The Career Trap That Makes Women Miserable - Suzanne Venker
CChris Williamson
MarriageTelecommutingParentingCredit/Debt/Loans
Transcript
00:00:00You dedicated your book with an apology to a generation of women who've been misled.
00:00:06How have they been misled?
00:00:07I was essentially apologizing for the oversight that I believe both my generation, which is Gen X, by the way, I was born in 68, and the generation one up from me, which is the boomers, which I think is more really what I'm talking about.
00:00:29But definitely some Gen X, the oversight that they did not share with their children, their daughters in particular, because I really write mostly for young women, how to go about building a life that essentially includes marriage and motherhood, that the messaging has been for decades now.
00:00:58You can do anything you want to do without any caveats there, with no explanation or nuance.
00:01:06You need to sort of prove yourself in the world in the way men do, because equality is the goal.
00:01:12Men and women are the same.
00:01:13This kind of messaging.
00:01:15And then taught them pretty much to put career at the center of their lives.
00:01:20And what they didn't do was talk about how marriage and motherhood was going to fit into their lives and into that equation if they're just singularly focused on education and career.
00:01:31So what ends up happening is that they get somewhere around 30, the age of 30, and it is well known that women start to think very differently about their future because they want to start having a family.
00:01:47And they hear that clock ticking, and their priorities are shifting, and they feel stuck, they feel like all these decisions that they've made up to this point were made with a different plan in mind.
00:02:03Because nobody wanted to talk about the fact that men and women are different, and so it's okay to construct a different kind of life.
00:02:11Why do you think it's unpopular to warn women of that?
00:02:17Because the goal is a political one.
00:02:20It is about men and women being equal, which doesn't mean equal in value the way I define it, but sameness basically, interchangeability.
00:02:32That what one can do, the other can do, which by the way is often true, but it doesn't take human desire into account.
00:02:39So male and female desire is very, very different, and we don't talk about that because that would highlight how men and women are different.
00:02:46And the goal is for men and women to be the same and to have these trajectories that are the same so that everything can be equal in 50-50 in this sort of utopian version of what life should look like for men and women.
00:02:58And it's just not working.
00:03:00It's been several decades now with this messaging.
00:03:02Yeah, I had this idea a little while ago, the bigotry of male expectations.
00:03:07So there's an idea called the bigotry of small expectations or of low expectations, which kind of explains some of the white savior complex that college-educated white people have around minorities, that we will give you a helping hand, allow us poor people from a minority background, we will help you along.
00:03:25And there's kind of a similar situation, I think, that's happening with the way that women are being spoken to specifically by other women, which is you are only as valuable as you are able to play the role that typically men have done.
00:03:42And, you know, that in some ways sounds very liberating, so you go, wow, this is independence, it's pushing women to be able to do what they want to do without the constraints that would have held them back previously.
00:03:50And I think that that's true.
00:03:52But what it forgets is that implicitly that denigrates what women have typically done.
00:03:58It makes them second-class citizens for doing the things that they used to do.
00:04:01There's a famous study that happened where hunter-gatherers from ancestral times were analyzed using modern hunter-gatherer societies, and women, a slightly, how do you say, motivated research team analyzed the data and said women did just as much big game hunting as men, and maybe even more.
00:04:23And what they were trying to put across was women were able to do the thing that men did.
00:04:27Now, they fucked with the data, it turned out that that wasn't really the truth at all.
00:04:32But what it implicitly said was that hunting was important, but gathering wasn't.
00:04:36Exactly.
00:04:37And how is that not misogynistic?
00:04:39Yeah.
00:04:39Like, that's the most misogynistic thing that I can think of from someone that's supposed to be pro-women.
00:04:45You're saying the thing that you do or did, or your ancestors do or did, naturally, is not as important.
00:04:51And only if you're able to contort yourself into the shape of a man, are you worth something.
00:04:58So, in the same way you had women that did not fit the mold, say, back in the 50s and 60s, who maybe did want more, right, from life than being just a wife and mother, although I used the word just only to make a point, not because I feel that way about it.
00:05:15If they did want more, they felt a little odd.
00:05:17And now you fast forward half a century, and it's the complete opposite.
00:05:21So, it's important for people to understand, which I don't think people in their 20s and 30s do so much, and that is how this all really came to be.
00:05:29Because feminism, the second wave, we're talking about 1970s feminism, when you do a deep dive, which most people aren't going to do, you know.
00:05:39But if you do it, if you do it, it was so depressing to have to go through all that stuff back in the day.
00:05:48You come to realize that the loudest voices that we heard from, which is just a minority of women, right, it's not the everyday women.
00:05:56These are very small group of women who had some power and clout.
00:06:03And if you study their backgrounds, you find that just about every single one of them had a very dysfunctional story or upbringing or background that caused them to turn away either from men or marriage as an institution.
00:06:20And rather than study their own story and come to terms with what happened to their, really their mom and dad is what we're talking about, they extrapolated that story to mean, oh, the whole system's screwed up.
00:06:33Oh, marriage is oppressive.
00:06:35Oh, no woman could be happy at home.
00:06:36I mean, they just made these stories and because they had the spotlight and people don't do that research, it sounded plausible because maybe if you're hearing, if you're a woman who kind of back in the day did feel sort of whatever about motherhood, you're going to, that's going to speak to you.
00:06:53Or constrained by the lack of independence and financial freedom.
00:06:56Yes, because you are constrained for a while.
00:06:58You're going, it's a lot of work and it's a tremendous amount of sacrifice.
00:07:03It's a trade-off that obviously I feel is 150% worth it, but we don't live in that world that, that after so many years of all of that messaging, it's, it's not like feminism.
00:07:18You don't, nobody really talks about it as a thing out in the world anymore.
00:07:21It's more like it's just embedded into the fabric now of society.
00:07:25You don't question or discuss feminism per se.
00:07:28It's just kind of accepted and known.
00:07:31Well, of course, in order for a woman to be equal to a man, she's got to live that same life.
00:07:36You can't be powerful or happy or liberated or empowered if you're not working for pay.
00:07:45And if you do that, if you do the opposite of that, it's because you're specifically being counterculture.
00:07:50Or oppressed.
