recovery meetings, you know, I go to recovery meetings for, um, intimacy and, um, AA and those meetings for intimacy and AA. And those meetings for me are really great,

especially the intimacy ones, where they call it sex and love addiction and stuff, but it's really just like intimacy disorders or connection disorders. It's almost just low self-worth, it's all of that. And sometimes you base it off of your relationship with women or you can look at your relationship with women to see how you're doing on your own.

Are there men and women in those groups or is it just men? A lot of the ones I go to are just men. And it's not that I don't want women in them. It's just like, I want a space where it's just men. I can be able to share openly if I'm struggling with a certain thing or how I'm feeling or and it just be other men, you know, it just feels. And then you're not trying to like slurp on any of the chicks that are in there either.

You're not trying to flirt or anything, you know, you're just, which would seem bad given the nature of the problems that many of them have. Oh, and you'll be shocked. You like holding an AA meeting in a bar or something. Yeah. I understand that. Yeah. So it's, yeah.

So, but you're getting male solidarity from both. That's what you're getting. And that's one of the reasons I go. I go to hear other men share. I go to share. And sometimes they'll say something and like, my body will just go like that, right? It's like- Just your shoulders drop, you breathe.

It's an exhale that I didn't even know I needed to take. It's an exhale that has just been running in the back of my subconscious for sometimes decades, sometimes hours, sometimes years, minutes, but it's something that I needed to hear. I needed to hear everything was okay. And I needed to hear another man's voice say it. And it helps.

Yeah, it's interesting. I, well, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, you're welcome. But yeah, what spaces are there for men? It's something beautiful about that. I think I know back to my story about the hut, like in the bottom of the slate mine, it's like there's something. Oh yeah.

There's something nice about it. Beautiful. It's quite fragile. I think that male friendships take work. I think we sometimes don't pay enough attention to them. It's actually something like I go on road trips with my best friend. Also every year I get together with my male buddies and we go hiking so that we're shoulder to shoulder

and just talk and catch up. And that's, I think one of the damaging trends in recent years has been a suspicion of male spaces, right? Of like the boys weekend or even some of the institutions. So if you actually go through the institutions now like the boy scouts is not the boy scouts anymore. I'm actually a scout leader. I'm not doing as much now, but I used to run a scout group over in the UK and I

was a scout, but it's coed now. Boys scouts is coed. It's scouting for America now. And what is girl scouts? Or they just joined forces? No, girl scouts are still girl scouts. No. Yep.

And we can't go over there? The girl scouts does not allow boys in. But Boy Scouts has become scouting for America. Ladies, that's, that's not even cool. But there's a pattern here. Uh, you've got the YMCA is now co-ed, right? Well, no one thinks, no one really thinks about the M in YMCA anymore. That's your point, huh?

Right. Whereas the YWCA, still very kind of focused on women. Boys and girls clubs used to be boys clubs. That's your point, huh? Right. Whereas the YWCA is still very kind of focused on women. Boys and girls clubs used to be boys clubs. I think there's one other one I'm thinking of. And it's not that it's not there's always bad things to be co-ed. It's not that you also don't want institutions for girls and women. But what we've got now is a situation where we're actually really very often applauding

having these spaces for girls and kind of women to have female solidarity, work together, grow together. But we're really suspicious if it's men doing it. And I get why, right? Because of our history. But I think that as a result, we've actually deconstructed a lot of these institutions where actually boys could learn from other boys and from men and so on too. And so I think that turning the boy scouts into scouting for America and taking, you know, not for it being, I think we'll, I think we'll look back on that and just say that was a bad decision. Kind of emasculating as in a way.

It's just like, why can't, I mean, I just think about my own experience. And it's not, I went to a co-ed high school, but actually the fact that I was able to go to scouts and it would be guys there and we could learn from each other. And I, weirdly, I actually think that male spaces are where you can help men to learn some of the not traditionally male attributes like caring and nurturing and love and expressing that stuff. It's just easier, right?

Or the male sports team, right? Like you're learning love, you're learning comradeship, you're learning solidarity, you're learning exactly. And I just think that's a bit, and it probably is true for girls too, that kind of learning some of those skills that maybe go against the stereotype of girls, like learning to be more assertive maybe or competitive, etc. Like you, you generally don't have to encourage a bunch of boys to compete with each other. Right.

That just tends to be a bit more baked in. It's in the nature. Yeah. Yeah, and there should be spaces where it's like, hey, men can meet up here tonight. And they used to be a bit more baked in. It's in the nature. Yeah. Yeah. And there should be spaces where it's like, hey, men can meet up here tonight. And they used to have more of them. There was like more American legions.

There was more like VFWs, but a lot of that was military based type stuff. It was. And since we haven't had that large of a war, you know, I know we have conflicts and we've had some smaller wars, but I know we haven't, since we haven't had such a huge conflict, there hasn't been that big band of brothers type of vibe that's brought men together so much. And then also, even if, and I'll go even as far to say, if you're a white male, right? Like there's spaces for black males, Latinos, Middle Eastern clubs, there can be all types. But if you're a white guy, you just are a fucking, you're looked at as,

you're pointed at a lot of times, it feels like by the media as like a loser as part of the problem, as the creator of the problem. I don't think a lot of that energy is also good in our country. When we do, we have white males in our country, you know? And you can't like, you can't make also white males feel like they don't exist, you know?

Because also a lot of white people didn't have a lot of like, yes, I know there's privilege, but if you grew up with nothing, you didn't fucking feel any privilege sometimes. In fact, being white and having nothing, I would get looked at personally as, why the fuck don't you have anything? How did you fuck this up so bad?

You know, like you must, something really must be wrong with you. If you're not, you have the right color, but you, your family can't even get together enough. Wow. What a loser. And I'm not, I'm not speaking against any other group, but I'm just saying sometimes, you know, like, uh, there's not a rep. There's no one, you're not allowed to speak up for your own group just because of history. And that doesn't feel super fair sometimes, you know? Does that seem crazy or not? It feels so, as a new American, I've learned a lot about the history of racism in this country, and particularly for black Americans, I feel very strongly about that. Yeah, if I start starting slavery shit,

yeah, gun me down. But it's like civil rights and so on too. But if I'm just playing fantasy football and trying to take care of a family, fucking let me be somebody. Again, I think the way I see this is that it's part of a more general problem, which is to be able to hold two thoughts in your head at the same time, which is it is true that America has this history of racism and that there are

still some racial issues that we need to deal with. And Britain started it. Yeah, we polished it up a little. I'll agree. But other people started it too, you know? Yeah. And the first slave I think was, who was it? Who was the first slave ever in the history of time? It was in the Bible, wasn't it? Well, there's lots of slaves in the Bible. There you go. So.

