Will Cain Country - A Will Cain Classic...The Epidemic Of The Fatherless Crisis

Episode Date: June 17, 2023

It's a Father's Day weekend encore! Story #1: The PGA has come to symbolize the weaponization of fake virtue. Story #2: Reflecting on Father's Day, we all make mistakes. Story #3: Will sits down with father of four, author and host of the podcast, First Class Fatherhood, Alec Lace. Will and Alec weigh in on fatherless homes, how the father's role in the family has evolved over the years, and the different discipline styles of parents. Tell Will why he is right...or wrong! Follow Will on Twitter: @WillCain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One, the PGA has come to symbolize the weaponization of fake virtue. Two, it's Father's Day. We all make mistakes. Three, an interview with the guy who's literally written the book on First Class Fatherhood. It's the Will Kane podcast on Fox News Podcast. What's up and welcome to Monday. As always, I hope you will download rate and review this podcast wherever you get your audio entertainment at Apple, Spotify, or at Fox News Podcast. You can also watch this podcast on YouTube or Rumble. Happy Father's Day.

I just yesterday enjoyed a remarkable professional Father's Day where my family at Fox and friends surprised me with video messages from my sons, where they surprised both Pete Heggseth and I with a new pair of Jordan ones, where they gave me a bottle of the best tequila, Class A Azul. And then, the cherry on top, a Father's Day message from my favorite, Cody Jinks. With so much wonderful celebration, though, not to be the pessimist, I do want to focus for just a moment on the fact that we're all human, we all make mistakes on our way to becoming first-class fathers. By the way, on the note of mistakes, let me start with some embarrassment. In the last episode of the Will Kane podcast, I was talking about build back better and how it has led to not just national but record international inflation.

The reason for that is build back better is a global message, a global reordering of our economy. But several times in the course of that podcast, instead of saying, for example, $1.9 trillion. in stimulus spending. I said $1.9 billion in stimulus spending. Two explanations, zero excuses. The explanations come twofold. First of all, a couple of weeks ago, I was guest hosting Tucker Carlson tonight. And I read, in talking about this stimulus spending and its effect on inflation, according to the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, the Biden administration stimulus spending led to three points directly to three points of inflation. But on Tucker Carlson tonight, those few weeks ago, I said $19 trillion. And of course, I got the influx of hatred and corrections.

It made me a little gun-shy and it made me feel like I don't really know, you know, what the right number is. And that leads me to explanation number two. These numbers are so incredibly large and mind-blowing. I don't normally operate in the world of trillions. Maybe some of you do. I don't normally operate in the realm of billions. So it's literally conceptually hard for me. It really is to understand the difference between billions and trillions. So once I got gun shy, then I was a boat without a rudder. I mean, that sail was going to push me wherever the mind winds blew in that moment.

And they blew me towards billion. Be safe, be safe. It's not 19 trillion. Let's go with billion. I just know I made a mistake. And I'm back there trying to guide the boat with my hand in the water. No excuse. Just two explanations.

I got to do better. I'm embarrassed because I didn't say it just once. I said it multiple times, so I hope you'll forgive me and still listen to me, understand that I am trying. I'm an idiot sometimes, but I am trying and I'm trying to look deeper, even if I mess up on some of the shallow details from time to time. We all make mistakes, and that's part of today's episode. Let us start, though, with story number one. As you know, the Live Golf Tour, funded by Saudi Arabia, is the sports and honestly political and social controversy of the day. For those of you who are just reading in or learning in or listening in about that story, it goes as follows. Saudi Arabia, who, of course, is accused of human rights violations across the world, is engaging in a concept called sports washing.

It's true. It's real. mask your abuses by distracting everyone with the shiny object by Newcastle United of the Premier League. Create a shiny new golf tournament with guaranteed hundreds of millions for the tour, thus attracting golfers like Phil Mickelson. Greg Norman runs the new tour. And it has earned the ire, almost unanimously earned the ire of sports riders and the sports industry, accusing them in the words of Bob Costas of taking blood money.