00:07:51Yeah.
00:07:51Yeah.
00:07:51Yeah.
00:07:51Yeah.
00:07:52Yeah.
00:07:52Yeah.
00:07:52You've been conned by the patriarchy.
00:07:53There you go.
00:07:54So basically you're saying modern culture has prepared women for work, but not for relationships
00:08:03and family.
00:08:03A hundred and fifty percent.
00:08:04That's what I'm saying.
00:08:05And so what I'm, I'm receiving the women as a coach who are coming in.
00:08:10And as I say, they're usually around 30, maybe a little younger, maybe a little older.
00:08:14And all of a sudden their priorities shift dramatically and they desperately want a baby or they want
00:08:19to get married and can't find a man, or they are pregnant and they want to stay home and
00:08:24stay home and can't because they made all these decisions professionally, relationally, financially
00:08:29to set them up for a life where you are never out of the workforce.
00:08:32And when you do that, you're, you're going to feel stuck and it's going to be a lot harder
00:08:36to extricate yourself from that if you, once your priorities shift.
00:08:40And that's kind of where I come in when they call me, it's like, ah, and sometimes their
00:08:44husbands don't want them to do it.
00:08:45And it's just been this, it's this mess really because of all this messaging.
00:08:49And because going back to your initial question about apologizing to them, what I'm basically
00:08:54saying is, I'm sorry, you were set up to fail.
00:08:56It's wrong.
00:08:57And you were set up because of politics and you don't really realize that because this goes
00:09:00way back before you were even born.
00:09:03What are the decisions that you think lock women into this future that is difficult to
00:09:12navigate when they grow up?
00:09:14So I think there are three main decisions that women make throughout their twenties that
00:09:19they can either set them up well or cause them to struggle more later.
00:09:24The first one is professional.
00:09:26So I've always been a very big proponent of finding and choosing a profession and a major
00:09:33in school, let's say, that works well with the kind of life you want to have down the line.
00:09:39So you have to really think ahead and play the long game when you're making these decisions.
00:09:47So instead of getting a degree in some
00:09:49major that isn't going to do anything for you, you're not going to make any money from
00:09:57it, find something practical and some, not just that pays a decent wage, but also that
00:10:03can be worked around how you see your life in your thirties and forties.
00:10:07So in other words, I mean, to simplify this, it's rather than putting career at the center
00:10:11of your life and trying to fit men in marriage and motherhood in around that, I want them
00:10:16to do the reverse.
00:10:17I want them to put family first and make these decisions orbit around that.
00:10:24And that begins with the kind of career that you can, A, move in and out of more easily.
00:10:28Ones that can be done maybe part-time or from home, ones that give you control, you own something,
00:10:37you could start a business later.
00:10:39Just basically flexibility so that when you're older and your priorities do shift, which for
00:10:45most women they do, you have options.
00:10:47What do you say to the women that go, "Why should I have to give that up?"
00:10:51Yeah.
00:10:52"I don't want to have to give that up.
00:10:53Why should I have to sacrifice and build my career around family life?"
00:10:59"I should."
00:11:00There's no "should," but you will very likely want to.
00:11:04And if you set yourself up the way you're doing it, you'll have no options.
00:11:08If you do it the other way, you'll at least have the option.
00:11:11Because what you're going to feel like is important at 32 is going to be very different from what
00:11:14you feel like at 22.
00:11:16You just don't even realize how you're going to change.
00:11:18I think that's one of the challenges with this, right?
00:11:20That you're saying women who are not thinking about family literally don't even have it
00:11:26on their bingo card.
00:11:28Exactly.
00:11:29You need to think about a thing you're not planning for and currently don't want.
00:11:32It takes an unbelievable amount of counterculture pressure to be able to say, "None of my friends
00:11:38think about this.
00:11:39None of modern media is suggesting that I do this.
00:11:42I don't even feel the desire to do this."
00:11:44And actively, if I got pregnant right now, I don't even know what I'd do about it.
00:11:49But I should start to construct a life that is future-proofing me in order to do that.
00:11:55It's a huge going-against-the-tide moment.
00:11:58It's so huge, Chris.
00:11:59I mean, it's a big ask, right?
00:12:00Yeah.
00:12:01It doesn't surprise me that women aren't doing it.
00:12:03No, because the running joke is, "Well, I'm trying to get to you when you're 22 before
00:12:07you come to me at 32, but at 22, you're not interested.
00:12:09But at 32, you're like, "Help me, help me."
00:12:13And I'm like, "Ugh!"
00:12:14You know, it's so hard.
00:12:15I mean, one of the hardest things about coaching for me has been hearing these women and knowing
00:12:21that all of this stuff could have been avoided if they had just been told the truth.
00:12:27Have you considered in school in the UK, we have something called scare them straight?
00:12:32I don't know whether you have the same thing.
00:12:33It's not gay conversion.
00:12:35It's getting prison guards in to schools and they explain how dangerous it is in prison and
00:12:41how bad of a time it is.
00:12:43And the whole point is to try and warn young, mostly boys, but I guess girls too, offer the
00:12:48life of crime.
00:12:49And I went to a very, very working class school in a very, very working class town with lots
00:12:54of crime in the UK.
00:12:55And I remember this guy came through and he had this sock which had batteries in and he
00:13:00was explaining about how the guys get into fights and they use these sort of like maces
00:13:04in socks to like get in scraps with, and he banged it on the table.
00:13:08And I remember I was so fucking scared.
00:13:10I went to bed that night.
00:13:11Like it really did.
00:13:12For me, I was like, I cannot go to jail.
00:13:14That sounds fucking terrifying.
00:13:15Or they boil the kettle and put loads of sugar in and they make syrup and they throw it on
00:13:19people and it burns them and stuff.
00:13:21It was fucking terrifying.
00:13:22I was like 12.
00:13:23It was terrifying.
00:13:24Have you considered-
00:13:25What can I do?
00:13:26That's comparable.
00:13:27I don't know.
00:13:28Getting the women who are 32 to do an intervention with the women that are 19 and about to choose
00:13:32their major in college and being like, hey, why don't we organize a local meetup?
00:13:38It's not quite pangenerational, but it's actually the important bit.