US has a uniquely terrible history when it comes to slavery in modern history. Right. That is true. Yeah. That is absolutely true and has an issue around race. Absolutely true. Still issues around race. Yes. Still issues around gender equality.

Yes. And if you're a white guy, particularly from a low income background right now, you're actually at the highest risk of suicide. And your economic prospects compared to your father have seen the biggest drop. Okay. So two things can be true at once. It can be simultaneously true that we've still got to deal with these issues and that we have this history and not throw anybody under the bus.

Oh, yeah. Right? No one has to be left behind. We have to rise together. We have to think about a way in which like, and class is a big part of this, I think, like what's very often missing. It's weird for me as a Brit coming to the US,

one of the things I've really noticed is that the US has a class system, which I think is every bit as brutal as the British one. The difference is Americans, we pretend that we don't have a class system. The Brits don't hide it. We have a king now, always forget, king. We have an aristocracy.

We have knights. We have all kinds of like, we're obsessed with class in the UK, where I come from. Right. It's one of the reasons I ran here. Right. One of the reasons I loved America was there was less of it, but like the US has a class system too. And if you look at like trends for men, it's really working class men, right?

It's men like you maybe didn't do so well in school, maybe haven't got a college degree from poorer parts of the country, et cetera. Those men are the ones who are suffering the most, right? From suicide, from substance problems, mental health problems, family problems, employment problems, right? Those men, like they're really struggling. And that includes white men as well as black and Hispanic men.

That's a class issue, not a race issue. And I think that quite often in the U.S. people are more comfortable talking about racial inequalities than they are about the overlapping class inequalities. Cause most of the people talking about this are at the top of the class hierarchy. Oh yeah, well, and a lot of it's to our media. Our media is usually very well off people. class inequalities because most of the people talking about this are at the top of the class hierarchy.

Oh yeah, well, and a lot of it's to our media. Our media is usually very well off people and they're like, let me break out the racism drum and beat that one. And of course those things need to be addressed, but if that stuff becomes the only sound you hear, then you guys are going to just, then everyone is going to continue to dance the same dance. That's the point. And so I think that that's where we're missing some of the evolution, but I think that that's starting to change.

It's why people are sick of Hollywood and everything that they've created for a while. Like that point you just made, if that's the only sound you hear. I think that's the point. What I've discovered in my family, my extended family through my wife, et cetera, we have a lot of political diversity, right?

And a lot of huge amount of class diversity. My wife is from a much more working class background than I am, even in the US, on the Maryland, Pennsylvania borders where she grew up. A lot of diversity. And actually, what I've kind of found in talking to a lot of them is that they actually are significantly more tolerant about a lot of these issues than probably the mainstream media

would think. But if that's all they hear, they than the probably the mainstream media would think. But they're becoming, but if that's all they hear, they need to hear the other bit as well. Right. And I think this is kind of, if we can move from or to and, right? So on gender, like all this stuff we have to do, still stuff to do for women. I don't think there are enough women in politics in the US. I would love us to have a female president. I think we need to do more around kind of women in certain occupation.

Sure. Yes. And we've got to tackle the male suicide crisis and we've got to figure out why boys are doing so badly in school and we've got to figure out my male wages have been flat lining for decades. Right. It's an and not an or, but there are too many people out there who have a vested interest in making an awe.

So men are struggling. Why? Because of women. We're going to blame women and blame feminism, blame the progressive. No, that's not it. Or women are struggling. You know why? Because of the men, because of patriarchy and toxic masculinity, etc. It has to be awe. And that's where the clicks are. That's where the money is. That's where the speaking gigs come from. That's where your ratings come from. If you can position it, find a villain, find someone to blame.

That's where you get drawn, but it's almost never true. Right, well a lot of times now the lens is the villain, that's the thing that I've started to realize. Yeah, find the villain. The lens is the villain, and we didn't realize that we were being forced to look through this lens for so long because our media has just been the same, it's been so commandeered, you know?

And so now it's becoming freer. And I think that that's scaring kind of like the powers that be, you know? I think it's one of the reasons why they don't want TikTok taking over. You know, they want to force a sale of TikTok. You know, they're afraid that it'll share truths that they can't hold, you know, anymore.

Right. But I've been thinking a bit about this, the role of podcasts like this one and others, and I'd be interested to actually just ask you about this, because one of the things I've been thinking about is the way in which these are very freewheeling conversations, right? They're very very like we're talking. So there's a thought, we have a theme we're going to talk about, but what you've got is usually two people thinking out loud and trying to learn from each other and trying to say stuff. And sometimes you try and fact check what you're saying, but like this is a very different

kind of environment to like a classical media interview, right? You've got your points, you've got your bullet points. It's much more, and I think a lot of people are really attracted to it, maybe especially young men. I think maybe they kind of like that sense of like, we're just trying to figure this out, right? We're having a conversation. And that's-

Well, it feels that sort of vibe in a way. It does, it does. It feels more like his, and almost like they're overhearing. Like we're overhearing a conversation. Right? So I know this is a little bit weird to be talking about our conversation, but, but, but I don't know what you do. It's not just like a different media outlet. It's like a different way of doing it.

Well, because at a certain point you can't hide. It's like, I think there has to be some bit of there, enough of you will be revealed. It's like, even sometimes I feel like if I don't fact check certain things and I'm learning how to have certain conversations, like people will get an idea of who I am or who you are by listening to us for a certain period of time. And then they can make a fair judgment for themselves. And it doesn't even have to be a good or bad judgment. We're not saying that either one of us is good or bad. We're probably saying that we're both both. We're just trying to have a conversation together.