Now, in previous episodes of the Will Kane podcast, we talked about there's enough hypocrisy to choke an army of horses. I mean, the likes of Costas and others in the sports media have zero to say. Really, honestly, zero to say about China's human rights abuses. NBA's willingness to crawl in bed with China. But suddenly, they have the moral high ground to criticize Saudi Arabia in defense of the PGA. And I think there's hypocrisy on the other side as well, for those of us, including me, who criticize those who jump into bed with China, it's becoming somewhat cliched to

defend the Saudi-backed live tour. Where's the consistency? Well, in the spirit of enough hypocrisy to choke an army of horses, the leader of this new tour, Greg Norman, Hall of Fame golfer was on Brian Kilmead Show One Nation on Fox News. He got an exclusive. This is one of the rare interviews with the man behind the story behind the controversy. And Norman pointed out this exact hypocrisy. Listen to this. Yeah, look, I'm disappointed. People go down that path quite honestly. Look, if they want to look at it in that prison, then why does the PGA tour have 23 sponsors within the PGA tour doing 40 plus billion dollars worth of business with Saudi Arabia.

Why is it okay for the sponsors? Why is it okay, Brian, that there's a Saudi sponsor in Aramco, the largest sponsor of women's golf in the world? Why is it okay for them? Why is it not okay for these players? Will Jay Moynihan go to each and every one of those CEOs of the 23, uh, companies that are investing into Saudi Arabia and suspend them and ban them. The hypocrisy in all this, it's so loud, it's deafening, Brian.

And really, when we're not going anywhere, we want to do what's right for serving the fans, for the players, and for our commercial business model. We are going to forge forward, and there's been a lot of obstacles, Brian, no question about it. There's been a lot of obstacles that the PGA tours thrown in our path, but you know what? We've worked around it because golf is a force for good. Now, this is fascinating because this is not simply hypocrisy in my estimation. This is the weaponization of fake virtue. Norman is exactly right.

I mean, the PGA and, you know, through extension by its relationships with its sponsors, is in bed with Saudi Arabia, meaning they are taking Saudi-backed money while criticizing others of taking Saudi-backed money. We don't have to make consistency comparisons to China. We don't have to bring in LeBron. We just simply have to point to, oh, really? PGA and sponsor sponsors who are canceling the golfers joining the live tour? Do you have any money coming from Saudi Arabia? I told you in the last episode of the Will Kane podcast that, look, the only consistency I can find is don't go take dirty international dollars and preach to us domestically about your virtue at home.

Don't be LeBron. And I think that's true. And most of these golfers, by the way, have not done so. They don't take Saudi money and come back here and talk to us about voter integrity bills in Florida. They don't do that because they understand. But I also think it's really, I want to push us to doing business with those who reflect our values. I truly do. And I want to try to live that.

I don't want to give money to those who not just hate us, but want to destroy us. But I also understand the real world. I just told you I got a pair of Jordan once for Father's Day, right? made in China. We're all buying gas and make no mistake. That gas, at least in part, is coming from Saudi Arabia. Most of us are carrying smartphones, apples, iPhones, and those are made in China.

You probably have a Disney Plus subscription, a Netflix subscription, whatever it may be. We're all doing business to some extent with those that do not reflect our values. And that type of purity is honorable, but almost impossible. But don't a cowtow. to those that feed you money. I do think it's possible. It's hard not to be compromised by those that pay your bills.

Don't cowtow to China, even if you take the money from China. And don't pretend purity when you are impure. It is such a thing to appear in the United States in 2022, virtuous, while being full of vice. Shallow virtue, not even shallow virtue, Fake virtue has become the currency of social media, of social life. And the PGA symbolizes this fake virtue.

And then in turn, weaponizing it. It's not what you are or what you do, but it's who you pretend to be. The PGA recognizes that it can climb to the mountain of hypocrisy and proclaim faith virtue down the hill at the live tour while taking money from the Saudis. This is an intolerable level of hypocrisy. The PGA tour is concerned about competition. End of sentence, period, end of story. The PGA is worried about their business model.

End of sentence, period, end of story. And they are willing to play on while the inconsistencies and ignorance of sports writers and hopefully the shallow or fake virtue of the rest to weaponize itself against. economic competition. That is not only hypocritical. That is not only the story of the PGA. It is increasingly the story of virtue in the United States of America.

Don't go anywhere. More of the Will Kane podcast. Right after this. Following Fox's initial donation to the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund, our generous viewers have answered the call to action across all Fox platforms and have helped raise $7 million. Visit go.com. forward slash TX flood relief to support relief and rebuilding efforts.