00:13:43The women who are facing this problem or facing this challenge, should I say, to go and have
00:13:48a conversation with the women.
00:13:49That's a really good point.
00:13:50No, the answer is I have not thought about that, but that's a really great idea.
00:13:53Scare them straight.
00:13:54You need batteries in a sock.
00:13:55Don't forget.
00:13:56Well, because it's so, I don't, it's really scary.
00:14:02I mean, these women are really, really, it's hurting their marriages, obviously.
00:14:08It's not just hurting them personally, but if, for example, if you want to stay home, but
00:14:11you can't because you've set up this life, it's going to hurt their marriage.
00:14:15So, then the marriage is falling apart.
00:14:17The family's falling apart.
00:14:18So, this has a downward effect that somehow, I think it's really clear for people who are
00:14:26very marriage-minded young.
00:14:27Like, there are a lot of people who, I hear-
00:14:29I always knew I wanted to be a mom.
00:14:31What's that?
00:14:31I always knew I wanted to be a mom.
00:14:32Yeah.
00:14:33Like, they get it.
00:14:34I mean, they're just like, "Well, yeah, of course."
00:14:36I, you know.
00:14:37And that, so, I'm not so concerned with them because they're going to set things up sort
00:14:41of naturally.
00:14:42I mean, I did that, for example.
00:14:44But, it's much harder today because, as you say, and that's exactly right.
00:14:51That's why I'm a countercultural author.
00:14:52I mean, everything I do is, basically my motto is, if the culture says do it, don't.
00:14:57And you will be successful.
00:14:58But if you're following it, you're going to struggle.
00:15:00Well, the average American adult is likely to be divorced, has less than 1K in the bank,
00:15:07and they're obese.
00:15:08That's the average.
00:15:10That's the middle of the bell curve.
00:15:11So, following the path that everybody else treads sounds like outsourcing wisdom to the
00:15:18crowd.
00:15:19But it's actually a reliable route to a life that you probably don't want.
00:15:22And what do you think separates the people who get that from the ones who don't?
00:15:27You know?
00:15:28Not listening to what everybody else says.
00:15:30So, can you give me an example of the prototypical 32-year-old person that comes to you?
00:15:36What career choice have they made?
00:15:38What did they do in their 20s?
00:15:40Why is that an issue now?
00:15:41Because a lot of women might think, well, if I choose a high-powered career, that means
00:15:45that I've earned more money, which means that I can step back from it.
00:15:47So, I'd say the biggest issue there that cannot be overlooked, and one of the reasons, or one
00:15:54of the ways I think this began to go really downhill is student debt, which is a massive problem
00:16:03in America.
00:16:04And that messaging came from parents who were like, doesn't matter what it costs.
00:16:10This is the most important thing ever, so it doesn't matter if you have to go into debt to do it, because you're just going to pay it back, right?
00:16:18Well, the problem with that is, by the time you're done with all the schooling, and you've gotten the job, and then you're starting to be paid enough to even begin to pay it back, all of a sudden, you're around 30 years old.
00:16:30And then this other thing comes into play.
00:16:32So that--and this leads into, you know, home ownership, all these financial issues that were a result of decisions that were made, again, because they're not playing the long game, because nobody taught them.
00:16:48Listen, if you go into this much debt, and then you get married, and maybe you want to stay home, you're not going to feel like you can because you owe all this money, and your money's not going to go as far, and you're not going to feel like you can have a house, and it just--it's not fleshed out in the way that it needs to be for both young--I mean, I have a son and a daughter, and everything my husband and I taught was for both of them.
00:17:12But, of course, their trajectories are going to be different because one's a boy and one's a girl, and that's another thing that's really taboo, because nobody wants to parent their children, opposite-sex children, differently because you're supposed to be the same.
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00:18:43So, first thing is choosing your work and education career around building it around the family.
00:18:50Yes, flexibility, basically, instead of these careers that are going to literally take over your life.
00:18:55You're working 24/7.
00:18:56You have no space in your life to even find love or nurture love or get married and have children, and you're not thinking about it.
00:19:03And then, all of a sudden, you're older and you're saying, where have all the good men gone?
00:19:08I don't see them.
00:19:09It's just, there's just a downward, yeah.
00:19:12So, that's first.
00:19:13Sorry?
00:19:14You said there was three elements.
00:19:15Oh, yes.
00:19:16Sorry.
00:19:17So, the second one is, what did I say, professional and then relational.
00:19:21So, this is another big one that's controversial, I guess.
00:19:26It used to be that men or moms and dads would tell their daughters, you know, don't bring home any man who doesn't have a job.
00:19:35Right?
00:19:36Or isn't going somewhere, let's say.
00:19:39That's, of course, not done anymore because you're supposed to take care of yourself.
00:19:44You don't need a man to take care of you.
00:19:47So, there are a lot of women who are getting with men who haven't found their professional footing, let's say.
00:19:58Let's put it that way.
00:19:59Or they're going to bank on the fact that they will find it someday.
00:20:03And you just basically don't want to marry a man who hasn't found themselves professionally because you, again, going back to, you're going to have fewer options down the road because you, in fact, do need a man on whom you can depend financially if only for a short period of time.
00:20:21And why should that be controversial?
00:20:24Well, here's something that's really interesting.
00:20:27They took a poll of Americans and 71% of American adults believe that it's important for a man to be able to provide for his family.
00:20:39Guess how many think a woman should be able to, or should, should do it?
00:20:4550?
00:20:4632.
00:20:47Okay.
00:20:4871 to 32.
00:20:49Now, that says to me that we know instinctively that women become vulnerable when they have a child and that they're going to need support, both emotional and financial, for X period of time.
00:21:02And that that is in part why we need men to embrace their providing and protecting desire.
00:21:16And women aren't sort of expected to be the providers because do we really want women to get pregnant, carry that baby for nine months, give birth, breastfeed, go through all of that.
00:21:35And by the way, get back to work.
00:21:37You should be working too while you're doing that.
00:21:39I mean, nobody really thinks that's a good idea that you hear because why not just do that too?
00:21:45You know, it's not, it isn't natural.