And I think as a listener, you get that. You're like, okay, I don't maybe vibe with this guy. I'm glad I got to listen to him. It gives you value for your time. Try to put my time in. I'm grateful I got to listen to that person person I agree with some of the things they say Oh, I'd never thought about that, but you also get to see people as more complete and I think it goes back to what you're saying like That you know a lot of people can We're not they People aren't as simple both things can be true all the time for a lot of people and they are usually they are

Usually usually two things are true. And I think that's what's, that's what's a lot happened with podcasts is it, it holds two, three, four, seven things true at the same time. While you're having a conversation, which is very normal as opposed to get this answer, get this clip, make it short, let it, we want to get our how we feel across and that's what matters. You know, it's more like the fullness of it, right? You know, there's this line, I thought about this quite a bit in terms of truth.

I mentioned earlier the difference between telling the truth and being truthful, like someone who's just trying to, trying to call it as they see it, trying to be truthful. You know, when you, when you swear to do jury service or actually to kind of do testimony, you swear, what do you swear? You swear to tell the whole truth, the truth, nothing but the truth, the whole truth. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Sorry, nothing but the truth.

They make you triple down on it. Right, but think about that. Why don't they just say, I promise to tell the truth? Right, the truth, yes, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, right? And actually the middle one is really interesting to me, because of course what you could do is you could go to the stand and say the say things that are kind of true.

Right. So you meet the first and the second third, but like, yeah, but you missing something out and I think right now people are hungry for the whole truth. They're actually hungry for people to just look, I'm saying it all. I don't agree. You know, you might disagree with three of the seven things I've said, but there's actually a kind of sense of which these conversations I think are trying to get at something more like the whole truth, which is more just a broader conception of it.

And you have the opportunity in the space to maybe get stuff wrong, to just think out loud to kind of come back. And that's completely at odds with the old media, which is more about I'm going to take every word you say literally. Yeah. Right. I'm going to take a clip of it and I'm going to fact check you and I'm going to like, that's not how conversations work.

And this is a very different kind of environment for conversation. I agree with you that it means you have more authenticity, but the thing I've come to value more than almost anything else when I'm talking to someone is that this person is trying to be truthful. They are, they're being on it, they're looking stuff that this person is trying to be truthful. They are, they're being on it, they're looking stuff up, they're trying to figure it out. And if I say to them, that's not right, it's this, they go, oh, interesting. I'm going to choose. And the same with me.

And I, I'm just aspiring to try and be truthful in everything that I do. And if I get it wrong, I want to be told I'm getting it wrong, but I just want to try and be as honest as possible. Yeah. Yeah. And I think then it makes it not about you. It makes it about this greater presentation of like, um, of let's, uh, let's yeah, let's just be, let's be as honest as we can. And learn from each other. So one of,

one of my weird backstories is that I am a massive fan of John Stuart Mill, the 19th century British liberal philosopher so much so that I ended up writing his biography. John Stuart Mill. Let's bring up a JPEG of him. This is just making my day. I got to tell you.

Oh, wow. He also was the first person to introduce a bill to give women the right to vote in the, in the UK. Obviously he was trying to get laid too, undeniably. That in his case was almost certainly not true. Although I spent a lot of time. Really, he enjoyed men? I spent a lot of, no, no, he was trying to get laid too, undeniably. That in his case was almost certainly not true. Although I spent a lot of time. Really enjoyed men?

I spent a lot of, no, no, he was just, well, he actually, the truth is that he had a woman who was in love with, who was married to somebody else. Oh. And so it was an unrequited situation. And so I spent quite a bit of time around that, but he had this lovely idea, which is that we learned from each other, right? We share, we said, we share the truth between us. He had this lovely idea, which is that we learned from each other, right? We said, we share the truth between us.

And he said that when you're arguing with someone, disagreeing with someone, try to imagine that you're both trying to climb to the top of the same mountain, just by different routes. And I love that idea. And when I'm trying to debate with someone now, if I'm disagreeing with someone, I'm like, you know, I think I'm trying to get to this, they probably have got some truth that I don't have and that's great. But also let's assume, let's start with the assumption that we're trying to get to

the same place. Yeah. Right. And you've got a different view about it. So if I'm arguing with a conservative who says it's all about marriage, right. Got to get everyone back to marriage. And I'm a bit skeptical about that. I don't think that's because that person is a crazy right wing misogynist who wants

to kind of entrap women again. I think, I think they want a better life. I think they want better families. I think want happier children, which is what I want. Right. So we're just arguing about the means. It is kind of interesting how you can have two people that want the exact same thing. They'll want to say that they're this side, want to say that side, and they cannot agree on shit. I don't understand. There's some minutiae in there that I can't even figure out. Yeah. Because they'll want the exact same things. They'd even, they could even write, these are the three things I want.

And they, they, in the other side, right? These are the three things I want. Yeah. But if they don't each say that they're on the same side, then they will dis, find, they almost find a way to disagree about it. Cause they want to disagree because at that point that's become kind of a bad form of tribalism. There's this really interesting, that, one of the things that really has disturbed me

about political trends recently is the clustering of ideas now. And so actually, now if you're on one side or the other, you have to like agree with. I agree. And so it used to be more possible to kind of like, well, I agree with that side on this and this side on this and whatever.

And everyone was a kind of different mixture, right? The idea that anybody is gonna subscribe to all the views on the left or all the views on the right. Crazy. It's dystopian. Terrifying. And no one even knows all of them either. Right. And they're also distorted anyway.

Yeah. And then if they're told, by the way, that that policy idea is being proposed by your guy, then they suddenly support it. Yeah. Right? And if it's being proposed by, like, if it's being proposed by the other guy, you're suddenly against it. And so what's actually happening by the other guy, you're suddenly against it. And so what's actually happening now is you're defining your position based as much on, well, what does he think? Because I don't like him. And I'll take the other view. So you saw this massive swing towards being much more pro-immigration, for example,

among Democrats after Donald Trump came to office in 2016 because he was so anti-immigration. Before that, Democrats were pretty moderate on immigration, but they suddenly became really, really pro-immigration. Why? The only explanation why is because he was so anti-it. You see it in both directions. You can see that like if they're for immigration. Yeah, I mean, well, some people say also though that they wanted to load states up so that

they could create more voters in certain states. Yeah, I've never understood that argument. Really? Yeah, because they can't vote. Right, but if you legalize them, if you just bring them in and then you find a quick pass to legalization, then they would be able to vote.

Well, one thing I will say, I hope that if that idea is still out there, that the results of the last election kill it for good because we saw a massive swing to the Republicans among Hispanic Americans. And given that most of the immigrants that people are worried about are from Mexico and Southern America. I don't know if they are though.