Story number two. Happy Father's Day to every father out there. It's really honestly one of the most important days on the calendar because it represents an honor, a true virtue, the best job I ever had. Being a father is not only fun. I have a team on the basketball court. I have competition on the ping pong table. It's fulfilling.

It is the best job I have ever had. But I don't want to today just talk about how great the job might be or how great I might think I might be at the job. Because we're humans and we all want to be better. And if nothing else, listening to me, talking with each other is about getting better. You ever been in a conversation with a dude that only tells you how great he is or just brags? So immeasurably boring. If we're all trying to be some extent, to some extent, better, you know what I want to do today? I want to tell you where I fall short as a father.

So, first of all, as you can probably guess, I'm not a man of few words. You know, one of the things that I enjoy in fatherhood is imparting lessons and giving sermons, so much so that it's become a joke in my household, like, okay, here comes. Another sermon from dad, I need to let my children experience instead of try to prepare them with words. I do way too much talking. I need to let them find their own way. You know it's the best way to learn in life through your own experience and you learn executive function, you know? You learn to be an individual, independent.

You learn to be a man. Your daddy can't give you the playbook before every game. and I need to figure out how to think, not so egotistically, just a few more words of mine might inspire. I need to be a man of action, not just words. I need to be a man of fewer words. Number two, I push. I push too hard.

And that's to be honest with you. That's what I'm trying to be honest about my shortcomings, my mistakes. Nobody pushed me this hard. And look, that's not a compliment to me and a criticism of my father. a criticism of me and a compliment to my father. You know, I want them to be men. I want them to be tough. I want them to be resilient.

I want them to fail. I want them to fall in their face and pick themselves up. And as such, I push and I push and I push. And it's probably hard to be my son sometimes and just relax, you know? What are you doing? Why haven't you laid out for that football as you're diving off the diving board into the pool? I'm going to put this a little further out there. You need to go catch it.

Oh, you did a belly flop? suck it up. Just let them have fun, Will. You don't have to push so hard. Not every moment has to prepare them to be some green beret in your mind. And then number three, this is going to sound like one of those things where you're in a job interview and say, you know, sometimes I'm too much of a perfectionist, but it's not. Sometimes I'm too honest. I'm too blunt. I'm too truthful. You know, I've always told my children, look, when I compliment you, you're going to know that it's earned. You're going to know that I'm minted. I'm not going to shower you with fake roses. And by extension, I'm going to tell you when you fail, when you mess up and why you messed

up. And I do. And I probably do it too much. I don't withhold the compliments, by the way. I don't withhold. I love you. I don't withhold. I'm proud of you. I don't withhold the compliments, but I also don't withhold the criticism. And I don't think that's been the right move. you know I'm trying to get better again my dad didn't do that and I think in a lot of ways we both emulate our fathers and try to course correct from things or places that we felt our fathers fell short and you know my dad filled me full of unearned confidence and it's been incredibly enabling in my life I mean he was for sure man for sure you're gonna you're gonna win that for sure you should run for that for sure you get that job I mean always giving me

unearned confidence, which led to not a rude awakening by the real world, but led me to finding real confidence. My philosophy's been somewhat different. When you earn something, you'll know it, and when you fail, you will know it. But I'm worried sometimes that I've destroyed confidence. I am. Like, you know, it's like one of those things when they were little when we wrestled. I didn't let them win the wrestling match. I don't let them win anything. I don't let them win ping pong, not video games. And then I rub it in their face usually. You know, I celebrate in the, you know, forical end zone, but I think I'm rationalizing that and I do things with, I do do things with intentionality so that when they beat me, they can dance all over my grave and know that they

earn that. And then that's real confidence. But I'm not telling you that I'm justifying maybe, but I'm not telling you I'm right. I probably should have struck a better balance. Because the last thing I want is for them to lack enabling confidence in this world. I share with you those things because I want to be real, because I want to be a human, because anybody that's a dad out there knows how many times we fail. We do every day, all the time. We just hope that our successes add up to more failures and the successes are what stays with them. I love being a dad.

As I said, it's so much fun. And I'd like to think that I'm a good dad. And I know this. It is not just incredibly. It is fulfilling. It is for every little empire builder out there, as you'll hear, in just a few moments, your lasting legacy. Happy Father's Day. We'll be right back with more of the Will Kane podcast.