00:21:48And if you're experiencing it, when you really do experience it and you look at it, you're like, how could I ask her to go do this right now?
00:21:54She's, she's, she's, she's very busy and she's very tired and she's depleted and she has an appendage hanging from her that needs her.
00:22:04And so I think we know that instinctually and I think that's the reason for that gap.
00:22:08Yeah.
00:22:09It's, it's, it's an interesting one because I wonder how many women are allowing themselves to pick up the slack of mate choices where they thought, well, I'm independent already.
00:22:24So financially, maybe I'm, I'm going to pay a little bit less attention to his future prospects in this way.
00:22:31You know, the top quintile, so the top 20% of female owners and the bottom 40% of male owners are mating with the woman as the primary breadwinner.
00:22:40So the top 20% of women are mating down socioeconomically and the bottom 40% of men are mating up socioeconomically.
00:22:45That's a big chunk.
00:22:46That's a lot.
00:22:47It's a lot.
00:22:48That's going on.
00:22:49So yeah, I wonder how many women are basically picking up the slack, which creates this self-reinforcing loop of I need to work harder in order to be able to provide me the size and amount of freedom that I think that I need in order to be able to get a family off the ground without realizing that it, it kind of is a trap.
00:23:06It's a trap.
00:23:07They're locking themselves in.
00:23:08And then, um, I mean, it's true that we have a big problem with men, not in the world in the way they used to be in producing.
00:23:15And that's, that's a subject of its own, but there's a lot that women are doing to themselves.
00:23:20And again, I don't fault them.
00:23:22I, they were tutored to do this.
00:23:23They were schooled to live this life.
00:23:26It's just that that's why they, when they reach out to me, they're like, why didn't, why didn't anybody tell me about this?
00:23:31It's hard, it's hard to understand, make the argument, you should be less financially independent.
00:23:37I know.
00:23:38In what world does less financial independence make sense?
00:23:40Because that's not the right framing.
00:23:42The framing is, um, what do you want?
00:23:46You know, why are we here?
00:23:48What, what's, what's the most important thing in life?
00:23:50What do you really want in your life?
00:23:52What do you want your life to look like?
00:23:54What do you, um, foresee your daily life to be like when you're 35, 40, 45?
00:23:58Like what kind of relationship do you want with your family?
00:24:02What, what are your interests in work?
00:24:03Like you have to sort of, um, pan out and decide what's the most important thing to you at the end of the day.
00:24:12And I, I believe, and maybe this is just a parenting thing.
00:24:15Cause I do think a lot of this is really about parenting.
00:24:18I do.
00:24:19I think that the culture can be the culture, but if parents were stronger in their opposing messages, that it would be, I feel like that's our best hope is through parenting.
00:24:28Cause it's very hard to change the culture.
00:24:30Um, is teaching what really matters and why we're here.
00:24:35And, um, is it really so that you can be as rich as you want or as, um, well known.
00:24:47I mean, are you, is status your goal or is meaning and your relationships and family, your goal.
00:24:54And those, I hate to say it, are just, they're competing.
00:24:57They just, they compete with one another.
00:24:59And we don't like that.
00:25:00We want to, we want to create a world where they can coexist in extreme forms simultaneously.
00:25:06You know, you can be all of this and you can still have this all the same time.
00:25:11As well known and rich as possible, whilst also having the family that you've always wanted.
00:25:14And you made a comment on one of your shows recently.
00:25:17What's that saying that someone said, what, what, what you see in private.
00:25:20What you're praised for in public, you pay for in private.
00:25:23That is exactly what I'm talking about.
00:25:25So you go out and you do this thing, but no one's talking about what really goes on at home to allow that to happen and how you're suffering.
00:25:32Yeah, you can't, I gotta, I gotta bring this up.
00:25:35I gotta bring this up.
00:25:36Okay.
00:25:37Are you familiar with Emma Greed?
00:25:38No.
00:25:39Do you know who she is?
00:25:40No.
00:25:41Emma Greed is the British Kardashian whisperer, entrepreneur, who is the co-founder and CEO of the Good American clothing brand and a founding partner of Skims.
00:25:49But lately, she's been getting way more attention.
00:25:52Something else.
00:25:53How she parents her four kids, ages 12, 10 and four.
00:25:57The twins.
00:25:58And we've got a clip that I want to show you.
00:26:01Well, and you're very honest about how you view parenting.
00:26:04I have to ask you about this.
00:26:06You did an interview with the Wall Street Journal and the headline was the Kardashian whisperer who says three hours with her kids is enough.
00:26:15That's based on what you say in your book.
00:26:18You call yourself a three hour max mum.
00:26:21That raised a lot of eyebrows, as you know.
00:26:24What did you mean by that?
00:26:25A three hour max mum.
00:26:26Well, what I meant by it was exactly what I said.
00:26:30And I really don't want to backpedal.
00:26:33You know, the first thing that I thought when I saw that headline was like, wow, that would never have been written about a man.
00:26:38Nobody would ever have written that about my husband.
00:26:41The important thing is that I bring a level of honesty to everything I say, because when you work Monday through Friday, the idea that you've got this entirely free weekend to just be with your kids and orientate your whole world around your children.
00:26:57It's just not a reality.
00:26:59I have errands to run.
00:27:00I have things to do.
00:27:01And because we're in a social media culture that says, you know, you have to arrange every pray day and count every macro and decide what your kids can and can't eat and make sure that they're constantly entertained.
00:27:13It's impossible.
00:27:14We're setting women up for a failure and we're holding women to impossible standards.
00:27:19So what I meant when I said I was a three hour mum is that I probably spend like three hours with my kids doing the things that they want to do, entertaining them, being down on the floor and playing with them.
00:27:29Then I have other things to do.
00:27:31And that's just the truth.
00:27:33It's just a reality.
00:27:34And I think a lot of parents feel exactly the same, that you're depleted after a week at work and actually you only have a couple of hours.
00:27:42But isn't that good enough?
00:27:44I think it is.
00:27:45What do you think of that?
00:27:46So much to say about that.
00:27:47I don't know where to begin.
00:27:52In fact, when I wrote my first book, and that was 25 years ago, I, you can't even believe how many of these things this, of course, we didn't have social media, but it was all print.