I think a lot of the immigrants that we're getting are also from like we were getting like so many Haitians and stuff. Right. But they're not reliable Democrat voters is my point. Right. So any idea that like the Democrats are trying to do this because they think, well, if we bring them all in and then legalize them, yay, well, that's not true. Right?

The idea that those groups are just going to reliably vote Democrat, that has gone out of the window. I don't know. I think if I come in and somebody's feeding me the first hand that feeds me, that's probably the hand that I would think that I'm going to cater to. I don't know if that's a definite thing that they were doing, you know what I'm saying? It's hard to say if it is or isn't,

but letting 21 million immigrants in, you know, I mean, we had two border patrol agents on and they said it was a nightmare for them. You know, it was a nightmare for them and their families, the stress that they went through, the fact that they would just have to get an agreement from somebody that they would come and meet the agent, like our, uh, middle person, they would like have like a connection piece to America.

Um, and they'd have to sign an agreement that they would come back and meet that person at a certain time or place and never show up and then there's no trail for them. It was a, the plan was not, there was no plan it felt like. That's a better explanation than that. There was this secret plan to create millions of voters. Yeah, I don't know if there are or not. No plan is better. And again, it's an example of like the extremes winning.

It's like, actually most people have probably got pretty moderate views on immigration or at least used to, which is we should control our borders, which is not a controversial idea in any other country in the world. Because you can't know a business unless you know the inventory, right? How can you do anything? It's not like the idea in any European country that like people should only be there legally, like every European country thinks that, right?

So it's not, of course, we've now had so many people come in that we've got a different problem, but we should scare our borders. We should actually have pretty good legal immigration systems. I'm biased. I'm biased. I'm an immigrant, but like good legal immigration has been great for this country. Yeah. Properly controlled, legal immigrant. Good. Right. And so the idea that you're either for or against immigration strikes me as completely dumb. You've got to be, what kind of immigration do we need and want? Yeah. You got to think a little step further. But the trouble is the way that our politics works

right now is that you basically either got to be like anti-immigration and anti-immigrants, or you've got to be open border. I'm exaggerating a bit, but like that's how it feels. Yeah, I agree. That's how it feels. Well, that's another issue that we just have with us. We don't have enough parties.

We don't have enough parties and there's not enough. And I think that it's also kept that way as capitalism is just, there's only so much you can do. It's like you can only do so much. And then there's a lot of darker forces at play. I think that just care about finances on no matter what side of things you're on. And then I don't even know if America still owns itself

anymore, to be honest with you. I feel like we're just a LLC of the Middle East sometimes, but different people think different things. The thing that I worry most about is that we lose our sense of optimism. I agree. That's the next thing to go. And when that goes, it gets really bad. That's bad for any country, but I

think it's virtually existential for America. Because one of the things that people always say about Americans, they're like, oh, they don't think about, they have no sense of history. You know, whereas like in Europe, like all we think about is history, right? Like in the UK, one of the things I ran away from is just like, it's always Winston Churchill and World War II and World War I and the War of the Roses. I have relatives who fought in those wars. I'm not, like they're important, but like we're always looking,

basically Europe feels like it kind of has been looking in the rear view mirror, right, for centuries, whereas Americans are like, yeah, that happened, that was interesting, but we're going there, we're going to the moon, we're going to wherever, we're going to build a better economy. There's this, there is this thing about like looking forward, which I've always loved about America. It's one of the reasons I wanted to come here. I wanted to finish raising my kids here. It's like that future orientation. And I really, I worry about that on both sides now, right? I don't like you have

American carnage, you know, from the right and you have climate catastrophe from the left, take your pick. But that catastrophizing, that sense for the first time ever, we're seeing people now say that they are not confident their kids will be better off than them. Yeah. That's a huge problem in a country like America. And I think it's based on this problem we were just talking about, which is this kind of zero sum idea that like somehow there's only so much of something to go around, money or empathy or whatever.

And so if group A is getting more of it, that means group B is getting less of it. Right? So it's the same with the male female thing. Exactly. It's like, well, like we can't, if women are doing better, maybe that's why men are doing worse. And for women to rise, men have got a full like crazy stuff. But people think that same on immigration, by the way, people think more immigrants bad for America, et cetera. We're constantly thinking about zero sum, whereas America at its best has always been positive sum.

In other words, we can grow, grow the cake and argue less about how to divide it up. We can all be more. We can get better, we can get bigger and all rise. And I think that's been lost, not least on gender. But let's talk about some escapes for men. Let's talk about how do men, how do we combat some of this illness? Because men are resilient. Men are warriors, I believe,

in our hearts and in our spirits. And I believe that I've seen enough connectivity amongst men that we want to move forward, right? And we want to do it together. What are the ways that you recommend? Well, we've talked about male spaces and having like groups and spaces for men. I think that's too hard. Right, so starting one of those is good. Yeah, and if you're like, and you're seeing that, there's this thing called the men's sheds movement.

Have you heard of that? It's coming over from Australia. It's just guys who get into like a shed and start fixing stuff together. Really bring it all. Shoulder to shoulder, the men's sheds movement. Oh, I love this. And it's just guys who get into it like a shed and start fixing stuff together. Really bring it all shoulder to shoulder. The men's sheds movement. Oh, I love this. It's basically about like guys and they get in a shed and they fix stuff.

Right. And it's very male because it's about fixing stuff. U.S. Men's Shed Association has partnered with Grouper to offer eligible members a 65 or older payments for staying healthy and socially active. Okay. So the men's sheds, can you do an image of it? Just U.S. Mint. Can we just do men's sheds movement images? So there's some fellows right there

building a little, uh, like cause like when men, what is that a bird house or something men have to be doing something else while they're shipper robe right there being together, right? Not like, right. Right. It's just harder for us to just be together. Like when was the last time a friend of yours said, let's just meet for a coffee and then sit down and stare at each other for two hours? Yeah, that guy is obviously trying to be like sexy buddies or whatever, I think. And I think, yeah, you gotta find something to do together,

paint something, look for something. Let's go look for something. Be of service, find service. I think that's hugely important. Boys and girls, like join your local Boys and Girls Club chapter. You can volunteer there. What's another one somebody said? You can be a champion.