For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for $5. Plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. Story number three. Alec Lace host a podcast called

First Class Fatherhood On that podcast over time He has interviewed sports stars Like Buster Douglas He has interviewed movie stars Like Matthew McConaughey He's interviewed Fox News stars

Like Sean Hannity And Pete Heggseth And Will Kane He has interviewed dozens if not hundreds Of what he would call high-profile dads about the lessons of fatherhood that he has learned. Alec, by the way, has turned those podcasts now into a book, which is on sale.

You can go pick it up called First Class Fatherhood. I wanted to invite Alec on in the wake of, in the day after Father's Day, to talk not just about what it is to be a good father, but to talk about the state of fatherhood in the United States of America. Because if you trace back many of our issues in society, if you go back to our foundations and our cultural roots, what you'll find is one of the most, one of the most. one of, at least on equal footing, I believe, with motherhood, one of the most important jobs and by extension crises in our country is fatherhood. I hope you enjoy this conversation with

Alec Lace. I can think of no better guest on Father's Day than to talk to the man who has the podcast and has written the book First Class Fatherhood. Alec, happy Father's Day. Happy Father's Day to you, Will. Thank you so much for having me honest and honor to be here. I'm glad to talk to you. I enjoyed being on. on your podcast some several months ago, First Class Fatherhood. Now I'm glad to have you here on the Will Kane podcast. Alec, let's start with this. You know, the United States of America is suffering through a whole host of crises, economic crises, inflation, rising gas prices. Last week you saw the stock market shed a ton of its own value. We're suffering through a crime crisis, as we see

skyrocketing crime across the nation but underneath it all and it's a conversation i've had with my audience here on the will cane podcast there's a culture of a decay when it comes to our values and i think a lot of that can be traced back to a crisis of fatherhood tell us about the state of fatherhood the united states of america yeah well well you you couldn't be more right everything goes right back to the nuclear family unit, the attack on fatherhood, the attack on masculinity. But everything rolls from the stem at the core of all this is the nuclear family unit. We lead the world in fatherless households. No other country on the planet has less homes with fathers in it than we do, or I should say more homes without fathers than we do. So, I mean, you can even

look back to the fall of Rome. You can account for a lot of things that led to the fall of Rome with the barbarian invasion, the economic collapse, whatever you want to point to, you can't have conversation of the collapse of Rome without including the decay of the family unit so as this the family unit goes so goes the society everything flows from the fatherless crisis and i wish you know we had we seen matthew mccaneh who i had on the podcast on first class fatherhood he spoke so passionately about the epidemic of the fatherless crisis in our country i wish we would have heard him talk about that from the podium at the white house uh and just delve into that a little more because even that the The Uvaldi shooter, fatherless home, as most of these shooters come from, is a home that has no father present.

So it is a crisis in our country, no doubt. You know, I have several statistics at the tip of my fingers, but you just gave me one that blew my mind. Here's what I know. I know that roughly 70% of black children in this country grow up in a fatherless home, seven out of 10 kids born into a fatherless home. In the United States of America at large, there are 18. 5 million kids who live in a home without a father. But you just told me the United States of America leads the world in fatherless homes. Yeah, that's a Pew Research poll that was done.

We lead all other countries in fatherless households. You go look that stat up, and it's devastating. And nowhere is it more apparent than in the African-American community. So, and, you know, there's three reasons, main reasons that I would say that you can account for this, Will. And I would say, number one, when the welfare system in the 60s began with rewarding moms for not having a man living in the home. They had no man at home people coming to check up on you to make sure there was no man living in the home, and you were rewarded by not having a man in the home. So you had it starting from there. The family court system in this country will is totally one-sided.

We want everything to be equal in our society, but when it comes to family court, it is nowhere near equal. So many dads are financially just getting strapped. They're getting humiliated. And they're fighting for just a small piece to be a weekend father in this country. So you have that. And then you got your no-show dads. Those three things right there alone. There's many other ones.