00:28:03But the amount of stuff that I read like that from working, hardcore working mothers who basically wanted to make the argument that, you know, good enough, good enough mothering, just give them a box of cereal.
00:28:15They'll be fine for dinner if you're too tired to cook, that kind of thing.
00:28:18I have a theory that this over-parenting craze of the last, what do you think that is, 15 years, came about as a result sort of after women had started, mothers, excuse me, had started going into the work en masse and finding out for themselves that, wow, okay, this doesn't work well with, especially with littles, but full-time, with motherhood, with young children.
00:28:45And they had to cut corners.
00:28:49And so, my argument's always been that those are two full-time jobs in the same way you can't be a doctor and a lawyer simultaneously, nobody would suggest you do that.
00:29:00It's no different from full-time motherhood and whatever she's doing or people are doing that are full-time.
00:29:05They clash, they inherently clash, and something's got to give and you have to make choices.
00:29:10So, there's a couple different elements to that.
00:29:16On the one hand, I want to say, you know, when you are home full-time, let's say, with your children, it is true that you would only spend a couple of hours, as she puts it, down on the floor with them, doing something of, you know, that they want to do really intensely.
00:29:32It's not like stay-at-home moms are any different from her in that regard.
00:29:36The difference is that the rest of the hours of the day, you are physically present and available.
00:29:43So, as an at-home mom, you're not supposed to be on the floor 12 hours a day engaged with your child as if they're the center of the universe.
00:29:51That's not motherhood.
00:29:52But it got skewed when this transformation happened, when moms were trying to mother with leftover time and feeling intense about it, like, oh my gosh, I haven't been here all day, so I have to really make this one or two hours count.
00:30:08And then they came up with a conclusion about, well, it's not supposed to be this way, let's just say, screw that.
00:30:15But that's a misreading of really what it, it's not that you can be absent 10 hours and then come home for two hours and be intense.
00:30:22It's when you're there and you are present, there's so much going on that is outside of the one-on-one care.
00:30:31I don't know if I'm making this very clear.
00:30:33Well, it seems like what Emma would say is she's making it work.
00:30:36She's doing three hours and the kids are, at least, yeah, I mean.
00:30:40Well, what do you think is happening to kids that are getting three hours with mom over a weekend?
00:30:44Or three hours on a Saturday and three hours on a Sunday?
00:30:46Well, it's more about what's happening the rest of the time.
00:30:49It's not, I mean, those three hours might be great, but what's happening the rest of the hours of the week?
00:30:54You can't fill in for an absence with a couple of hours a week with small children.
00:31:02It just doesn't work that way.
00:31:03That whole quality time thing is bogus.
00:31:05That's not real.
00:31:06Children need tons and tons and tons of quantity time, not quality time.
00:31:11It's just not something you can just do in leftover time.
00:31:14I don't know how else to say it.
00:31:15Why do you think Emma believes that you can then?
00:31:17Because she needs to.
00:31:18Otherwise, her life wouldn't work if she actually entertained something else.
00:31:23I don't know her and I don't know how many children she has and I don't know how young they are.
00:31:27Four.
00:31:28Oh, you said four, right, sorry.
00:31:29Twelve, eight, and two four-year-olds.
00:31:31Okay.
00:31:32But it doesn't sound like this is a new revelation to her.
00:31:36It seems like this has been her approach to parenting for a while.
00:31:40She's been the CEO of Skims and she's got all of this stuff going on.
00:31:42Oh, sure, there's people who do it all the time.
00:31:43She's got a lot of daycare help, a lot of handler, childcare assistance.
00:31:47Right.
00:31:48But for example, if we were to present to, I don't want to talk about her per se, but just
00:31:51somebody like that, present to her information about the early years, like you spent several
00:31:58hours with Erika Komisar talking about what goes on in the early years and attachment and
00:32:03all of that.
00:32:04A person who has a different philosophy about it will not be able to take that information
00:32:09in.
00:32:10Because in order to do that, you'd have to completely rearrange your life and look at
00:32:14it very differently.
00:32:15Well, what you're suggesting here is that in order for this kind of life to work, where
00:32:20there's only three hours with kids, there are some unseen but very powerful attachment costs
00:32:29that are going to happen to the kids.
00:32:31A hundred percent.
00:32:32A hundred percent.
00:32:33There's damage that's being done, but it's just not visible.
00:32:36But the damage that would be done if you had to leave work would be immediately visible.
00:32:39Say that last second one, the damage, if you will.
00:32:42If you had to leave work.
00:32:43So if you had to, there are no solutions, there's only trade-offs.
00:32:46You're right.
00:32:47And the trade-off that you have to make here is in order for me to work as much as I want
00:32:52to work, the kids don't get to see me, but they're fine.
00:32:55Yeah.
00:32:56It's the assumption.
00:32:57Erica's work is saying, no, they're not, and this isn't good for them.
00:33:01Right.
00:33:02But that price gets pushed down the line.
00:33:04You know, the attachment issues only show up when they're trying to date in their twenties
00:33:08and thirties.
00:33:09There you go.
00:33:10That's it.
00:33:11However, the alternative, the other trade-off, which would be, I need to leave work, that's
00:33:14paid immediately.
00:33:15Yes.
00:33:16That gets paid right now.
00:33:17Yep.
00:33:18So it's...
00:33:19I mean, we're not even allowed to talk about this.
00:33:20Let's be honest.
00:33:21So, I mean, not only do we not address it until years later when they're in their own
00:33:26relationship, we don't even talk about the early years.
00:33:28We don't talk about daycare being bad, for example.
00:33:32I keep on putting my foot in there.
00:33:33It's fine.
00:33:34Exactly.
00:33:35So, anyway, I don't know how we got onto her, what I said per se, but...
00:33:40You were just talking about this, like, cultural pressure on women to produce in the same
00:33:46way as men do.
00:33:47Yep.
00:33:48So, I don't think at the beginning it feels necessarily negative.
00:34:01I think when men and women are young, their lives do look remarkably similar.
00:34:07You go to school, you get a job, you're working, you're not married with kids yet.
00:34:10So, you kind of do look interchangeable, right?