Like you can be a big brother. Yeah, that was a good one. I'm just going through the process for that myself. Congrats. Signing up to do that. Yeah, I want to do that. Because I think that being like just, I know you talked to Scott about this, but just being a presence I think is hugely important and like raising other people's kids.

Like there's this line, it takes a village to raise a child. That's true, but here's the thing. Some of the villages need to be men. And like we're in that village and we're helping to raise those kids, our neighbors' kids, you know, it does gent, that statement that it takes a village is right.

Oh, you don't realize as a parent, if there's a kid hanging out of your house sometimes, one of your kids, friends or something, you have a ton of influence on that kid. I mean, I got so much influence from most of my influence. You realize how important, how many men there are out there who sometimes just kind of need to be asked. There was this example happened in a school. I think it was a predominantly black school and they had this day where they were going to teach the boys how to tie a tie.

And the dads were going to come in with their sons and kind of teach their sons how to tie a tie. But then they realized that half the dads were not there. Half the boys didn't have dad, didn't have fathers or their fathers were in prison or they'd gone away or whatever. And so they then really realized this was going to be a huge problem because they were going to, some of the boys were going to have their dad come in and do it and the others were going to feel left out.

So they just did a call out to the community. I think it just, I don't even know what it was, like a Facebook caller, like, could we get some volunteers? We just need some men to kind of come in and help these boys come to, they had something like five times as many men as they needed to. These guys just all came.

It's really beautiful. So, so men are looking for it. Yes, just need to be asked and called. And the other thing I'll say, because I haven't had a chance to talk about this yet, is that the fact that male teachers have become so much less common, I think is a real problem. It's gone from 33% male in the 80s to 23% male now, and it continues to fall.

And I think that's a problem for all kinds of reasons. I think that for boys to sort of see men in the classroom, to actually have them as role models, also to see the education is a thing that like men care about as well. Oh, that's a great point. Yeah. One of my greatest influences was got Charles Alder. He was my teacher. He's missing a finger.

And, um, but. How did he lose his finger? You know what happened to him? He was at a baseball. And, but. How did he lose his finger? You know what happened to him? He was at a baseball game, cheering on his son. He stood up, his wedding ring got caught on a piece of metal on the bleachers and pulled his finger right off. I do know, I wish I hadn't asked now, but God bless him. Pretty crazy.

And my dad was missing a finger. And so I just related, I was like, oh God wants these men without fingers to love me or whatever, you know, that's how I was thinking as a kid. It was just crazy. But that's how you thinking as a kid, it was just great. But that's how you think as a kid. Yeah. Okay. So he was a huge influence on you. Yeah.

Right. And I had- Oh yeah. He was like- Same for me. I had this teacher, Mr. Wyatt, English teacher. And up until that point, we were like, you know, words and poems. Yeah. Wyatt's a fuck. Yeah. A bunch of 15, 16 year old boys. Oh yeah.

And then we had Mr. Wyatt and Mr. Wyatt was a Korean war veteran. He was a bus driver in part time. He was total curmudgeon and he had his reading. Korean bus drivers sounds very. No, no, no, no. He's a Korean veteran. He'd fought in the Korean war. Sorry.

So he'd fought in the Korean war. Yeah. And he was just like this curmudgeonly guy, but he had us reading this poetry and he loved it so much that we ended up loving it and getting into it. And I was like, huh, maybe this whole writing words thing. I used to be in remedial English way back before that, but maybe it's maybe, maybe, maybe guys can do this too. And it was a huge change for me. And I mentioned before that, you know, my, my son is now, uh, is teaching in Baltimore city because

that's one, but we're Baltimore City. That's one. But we're missing about a million men if we were to get close to gender equality. I'm not saying we'll get to that. But I think that the best answer to some of the problems that a lot of boys have got is real living flesh and blood men in their lives. Their dads, their neighbors, their uncles, but also their teachers. And the other thing male teachers do, they coach. Between 30 and 40% of male teachers are also coaches, much higher than for women.

For all kinds of reasons we could go into, but the point is simply that for every male teacher, you get like half a coach, right? And so if we want more male coaches to be coaching our boys sports teams, et cetera, we need more male teachers. And I can't believe that we're just letting the share of male teachers just go down and down and down and down and no one's doing anything about it. Especially when we had a great TV show here

called Prince Vice Principals or whatever. And that shit, you'd think would have helped it was with Danny McBride was in it. How long ago was that? It's a couple of years ago. So it might take, it might help a little bit, but definitely might've upped the vibes of some of these guys being teachers. Yeah.

And also like ABBA, do you know ABBA Elementary? Yeah. People like that TV show. That's got a bunch of male teachers in it too, which is like fun. So maybe you just need to influence that. Like I remember when I was a kid, they had coach was on and stuff like that. Yeah. But I guess it didn't really resonate that much, but they had like, um, what was

that TV art, uh, dead poet society or whatever? Yeah. Robin Williams. Yeah. But I guess we knew there was, um, the one with, um, they set up a ticker man. Uh, who's that guy? Malcolm L L Jackson or whatever that guy's name was. Uh, no, it's, uh, he looks like kind of older, but still,

they said it would take a man 600 years to get out of the CF prison. You know what I'm talking about? He talks like that. No. He's... That was good accent, but I don't know. Thanks, he's in Shawshank Redemption.

You know what his name is? Morgan Freeman. He played a school teacher. Really? Lean on me, it was called. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But also there's this new one. Lean on one, there's this other one, the holdovers, um, a couple of, just like a couple of years ago, um, with Paul Giametti.

So I'm saying his name, right? I saw that. Yeah. And again, it's like really good. And what those things have in common is there's this kind of relate this relationship between this kind of older guy, this kind of younger man, and they kind of learn from each other and they go through some stuff together and then and it's like it's really beautiful. Yes, it was. That's a cool point. That's a great movie.

And it's kind of, I was really pleased to see that because it came up again with this thing. But one of the things that really frustrates me is that people will say, oh, boys need more, you know, we need more positive male role models. And I'm like, we do. It's actually, you can't create them out of thin air, right? You can't just like add, and create my own role model. But one thing we could do is make sure we have a lot more men in our schools, right? That's something we could do. We could have scholarships, we could have outreach programs, we could be incentivizing men.