But those three things, they make for a trifecta that is really just destroying the family unit in our family in our country. I want to go through those for one moment. So you point to the welfare system in the 1960s that it incentivized single mother households. You're talking about, I assume here, that your welfare payment. would be increased if it was seen that you didn't have a man of the house, a father in the home to help earn a greater nuclear family income. So you got more from the state if the woman was alone. Second, you talked about family court. I grew up small town in Texas. My dad was an attorney as every small town lawyer does. They essentially practice every kind of law, plaintiff's law,

criminal defense law, and family law. And I know from listening to my father, I know, know from experience in that small town that I think what you're describing is the father is behind the eight ball in any type of family court dilemma. And some of that is sort of the instinct of the system. It's best for a child to be with his mother. But if there's any type of allegation of domestic abuse, for example, and there is certainly a crisis of domestic abuse in this country, but it carries a presumption of guilt in a lot of these situations. There are so many different elements of the family court system that make the father essentially find himself in a no-win situation. Yeah, there's no doubt about it.

Some states do a little better than others when it comes to this, but for the most part, like you said, dads are starting from underneath the bus and they got to fight tooth and nail. Now, there are cases where, I mean, I know Dean Kane, who came on the podcast, he had an opportunity to become one of the highest paid actors in television at the time with a role that was offered to him, but he would have had to fight a stay-away case, and he would have not had custody of his kid had he taken the role. So he decided, you know what, there's no chance I'm taking this role. So he turned that role down.

Now, it's unfortunate that dad's got to be put in situations like that where they have to give stuff up in order to become, you know, a full-time dad. And it's not right. And so we should be starting it from the father is just as, and it's not a slight on single moms or doesn't, I always feel like you have to, you know, we're afraid to say these things because you feel like you're attacking the moms. And it's not to say that every kid who grows up without a father is going to end up in prison. But 85% of the youths that are sitting in prison right now come from a fatherless home. It's an epidemic and that's why.

Oh, no doubt. So the first two things you pointed to were systemic contributions to this fatherless crisis. And then you got to the third leg of your stool, which is the no show dad. Now we're talking about something that biases. for example, the court system. If a judge goes into a court, he's carrying with him some bias, some presumption that is not rooted in complete fantasy. There are no-show dads. There is a culture. On top of the systemic problems, Alec, I think you and I both know, there is a culture that has encouraged fatherlessness.

And I don't know that I can put my finger on why or how that happened, but certainly we have, as a culture, disembarrassed. incentivized fatherhood. We have. We see it just in our entertainment. I mean, you see it. We have movies that or TV shows that went from like that, Mr. Brady and the Brady Bunch, who was always a stable father, a reliable dad, had answers for the kids. He was respected by the kids, even though it was a comedy show. You had guys like Little House on the Prairie. Michael Landon was that strong father figure. It started to change when you had that Al Bundy type of dad introduced into the culture where he was the lazy guy, sat on the couch, bring me a beer, didn't want to be bothered. And so it changed that way, the Bart Simpson or Homer Simpson type dad.

So we definitely had a culture shift the way that dads are looked at just in our entertainment alone. Yeah, so what I think you're describing, and I had never thought about through the prism of those two television shows. But, you know, there's a caricature of sort of the 1950s dad. He is stern, but that also doesn't preclude him from being loving. It's a rules-based, discipline-based household. He brings masculinity to the family, and it seems like our culture has, first, as you described, I think with Homer Simpson and Al Bundy, first, we've infantilized men. We've encouraged men to never grow up, to look, and just like you had to caveat your situation where you said, not all kids that grow up in fatherless homes end up criminals, of course. And not all guys that play video games are permanently infantilized.

but we think about the way we ask boys to become men and more and more we we encourage them to hang on and the truth is we hang on we encourage everyone to hang on to being a juvenile but in particular i think we've infantilized boys we've encouraged them never to grow up and take on the responsibilities of being a man and there's no greater responsibility than being a father that's right if they don't have that father figure they're going to look for it in other ways and it's when they find it in the street is what's leading to the these disasters. So you have so many, listen, I interview a lot of Navy SEALs, a lot of military dads on the podcast that didn't grow up with a father in the home, but they found that father figure in the military. Same thing with the athletes. They found it in a coach. And so many of the moms, they can teach their kids everything. They can't teach their young boys how to become men. They need a father figure to do that for them. I remember I had James Buster Douglas on the show here, who knocked out Mike Tyson. His father ran a boxing gym in their hometown there in Columbus. And he said about, you know, how many of the guys were coming in, the