00:34:12You're doing the same things.
00:34:14And everybody's fine.
00:34:18My argument is that it's really not until you start to either think about children, or
00:34:23then really when you have them, that our differences become glaring between women and men.
00:34:31So, for example, when a woman goes through all of that, physically, in being pregnant, giving birth, breastfeeding,
00:34:41and being at home in those early months or years, nurturing.
00:34:44So, I mean, when she has a baby, her first inclination is not to financially provide for the baby.
00:34:51Your first inclination as a woman is to take care of him or her and to nurture him or her.
00:34:57That is natural to you.
00:34:59Your desire to work for pay, at least in that moment, for those, let's just say months, ramps down.
00:35:09Generally speaking, when a man becomes a father, his desire to provide ramps up.
00:35:16And my theory about that is really that I feel like because there's such a difference in men and women as mothers and fathers in those early years,
00:35:26it's so obvious and natural that a baby needs his mother because you're physically attached.
00:35:31And there's so much that she's doing physically.
00:35:34And I feel like a father is sort of, he's there more to support her and to get things done so that she can be with her baby.
00:35:43But he doesn't really feel needed in the same way.
00:35:46And so his response to, "Oh my gosh, now I have a baby, I've got it," is immediately to ramp up his desire to provide.
00:35:55That's my theory about it.
00:35:56So when you have a child, it really just makes our differences, and they just continue.
00:36:02Like, it just continues.
00:36:04There's so many things that go on after the baby comes where marriages start to strain because they are operating in sameness mode, equality mode, 50/50, tit for tat.
00:36:16You do this.
00:36:17I do this.
00:36:18How much did you do that?
00:36:19And it's a shit show, honestly.
00:36:21It really is.
00:36:22You cannot go into marriage with that mentality or you're going to be really unhappy.
00:36:26Yeah.
00:36:27And so, anyway, going back to your question is, I just feel like because those differences between us don't show up until later, I think women don't realize until later how much they've been misled and how much it is hurting them until they're in the throes of it.
00:36:41What are you learning about breadwinning mums?
00:36:42This is a really difficult subject for people to talk about.
00:36:54Again, going back to what we're saying is that we're supposed to be the same, so there shouldn't be any difference.
00:37:01But the truth of the matter is, for most women, and not all, there are some women who are happy and fine in, you know, living a more traditional man's life for life.
00:37:12But for most women, it has been my experience doing this for so many years, that eventually, no matter how happy they may be in their career at first, or, you know, being independent, earning money, whatever, if they're going to be a wife and mother, and if you're not, that might be a separate conversation.
00:37:33Ultimately, that pressure to produce becomes very taxing, once you've become a wife and mother, especially a mother, really a mother.
00:37:47And the more and more you are the primary breadwinner, and oftentimes this happens, not necessarily consciously, but as the relationship grows, and if you are becoming the primary provider, or the main provider,
00:38:02and I mean if there's a real gap here, especially if you have a stay-at-home dad, let's say, that's almost an extreme version of that, they become resentful.
00:38:15And it's not, I really, it's not their fault, it's just, it's not natural for them to be doing both of those things, in my opinion, simultaneously unscathed.
00:38:27Meaning, you can, but you're wearing yourself into the ground, this is why we have the mental health crisis we do, this is why we're having marriages strained as we do, because you're asking them to do too much.
00:38:40You can't do these things simultaneously without breaking down, because they're not meant to be done simultaneously.
00:38:44But the only way you could understand that is if you acknowledge the incredible amount of work that goes into raising a baby to become a healthy adult.
00:38:53If you dismiss that or think that's just something you can do on the side, you're not really, this isn't going to register for you.
00:38:58You know, you have, and that goes back to the whole career at the center and thinking you can just, these things can orbit around it, and it just doesn't work that way.
00:39:08So, a man who's providing is in the main role, he's not going to be taxed by that.
00:39:13He's going to be emboldened by that.
00:39:14He wants to do that.
00:39:15He's a provider and a protector, it's in his DNA, and it's unique to him.
00:39:20And it's special for him, you know, and we've taken that away from it, I think.
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00:40:23You've got a line, "Men want their wives happy.
00:40:26And if they believe she wants to provide, they instinctively step back.
00:40:29After all, if she's bringing in enough, why work harder or work more?"
00:40:34So, I truly believe that men need an incentive to work hard.
00:40:41They need something to work toward, not just work for work's sake, but to work toward something.
00:40:47A reward, accolades, you know, to produce, to be useful.
00:40:55And, you know, when you have an entire generation of women saying, "You know, I can have the babies, raise them, and I can take care of them financially too."
00:41:07Where are they going to go?
00:41:09What's going to happen to men?
00:41:10I mean, it's happening now.
00:41:12They're pulling back.
00:41:13They're pulling back because they're saying, "Well, I guess nobody needs me."
00:41:16So, you know, it would be a lovely world if we could say, "Well, they should just do it for themselves, you know, the sake of themselves."
00:41:22But I just don't think men do that.
00:41:25I think they need incentive.
00:41:28And the greatest incentive of all has always been providing for a family.
00:41:34And I think it's just been disastrous for them, honestly, that they've been told, "We don't need that anymore."
00:41:40Yeah, there's some interesting paradoxes here that deadbeat dads, fathers that don't contribute much, almost universally, even by feminists, seen as not good.
00:41:54It would be better if you were contributing more, especially financially, and making it easier on the wife.
00:42:00But also, it's put forward that women shouldn't need to rely on their male partner and that they shouldn't really be looking for their financial stability that much at all because I have my thing going on.
00:42:13And you can be a stay-at-home dad.
00:42:15And similarly, there's a lot of complaints around the lack of maternity leave in the U.S., which I think is fucking barbaric.
00:42:24It's insane.
00:42:25And also, that your career is the most important thing that you'll ever do in your life.
00:42:30And that if you are not working as a mom, I have a friend who had a bunch of kids, then her and her husband stopped, and she was working while they had the first ones.
00:42:42And then the most recent one, she decided to be a stay-at-home mom.
00:42:45And she went to a play date with her three-year-old, the newest one, and a bunch of other moms, and they were all working moms.