We could also be making it much easier to become a teacher as like a second career. Because one of the things that we know is that men are much more likely to go into teaching later. Oh, right. They do something else first and then go, but it's really hard to do that. Well, it shouldn't be that hard. No, I agree with that. That's a great point. We'll start, instead of lamenting the lack of male role models, how about,

how about having more male teachers? And I would love it if more politicians, I actually was kept waiting for Tim Walsh on the Democrat side. We asked him to come on here. We asked him and Kamala to come on here, but I would have loved to have talked with Tim Walsh. Tim Walsh would have been a perfect person to kind of lead that campaign, wouldn't he? To just say, look- His whole interview, he seemed like this cheery kind of guy, you know?

He's like high school teacher. So he was the first actually career public school teacher to run for such high office. He was also a coach. Imagine if he'd done a campaign around, like we want to recruit more men to teaching, we want more men teaching, coaching, helping, like a really positive pro-male campaign. I think he would have been an amazing spokesman for that, and I think it could have been bipartisan. I think he could have found some people on the right

that would have agreed with that. Yeah, I think, I don't know if it felt like all the time like he was making all of his own choices. That's the only thing about some of these parties. You start to wonder. Too much control. If there's bigger powers that, and then you're like, and you can feel that sometimes it feels like,

but I don't know, some of you can't. Well, it's back to this point about the different media environment now, right? Which is this freewheeling, be authentic, like just go with the flow kind of environment now. I think people like watch the politicians in those environments so they can make a judgment about what kind of person they are.

It's not scripted. Right, they get a feel for them. They get a feel for them. Exactly. Yeah, and some of them asked, like, can we, do we get edit or something? Like Timothy Schallon, they came on, they didn't ask for one edit.

They didn't ask to look at anything. They didn't ask. I was like, that's wild, you know? I mean, but they didn't, and then we've had other people come on and they're, you know, they're aging or whatever, get all fucking nitpicky or whatever, some little fucking lizard and-

Well, ask to edit stuff out. Or just like say certain things. Now, look- Well, I didn't know that was an option. If something horrible happens, somebody dies or something, we'll edit it out. You know, it's like, we don't want something horrible or somebody turning blue.

You don't want to talk about somebody can't breathe or whatever, like, yeah, we're not going to fucking sit there and ask questions to somebody who doesn't have. But anything short of that. So if I die. O2 to their brain. You might edit that out, but anything else I do. But it's just crazy that, you know.

You can't control it. But actually this is what happened, I think. This is a great example, right? Before he was selected, like Waltz, he was like famous for being, you know, he did the weird thing and he was quite, you know, he just had like, Yeah, he was odd. He was like, but no, no, he described the Republicans as weird. That's what I mean. Like he just had a certain, like,

I think that's what, but actually what happened was that then he was like told to be super careful and you get these politicians, they sometimes remind me, like they're like a guy carrying an incredibly precious vase across a polished floor. You know, they're so terrified. They're gonna slip and say the wrong thing, right? And that kind of, everyone's like, be disciplined. Don't say anything wrong. We don't want to screw up the news cycle. Don't have a gaffe.

Don't like, don't, don't say something stupid. Exactly. Just stand still. Don't say anything. And hope for the best, that's crazy. But I do think that was the old politics. I think it was all about message discipline. And I think that the walls before the pick

and the walls after the pick, if you watch them. They're totally different. They're totally different people. I know. I still wish he would come on and talk to us. We still try to get- Maybe he will now. Maybe he will now.

That's a good point. I'm gonna reach out again. We even try to get Kamala after to see if she would come on and talk to us. Cause that's the only thing I just felt like you don't know who some of these people are, you know? It's like, and not even that you do after a conversation, they're still a politician.

Right. But at a certain point, you just can get a feel for them. And also the people at home can just get a feel, you know, it's like, and not even that you do after a conversation, there's still a politician, right? But at a certain point you just can get a feel for him. And also people at home can just get a feel, you know, it's just, you want a little bit more feel these days. You had Bernie on recently. Yeah, it was great. Have you had him on before? We had so much fun. No, I'd have him on again though, dude. We had a blast. We just have so many things that, you know, we both care about it seems like. Um, yes. So, so, so men, so places that men can get involved, it's like a Big Brother program. Like do know this about Big Brother program,

if you're only gonna be in town for like a couple weeks, make sure it's gonna be a place where you're gonna be able to commit, like, cause you're saying to a child or something, I'm gonna be there every other week or every two years. At least a year. In fact, the evidence is that if you do it for less than a year, it's actually harmful.

Better to not do it at all, if you can't do it than a year, it's actually harmful. Right. Better to not do it at all. Right. If you can't do it for a year. So that's something right there. And even just men getting together to like take a walk together, think together, you know, spend time together. It's like, how do we start to build those new things? And also some of that is like the cycle has changed. You know, a lot of our energy came from wars and stuff, you know, and there were a lot more bowling leagues. There's a book, a book it's called bowling alone, maybe. Yeah, Robert Putnam. Yeah.

All about what he calls social capital, which is basically just this connection and community and how important that is for people. And he talks about the decline of bowling leagues, which are basically just structures through which to have this solidarity, right? Yeah. It's just hiding from your wife for an hour and you and your buddies calling each other fat, right? But that's what men need sometimes, right? Right, but you can't say to your wife,

I'm going out to just hang out with the guys and call each other fat. You have to say, I've got bowling tonight, right? It has to be a thing, right? I've got darts tonight. I've got kind of whatever, it's a thing, right? It's not just, we can't just say I'm just gonna, maybe a bit more now, but like you needed like a,

and I think it's a deeper truth that men do need a reason sometimes to kind of be together. And that's just okay. Right, yeah, you don't want to tell your wife, yeah, I'm just going to hang, you know, it's like, yeah, I'm going to do something. That's a man thing too, is doing something. Like we're creatures that are supposed to be in action,

right, it's like the more sedentary I get, you know, like I just noticed that it's like, if I do the next right thing I'm supposed to do, everything goes fine. The second I stand around and think, it's like things get a little weird. Yeah. Just a bit of forward momentum, right? Do the next thing.

Yeah. It's just keep it moving, man. And it does help. It helps you. But then, yeah. But what was I thinking of? Oh, I was, I wrote down, was I making a point there now? I can't remember.