moms were bringing their young boys in there just to try to get around other men to get positive father figures. Teddy Atlas, another boxing trainer. Same thing. Sees that all the time. Women are trying to seek out these father figures for their men, because if they're young boys, because if not, they find it in the street. And it's leading to all these chaotic situations. You know, Alec, it's interesting how many times, and I don't blame you for this. That's at least twice you've had to caveat what you've said, and I've done it at least wants as it's not a slight or an insult to single mothers or mothers at large, but it's a bottom line reality-based observation that men and women bring different things to the nuclear

family. The mother brings a loving, nurturing environment that a child needs. A father brings a stern and disciplined heavy hand that can also, and is also loving. And if you take either of those out, you end up with a situation. And I think both of you and I, as I'm listening to you, by the way, I know you have four kids. I have two. Both of mine are sons. I don't know about your four. But I almost hear us describing this crisis through the crisis of sons without fathers. But there's a whole host of other problems for daughters that do not have fathers. The point is the man and the woman brings something unique and important to the concept of a family. one out and you've got a problem. And it's not simply we've been jerking the father out,

Alec, I would argue we've jerked masculinity out. So on top of fatherless homes, we have homes with fathers who aren't taking on the responsible role, the traditional role of the masculine aspects of a family, which a child and a family need. Yeah, and two things there. You're absolutely right. I have three boys and a girl. Our girl is our youngest. She's our only daughter. And yes, You look at the teenage pregnancy percentages of girls that are teenage pregnancies that come from a fatherless household. And also end up in the cycle of bad relationships. A lot of times you trace that back to not having that father figure in the house. And we do, you know, there's so much more into it than just that.

I mean, the statistics are the one thing, but it's so much more for the development of the child to have those both sides of the fence. Now, either one, like you pointed out here, men now have been emasculated, almost embarrassed or ashamed to feel like men. They don't want to be that stereotypical guy who beats his chest and this caveman type guy. They were so afraid of being a man that they lessen that role of themselves in society. We've done men at just a disservice in this country. There's so many people, though, to look to that have brought it back. I mean, you see even guys like Jocco Willink with his podcast. You see Ryan Mickler is another guy with the Order of Man.

Guys are trying to restore masculinity to this country because without it, man, we are going to be in a lot of trouble. And we're seeing that all through every aspect of our society. All right. We're going to step aside here for just a moment. Stay tuned. Book club on Monday. Gym on Tuesday. Date night on Wednesday.

Out on the town on Thursday. Quiet night in on Friday. It's good to have a routine. And it's good for your eyes too. Because with regular comprehensive eye exams at Specsavers, you'll know just how healthy they are. Visit Spexsavers.com.cavers.cai to book your next eye exam. Eye exams provided by independent optometrists.

So you've mentioned a ton of names in our conversation. You've mentioned Dean Cain, Jocco Willanick. I know you've interviewed on the podcast numerous of my colleagues, Pete Hegseth, Brian Kilmead, Sean Hannity. You have interviewed sports figures, as you mentioned, James Buster Douglas. You've interviewed actors like Matthew McConaughey. You know, Alec, what's the, if you had to, I'm going to ask two separate questions that hone in on your experience in talking with these guys. First of all, is there one particular story or one particular lesson that you learned from one of these high-profile dads that stuck with you? Well, I'll tell you what, what's interesting, Will, is that one of the most common denominators with all of these high-profile dads that I interview is when I ask him the discipline portion of the question.

Now, you mentioned there, too, the father bringing that discipline. I was a kid that grew up, just wait until your father gets home, right? You have that kind of discipline. If I broke a window in a building, I would rather the police get me than my father would have got me, right? So when I ask the discipline question, I always say, what type of disciplinarian are you as a dad? And is that different than the discipline style you grew up with? And almost 90% of the dads I have on, they go, oh, yeah, it's different than when I grew up. And they all say, like, they grew up with the belt or the switch or the spanking.

And they attest to that. Then they turn around, they say, well, I don't do that with my kid. Now, I think a lot of that is that even if they do spank their children, they're afraid of what society will think of them if they admit that they spank their child. obviously a big, big difference between spanking a child and beating a child. But our society today looks so far down on any type of corporal punishment for our children that people are either afraid to do it or afraid to admit that they did. Now, keep in mind, all these people that are saying, yeah, oh yeah, I had a big difference in growing up.