00:42:51And one of the moms turned to her and she said, "You know what, I really wish that I'd known you while you were working, you know, while you had a lot going on."
00:43:01And she said it felt like she's never felt that hurt by another comment from someone.
00:43:07So I'm glad you brought that up because that, I mean, you've really hit a nugget there of what makes so many women today feel that they can't succumb to their inherent desire to just be a mom.
00:43:24And I say just on purpose, because in their minds, it's just being a mom.
00:43:29And I've kind of been here all...
00:43:31To not need to be anything more than a mother.
00:43:33Yes. And I've been like, this is the whole thing. This is it. This is why we're on the planet.
00:43:38This is to build relationships, build a family. There is work that goes into this.
00:43:43Kids don't just come about while you go do your thing, you know. It's work.
00:43:48And because it's not work that is paid, we as we are today as a country that is materialistic, individualistic, all about stuff, status, we don't value it anymore.
00:44:03We don't value anything that doesn't have a nice, giant paycheck associated with this.
00:44:10It doesn't generate economic return. Yeah.
00:44:12And this is new. I mean, really, this is new. Like, this is new in the last... I don't know. I wouldn't say...
00:44:17I want to say quarter of a century. I've been writing about this for about 25 years.
00:44:22And it's been interesting to see where things were with this subject then and now.
00:44:27It's just gotten worse and worse and worse in terms of our values and this materialism that we live in today.
00:44:34And it's so twisted that when you start with that base of money, money, money, status, career, whatever, you're never going to be successful in your personal life and in your relationships because your focus is on the wrong thing.
00:44:48I mean, this is true for men and women, by the way.
00:44:50Your position here, it's probably worth restating it if it's not obvious. What you're saying is that your family life will be more important and more rewarding to you than your professional life.
00:45:00Because if you don't have that frame or if you're unaware of that frame, none of this makes sense.
00:45:05Exactly. That's exactly what I'm saying.
00:45:07The only other caveat here, which we need to get onto at some point, is, well, there are material constraints. I need to have food on the table.
00:45:13I need to have a roof over my head. So it's not just I can live my life by my values exclusively. There are also genuine material.
00:45:21Yeah, exactly.
00:45:22Right. We've got to talk about things around it.
00:45:24But your point here is?
00:45:25Start with that base.
00:45:26Correct.
00:45:27Start with that value at the nucleus.
00:45:29In your experience, how many women have you worked with?
00:45:32I don't know. I mean, I've been coaching for about five years. And then the women I heard from before that were all from my book.
00:45:41Thousands, tens of thousands.
00:45:43Not one-on-one with thousands, but I've heard from thousands over the years, for sure.
00:45:47Yeah. In your experience, how true is it that women realized that their career was the most important thing and that the family thing didn't really matter that much?
00:45:59Zero.
00:46:00I mean, there's a selection effect. They're coming to you for a reason, right?
00:46:06True.
00:46:07The sort of things that you're writing about, the independent, lean-in ladies are maybe not going to gravitate to your content.
00:46:13True, true.
00:46:14But I, look, nobody is telling women, and I get in trouble all the time for this, I've never, and nobody that's ever been on this show has told women to have kids that they don't want to have.
00:46:26No one that doesn't want to have kids should have kids. In fact, I'm actively opposed to women who don't want to have kids having kids. I think it's a horrible idea.
00:46:35Could not agree more.
00:46:36I think it's a horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible idea. However, given that most women end up having kids in the end and-
00:46:43Yeah. 86% by the time, the end of their maternal body.
00:46:47But don't forget that women who get to the end of their biological clock, they hit menopause and can't have kids, but didn't have kids.
00:46:55Yes. 80% of them didn't intend to be childless. Four out of five. Four out of five women who don't have children after menopause didn't intend.
00:47:06Which showed you how small.
00:47:07Correct. So 10% of women can't.
00:47:09Right.
00:47:10Very unfortunate. Lots and lots of pain associated with that biologically. Round about 10% of women end up realizing that they didn't want to, don't want to. That is a group as well.
00:47:2080% of women who don't have kids- Did not do that by choice.
00:47:25Didn't intend to be childless.
00:47:26They're not childless by choice.
00:47:27Correct. Yes.
00:47:28Yeah.
00:47:29Yeah.
00:47:30And-
00:47:31Listen, instinct is strong. We are, I mean, we are governed by our instincts, whether we, we don't like to talk about it that way because we want social, we want to set up a social system the way we want it to be, but it's going against what our desires are.
00:47:45And that, and to me, one of my, one of my lines is that societal progress does not undo biological leanings.
00:47:54I mean, we are what we are. We have to work with, you know, I say move with the biological tide, not against it. The more you move with it, the smoother your life will be. Every time you're trying to move against it, you're fighting.
00:48:05You know, I don't want it to be this way. I don't want it to be this way. It shouldn't be this way. And then you're just miserable all the time.
00:48:11Do you think mothers are denigrated in modern society? Like are women punished socially for wanting traditional lives?
00:48:20Um, I don't know if I'd say punished. I just think that they feel that that's the wrong choice to make. That's what I think. That they just cannot shout it from the rooftops, cannot openly talk about it or plan for it. They have to sort of-
00:48:29You don't think women are seen as second class citizens when they become mothers versus when they stay working? To me, it seems, it doesn't seem like there's that much, the pedestalization of mothers seems to come from a counterculture standpoint or a trad wife conservative talking point, like some Christian white picket fence thing.
00:48:48To me, I don't, to me, I don't see that much pro motherhood content. Oh, no. Yes. No, I agree with that.
00:49:07It was on Oprah, and she did 2 million plays a couple of weeks ago.
00:49:11If you're asking me whether that, whether the non-motherhood women, I don't know how you want to define it, gets more play in society, well, yeah, that's like 90-10. But my heart, but you know, it's always, that's mostly because the women who are wives and mothers, and even happy doing it, are quietly living their lives. They're not in front, they're not sitting here, right? So you're not going to hear from them. There's millions of them. It's just, they're not represented.
00:49:35Because the people who are represented in the media, not so much alternative media, but all these years in mainstream media, are the minority of women for whom family is not the focus.