I wrote down this question because I thought a lot about this, like men and women stuff, right? And I'm glad that we talked a lot about it, like just because, yeah, women have had this sort of evolution in a way, societally and financially, and they had to do that. It felt like to get more respect

and maybe if there'd been a different respect in the beginning things could have been different but we live in a capitalistic society type of thing. And so I wrote down what I wanted to say because it was too hard for me to remember and say. So I was saying it seems like through the feminist movements and trying to make more gender equality, close the income gap, et cetera, that women were striving to have what men had, such as more income, such as more equitable treatment, such as being able to strive in the workforce,

having more access to educational opportunities, et cetera. That women wanted more power or what was conceived of as power. And in a capitalistic society money is power. But is it really power though? I think it is pretty lonely and disconnected when men achieve the status of being powerful either through a lot of recognition or wealth or just producing a lot in general. I'm not saying that men could not have this type of power and not be connected to the

world around them and people around them, but I think for most men it was basically lonely and disconnected. Is this what women really want when it comes to equitable treatment, etc., or having the same opportunities for financial success and upward mobility? Do women really want what men have or had? I wonder if women are really the ones that generally speaking have it right as far as being connected to others, being able to communicate better generally and providing more of a home in the sense of a settled space around themselves wherever they go or wherever they are. I think it's interesting that in trying to balance out male and female, the female wants

to move towards the male. I get it, but I just wonder if maybe it made more sense to have the male move towards the female. And I don't mean that men should be women. What I do mean though, is that these attributes that women seem to possess, based primarily on their sex and some gender roles, seem to be more fulfilling overall. So wouldn't it make more sense that the men

would move a little closer to them, or the women would tout that what they have is good enough and is best instead of going ahead and trying to get what the men have. Like I said, I get it and I can understand why women want what they perceive men as having. I just wonder if that's really the best direction for women and for children and for men and boys and for people in general. Do we really want to show our children that women can dominate and produce in the same ways that men can? Personally, I don't really think so.

I think men have it wrong. I think that the men should be masculine and women should be feminine, but I think that the expression of masculinity, generally speaking, in our society has been kind of weak and kind of disconnected. And honestly, sometimes kind of dumb. Sorry, that was so much words, but I just did, I was trying to like, I was

like, I can't remember this, but I, this is like what I think, you know, like. It's not a clown on women or that their journey or anything. It's just like, what are, what are we all really looking for? You know, I think we're at a really important moment for that. I, I, I, I see the movement of the last, let's say 50 years as largely being about women trying to get more economic independence. I don't, I don't really like the language of power

around this because it tends to presume that it's like power of person A over power of person B. It's much more like opportunity, independence, chance to flourish. Yes. To be you, to rise. Yeah, to let more like opportunity, independence, chance to flourish. Yes. To be you. To rise. To let yourself be seen.

Yeah. Yes. And to feel equal, to feel like, oh, I can do these things as well. To get equal respect. 100%. And I feel like we've been, so I think this sense of like,

if you think about the more female virtues to use your framing as being more about like care and connection and so on, and the more male ones being around kind of material money, et cetera. I do think that it was quite right for women to have more opportunities to acquire more of that economic opportunity, right? And economic independence, quite right. Now, I think that we might see the next 50 years are about some of the movement in the other direction, which is that men also learning that like it's not actually just getting to the top of the economic ladder.

It's like that's not what life is about. It's important to provide. It's important to bring material resources to your family, to your tribe, to your community. But it's also important to have those relationships and that care. And if that's seen as more of a female virtue, then I agree that we might see a little bit more movement now of men towards women. But in the end, it's just about creating opportunities for all of us to be able to flourish and to rise and to do that together and to have equal respect for what we each choose to do without one set being dependent on the other, without one group having power over the other, without one group being seen to be better than the other or one set of virtues being better than the other.

And instead to just say, look, we're all in the end. I hope that my work focusing on boys and men is partly in the end, humanism. It's partly about the end. Like we want to get to a world where we're all able to kind of flourish together. And we're not gonna get there if we pretend there are no differences between men and women. We're not gonna get to equality through androgyny, right?

Pretending there are no differences between men and women. But we can learn from each other. And isn't that amazing? Isn't that an amazing opportunity? And so I think the opportunities for men now to kind of grow and expand our roles as fathers, as coaches, as mentors, as community leaders in the home, in the community, whilst also, I think building staff and providing, in other words, reforming masculinity rather than ditching it and saying, we don't need masculinity anymore, or somehow trying to get the old kind of masculinity back. So I think when I'm feeling optimistic, and it's good to be optimistic sometimes, I actually think what we're experiencing now

is like the birth pangs of like a different way. Yeah. Right? And I think it's all been about women up until now. And I think that's understandable, but I think the next few decades have got to be about how do we help men as well? How do we help men rise, not instead of women, but with women and women rise with men. Yeah. And how do we even, yeah, how do we just, yeah, an evolution takes, takes pain, you know, it takes discomfort for everyone. Change is hard. Yes, change is hard. And also I think though, you look at like people having the time to do things in the evenings and stuff,

it's like we create, you know, like a lot of people live in separate households. I talk about it with the holidays. The holidays are a bummer a lot of times now because you got to go visit, both your parents have been married two times and divorced. Now you're visiting six people or something on a, you're dividing your Christmas up. There's, it's, you know, it's like we're dividing up the, the, dividing up the comfort we had, you know? And it's becoming a nightmare because you're having to drive so many places to see so many

people. Like, um... But I think the spirit of what you're saying throughout this whole conversation has been about equal empathy and respect for men and women. And I feel like there was probably a time when like, if women complained about stuff and wanted more power, men would be like patronizing or maybe roll their eyes at them a little bit, like, oh God, you know, off she goes again. Right.

But I now think the opposite is happening. I think when we talk about some of the problems that men are having and men saying, I'm struggling, I'm trying to figure this out, there's sometimes a tendency for people to roll their eyes and just say, well, get over it. And neither of those responses is good enough. We need to kind of look each other in the eye and just say, well, get over it. And neither of those responses is good enough. We need to kind of look each other in the eye and just say, look, I'm here for you. Let's figure this out together and not pit us

against each other. The thing I really worry about is particularly politically right now that we're somehow going to end up with young men and young women seeing each other as somehow not on the same team as against each other. You see this growing political divide, cultural divide, less dating.