They all turned out to be highly successful individuals. And a lot of them attests to say, if I didn't have that, boy, I could have went the wrong route in life. So I think it's a shame that a society where we've gotten away from that. Now, there's a certain point, even with my own. own children, they have to be disciplined differently. I have one child. You could spank them all day long and they're going to make any difference. I have another one. You could threaten to spank him and then that'll be enough for him to straighten out. So different discipline styles, you know, depending on the child, the way that they give and receive love and discipline matters a lot.

But that's one thing that I noticed about almost all the dads that come on is they grew up with that type of corporal punishment and they don't dish it out. You know, that is fascinating. And I think that I've spoken about that on air more than once. And I think I've been warned. I think people have said, you don't want to say that on air, that I have employed throughout being a father and throughout being a son, I've received corporal punishment. And by the way, like everything, I would like to think, and I've just spent some time on this podcast today before you jumped on, Alec laying out some of my mistakes as a father. And I think that's important to own our mistakes. No one is perfect, and we've got to learn from this. But I go into fatherhood, you know, a lot like I do other things.

I think about it. I enjoy thinking about it. What's the right way to do this? I personally believe that corporal punishment is not wrong, but it should never be done out of anger. It should never be done for your benefit to exercise some type of emotion you're experiencing. Corporal punishment should almost be removed from the situation

that it's attempting to alleviate or teach a lesson from. And when I don't anymore because my boys are more grown now, I mean, it's interesting. It tends to work, at least for my two sons, as you point out, it might be different for everybody. I don't have to do it. I've only had to do it a few times. And I've explained very clearly, this is going to happen later, and this is why it's going to happen. And it's reserved for the most serious of situations in our discipline hierarchy.

It has to get there is the other thing. It doesn't just go from zero to 60. So I've given a lot of thought, but I do not believe in any way that it should be 100% taboo and off the table. Yeah, I agree. One book that I usually recommend for a lot of the dads that I talk to is that Five Love Languages by Chapman. Now, a lot of people recommend that book for relationships to kind of find out what your love languages are, but you could do it with your teenagers. And it really is an eye-opening exercise to do with them because you get a chance to see how they give and receive love. And you may be thinking, oh, wow, this is the way I've been disciplining him, and this isn't his language. You know, you find different things out by doing that. So I think it's important. And the other part is, too, will we have evolved as fathers, too? You talk about the 1950s dad. Now, one thing about him was the 1950s dad was a guy that wasn't involved in changing the diapers and doing

the homework and doing things like that. That's involved today. Also, you know, not only are more dads likely to change diapers and be involved, you know, coaching their kids and doing homework, but also apologizing. That's one thing I do that my father never did was, you know, admit when I'm wrong. If I apologize, if I punish the wrong kid for the wrong crime, I'll

call myself out on and say, hey, I went a little hard there. I made a mistake. And and I call myself out. And the other part of that, too, is I tell my kids that I love them all the time. It's something that my father didn't do. Not that he didn't love me. It wasn't the way he expressed it. I do that now, though.

So those are some differences, too. Yeah. And I would say that I share those evolutions, you know, while I retain, I think, the appropriate level of corporal punishment, I'm much more liberal in dishing out at least verbal affirmations of love because there's all types of love that one can. give. But yeah, I say I love you to my sons much more often than I ever heard. I say I'm proud of you. I do try, Alec, to meter that out so it's not watered down. I want them to know that when I say it, I'm proud of you, that I mean it. That is, I'm always proud of them,

but for any particular situation or instance, when it's referring to something that they have done, I want them to know that I mean it, so I don't throw it around gratuitously. And I'm much more involved, to your point. I mean, I've thrown the ball with my boys way more than I ever did with my dad. And look, I think my dad was great. I'm not offering criticism for my dad. I've just evolved in a lot of ways to be more involved. Okay, you've

talked to all of these high-profile dads. Is there any Alec, is there any repetition of acknowledgement of mistake? Does anybody say I should have or wish I did or if I had a do-over? Is there anything that people say in some

type of theme that they've made a mistake? Well, some of that comes from, Will, some dads that weren't involved in their kids' lives through a, you know, like we talked about, family court, had been pushed out, weren't able to be there for them. Another one is some military dads. I know a Brian Chantosh is a Marine, Silver Star, highly decorated, but he was deployed for so many years of his children's young life and wasn't involved in all those things. So they kind of had that guilt feeling that they, that they weren't around. But one thing that they, you know, testify or they try to help other dads that feel that way is to say it's never too late. It's never too late to get back in the game and to start from now and be involved in your kids' lives.