I think it will be really bad news if we don't see young men and women seeing that their interests as being more aligned than in antagonism with each other. Yeah, well, politics is just, it's a societal structure. I know it's at some point it's something you need for diplomacy and stuff, but I don't even, I feel like it's been so commandeered. I don't think most people even know what it is anymore or don't believe in the sanctity of it. But I do think that in the end, that other humans are your real government.

Your neighbor is your government. It's norms. It's the atmosphere. Yes, your tradition, whatever. And I think it is. Men need to just wake up, shave, put on a clean shirt, and be ready for, you know, whatever blessings do come or the things that they create for themselves too. I think some of it is like just showing up for the day in the world.

But also we need to, if we could, it would be nice, we need to, what the fuck do I know. But it'd be nice if families were together and that everybody didn't have all these separate homes to go, it was just everything didn't feel so divided. I feel like even managing a life feels very dividing for a kid when one week they're here, one week they're there. And then the parents are separate and they probably sit there, you know, yeah, maybe they go in, but they wish maybe they'd have been able to figure. I don't know. I think I'm a romanticize a lot.

But it can be like the key thing is the relationships, right? That's like, I found this very interesting study that said that kids whose father is not resident with the mother, it doesn't live with the mom anymore, but has a good relationship with them. They do better than the kids whose dad is with them, but they have a terrible relationship with. And so it's like, it's, it's in the end, it's the relationship that matters. Yeah. But your point about like care and nurturing, sometimes I think we obsess about

the structure and we don't I think we obsess about the structure and we don't actually think that actually what really matters here is the substance. What's the relationship like? And so one of the reasons I feel so strongly about that is because so many kids now, like most kids to parents without college degrees are born outside marriage, most. Like that's the norm outside of the college educated class.

And so I don't want to say to those fathers, oh, well, sorry, you've already failed, right? I know you don't, you're a bench the dads, right? And so it is incredibly important that fathers hear the message that they matter in their kids' lives, whether or not they are with the kids' mother. And in some ways, if they're not with the kids'

mother romantically anymore, the father might be even more important because there's a good chance that that kid's gonna be struggling in other ways. And so there is no hall pass for fatherhood. If you become a father, it doesn't matter how you ended up having that kid, you have a moral responsibility to be there for that kid.

Period. That is not a negotiable. Now you may or may not be married to the mom. And I'm not saying it isn't easier to be married to the, but- Right, but that doesn't really make it different always. No, and also like, and also don't point at these dads who for whatever reason are not married to the mom and blame them somehow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I had, I just have this romantic view. But yeah, I think if, yeah, being a father is just being a father. It's like, and what do I know? What the fuck am I even talking about? And it never ends. I mean, I'll say that it doesn't end with being a father.

Like one of the, I mentioned my own father, my dad earlier, and watching him as a grandfather to my sons has also been an extraordinary experience and made me think about, I'm already thinking about what kind of grandfather I'm going to be. My sons are all in their twenties now, uh, from late twenties to early twenties. And so that's the next stage for me.

And I'll tell you, like my, one of my sons really struggled, uh, in high school. He's the one who's now become a teacher. Uh, and he, when he went, went to college, he chose to go to college back to the UK, but not just back to the UK. He went back to Cardiff in Wales where my parents live because he wanted to be near my parents. And he told me once that on a day when he was really, if he was really struggling, he'd

get out and there's some mental health issues, whatever. He's really struggling. He would look, he could look when he was walking to his lectures at college, he could look to the north and a couple of miles north, there's this big tower of a hospital right next to where my parents live. And he said to me, even on a really bad day, I know that I can look up there and I know that grandpa's there. And if I need him, he'll come. I want my grandsons and granddaughters saying that about me one day too. And so the point is

like as parents you do the best you can and then as grandparents you help out and then as uncles and nephews or neighbors or mentors you kind of help out. But it never ends and that's not a bad thing. It's a good thing. It's a beautiful thing. And I, as a father to see my father being such an amazing support for my son. You're in the middle.

I'm in the middle. And guess what? Sometimes maybe granddad is gonna be the better person for your son in this moment than you are. And what an amazing blessing that is to have that. I feel so incredibly fortunate that my kids have had that opportunity to have that relation to their grandparents.

So I've gone from thinking, oh God, really grandfather? I have to do it all over again, really? To being like, you know what? Yeah, this could be good. Yeah, I just appreciate you thinking about this stuff with Richard, and I know there's a lot of other things we could talk about too, about recovery programs

and 12-step, but we could save that for another conversation. Anytime. I feel like this has been a nice conversation and just some good food for thought, and not to harp on man or what's going on, and if you feel uncomfortable, it's like, I think there is that, there's a sense inside of a lot of us of like, what do we do?

Where is my purpose? And where is that coming from? You know? And that's okay. Yeah, thank you. I've really, really enjoyed this. Me too, Richard, I appreciate it. Richard Reeves, you have books out, don't you?

Yeah, of boys and men. Okay, excellent. And how do people, if people wanna get involved with your organization, what do they just donate? Is there volunteer possibilities or what are the things? Donations would be great, but yeah. So it's aibm.org, aibm.org.

There is a donate button there, we'd love your support. But also the main thing is just to be part of this conversation. And let's have a positive conversation about boys and men without putting down women and girls. And just love the men and boys in your life. That's the mission I'm on. I feel called to this work now and I'm excited to be part of it. I love hearing about it, man. And I appreciate you just being patient with me to today while we just kind of had this conversation. And yeah, this was a great practice for me and just like learning to talk and think about things together.

It's amazing that you want to get more into this space. Thank you. Well, yeah, it's just so important, man. And I'm going to have an ad too at the end of this for Valor Recovery. It's a sexual, sex and love addiction group that I associate with. And so if you're struggling with porn addiction and that sort of thing, you are

in intimacy disorders, anything, if you are just struggling with something, we can, um, that's a great program right there. And, uh, my great friend Steve started it and I've been in recovery with him for years and just blessed man, blessed to be on this journey and just know that other men are on it too, and trying to figure it out and, you know, stay alive, dude. It kind of gives you some, you know, it's weird. It kind of gives you a little bit of purpose. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, no. And that life without purpose is not life. It sure isn't, man. Um, thank you so much, Richard Reeves. You bet. on the breeze and I feel I'm falling like these leaves I must be cornerstone oh but when I reach that ground I'll share this piece of my life out I can feel it in my bones