So those are some of the regrets that you'll hear from dads that weren't around when the kids were young, but they could still step up now into the role. And you don't have to carry that guilt with you. You can begin a new relationship today. And what's your number one lesson, Alex, as we leave this here today, whether or not it's from the hundreds of conversations you've had on first class fatherhood that you've experienced in your own life and put down in your book, First Class Fatherhood? what is the biggest lesson you would share with our audience? Well, I would try to share this. I call it being an ambassador for fatherhood where, you know,

usually when a woman tells her friends that she's pregnant, they always say, oh, you're glowing, you look so great, you're going to be a great mom. When a guy tells his friends, his boys, hey, I'm having a kid. It's the doom and gloom they hit him with. Oh, my God, waitel, you're up all night, forget about sleep, forget about going out and all this stuff. I try to turn that around and say, you know,

encourage the young dads, tell them that this is going to really be what makes you a man. this is going to make you a better person. This is going to be where your life really begins. And I'll tell you what, well, you know, very early on, when we had just two kids and we were at the restaurant for the first time, you know, when you're doing that as a young dad, you kind of worry that the kids are making noise.

You think you're interrupting everybody's dinner. And the first time we did this, there was an older couple that came over to us when they finished their meal and said, I just want to let you two guys know your kids are really well behaved. You're doing such a great job. And I can't tell you what that did for me and just my confidence about being a dad. so I make sure that that's something that I do when we're out now at the restaurant

or even at the checkout line when they're trying to get a kid under control. Just encourage, I mean, you don't know what those words can do to a young parent out there. So be an ambassador for fatherhood and encourage the young dads out there. And I'll be that ambassador because I'll say this.

It is so fun. First of all, I only have sons. So for anyone that has a son, you've now got a team. You've got a two-on-two or at least a 1V-1 basketball game. You've got somebody to play ping pong with. you are going to teach life lessons you are going to talk about hobbies be it sports or whatever it may be with your son and if it is a daughter i don't have a daughter but i do have friends who

told me they'd sell all their sons to keep their one daughter they'd get rid of all the sons and keep the one daughter if forced to choose so let me tell you this one point here too will because i think it's important a lot of people focus on their resumes right they want to build up that resume but there's also there's a thing called like the difference between your resume and your eulogy right your eulogy no one's going to talk about all these things that you did or accomplished your business stuff that's on your resume ain't going to be at your eulogy build up these things and you know Dana white the UFC president came on I thought he said it beautifully he said you know everyone asks me about my legacy what I want my legacy to be and he said you know what when it's all done and

I'm laying there in that box at my funeral whoever shows up shows up what my kids get up there and have to say about me as a father that's the only legacy that's the only legacy that's the only legacy that really truly matters at the end of the day. That's what's important. Not about all this other stuff you've accomplished in the material world. It's what you've done as a dad and what you're leaving behind with your children as your legacy. No doubt. It's fun. It's fulfilling. And every man wants to be. It's true. Every man wants to be some either miniature or major empire builder. And no matter how many buildings have your name on it, you leave behind people with your name, your life lessons, and your experience. It is the ultimate legacy.

Alec Lace, I love talking to you in particular on this day. Thanks for jumping on the Will Cain podcast. Happy Father's Day, Will. Thanks for having me. There you go. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Alec Lace of First Class Fatherhood. Check out the podcast at Apple Spotify, wherever you get your audio entertainment. Check out the book, First Class Fatherhood as well.

Go buy it wherever you buy your literary entertainment. That's going to do it for me today here on the Will Cain podcast. Happy Father's Day. Thanks for hanging out. I'll see you again Wednesday. Listen ad-free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcast. And Amazon Prime members, you can listen to this show, ad-free on the Amazon music app.

Hey, I'm Trey Gowdy host of the Trey Gowdy podcast. I hope you will join me every Tuesday and Thursday as we navigate life together and hopefully find ourselves a little bit better on the other side. Listen and follow now at Fox Newspodcast.com.