00:49:48That's really important to understand, because prior to YouTube and social media and all of that, all of the information was coming from this small group of women who do not represent the average woman.
00:50:00And that's why it's skewed and makes the masses of women feel like there's something wrong with them, when in fact, they're the norm, and those women you're hearing from are not.
00:50:08I always thought that was very interesting.
00:50:09But they're the most influential and the loudest.
00:50:10Exactly.
00:50:11Yeah.
00:50:12You say who you marry and how that marriage fares will have more of an effect on your happiness and well-being than anything else that you do. Do you think women are aware of this?
00:50:21No.
00:50:22I don't.
00:50:23I don't.
00:50:24I don't.
00:50:25Where would they hear it?
00:50:26Who's saying it to them?
00:50:28I mean, you're not allowed to talk about it.
00:50:30And when, really, when would they hear it?
00:50:32If their parents aren't passing that on.
00:50:34Mm-hmm.
00:50:35Seriously, if their parents are not passing that on, or some family member, they're not going to hear it in the media, they're not going to hear it at school, they're not going to hear it on the—where would you hear it?
00:50:45Well, the Disney movies wouldn't be pushing that kind of a meme as much as it would have done in the 90s and maybe the 2000s.
00:50:53I mean, look, the reality is you can change your career.
00:50:58You can change a job.
00:50:59People do it all the time.
00:51:00You can shift your interests and all of that.
00:51:03But who you marry, if you have children with them, you are tied with them until you die, if you have children.
00:51:10Now, obviously, there's divorce, but A, who wants to promote that?
00:51:13That's not really, you know, what anybody wants to do.
00:51:16And B, you've created a family, and so you are linked.
00:51:21So it has more impact on what direction your life takes than a career choice.
00:51:30Because, again, you can change your career.
00:51:32You can't just change out a husband or a wife.
00:51:34I mean, people try all the time, but it doesn't really work very well.
00:51:37Second marriages are notoriously more flimsy than first.
00:51:40Third, even more so.
00:51:41Fourth, even more.
00:51:42I mean, just go down the line.
00:51:44It's not really an answer for most people.
00:51:47So we need to give it, in my opinion, the weight that it deserves and the attention that it deserves.
00:51:57And we're so afraid to talk about it.
00:52:00And that says so much about where we are today and what we value that we can't even openly talk about what's great about marriage.
00:52:08I mean…
00:52:10If it's the most important decision that someone's going to make…
00:52:13If they want to make it.
00:52:14I'm not telling you you have to make it.
00:52:15Yeah.
00:52:16If you don't want to get married, don't get married.
00:52:17But most people do.
00:52:18Most people do get married, eventually.
00:52:20If it's as important as it is for the people who want to do it.
00:52:23Yeah.
00:52:24Yeah.
00:52:25Isn't that strong evidence against rushing into a marriage?
00:52:30No.
00:52:31I would say…
00:52:33Well, I don't think anybody should rush into marriage, for sure.
00:52:36But I would say it's an argument for early education about marriage.
00:52:42And early education about…
00:52:50Gosh, there's so much education that young people don't get when it comes to this subject.
00:52:54Because, again, we're not allowed to talk about it.
00:52:57Take the fertility crisis, you know?
00:52:59We don't…
00:53:00We're not allowed to talk about the fact that even…
00:53:02You're among friends here.
00:53:03That you have a biological clock.
00:53:05I mean, why should I not talk about that?
00:53:07It's…
00:53:08I can't change it.
00:53:09I didn't make it.
00:53:10It's just jizz, right?
00:53:11So, let's work with it.
00:53:12Let's create a life that works with what is, not with what we wish could be.
00:53:17And so, that's a taboo subject to say that.
00:53:20You can't tell that to women.
00:53:21You know?
00:53:22So, okay.
00:53:23Well, the reality is a 40-year-old man can marry a 30-year-old woman.
00:53:26It's a 30-year-old woman and still have a family.
00:53:28And it's not going to be the same if a woman's 40 and looking for a husband.
00:53:31And let's talk about that.
00:53:32Yeah.
00:53:33Even though it's painful to talk about or whatever.
00:53:35What does dating with purpose look like for modern women?
00:53:40How do you advise women to date well?
00:53:42You know, things have gotten so bad in that department, like so much so over the last 10 or 15 years, really 10 years, that I'm almost to the point where I'm like, just get it out on the table in the first three dates.
00:53:59Just like what you want and what you're looking for.
00:54:03And, you know, I have this theory that you just, you weed out the people who aren't on the same page as you when you just get it out on the table.
00:54:11What does that look like?
00:54:12For example.
00:54:12Okay.
00:54:13We're on a date.
00:54:14We're on a date.
00:54:15I mean, the first date, no.
00:54:16The first date is just, who are you?
00:54:17Hello.
00:54:18Where are you from?
00:54:19What do you like?
00:54:20Okay.
00:54:21It's our third date.
00:54:22Perfect.
00:54:23Presumably, if you're on a third date with someone, you are getting into deeper conversations than on the first, right?
00:54:32Just by nature of you're talking more.
00:54:34So more things are going to come up.
00:54:36You're going to talk about your background, presumably.
00:54:38And you're going to talk about your history and what you want.
00:54:41I think, I guess I did.
00:54:43And naturally in the conversation, you're going to kind of learn whether or not the person is family focused or career focused or wanting something temporary or wanting something permanent.
00:54:55I feel like by the third date, you would know that.
00:54:58Do you disagree?
00:54:59No.
00:55:00And so, why?
00:55:02There's just so much pretending going on.
00:55:04What would you ask?
00:55:05So much fear.
00:55:06Imagine for a second that we're on the date.
00:55:08Let's role play this.
00:55:09And you're going to say, you're going to ask me some of the questions that you think are important for women to ask.
00:55:13You didn't prepare me for this, Chris.
00:55:16Look, you've taught enough women how to do it.
00:55:18Put your cards on the table.
00:55:19I mean, tell me about your, you know, if it didn't come up naturally, tell me about your childhood.
00:55:26Tell me about your parents.
00:55:27Are your parents married?
00:55:28Let's have the conversation.
00:55:29Are your parents married?
00:55:30Why is that important?
00:55:31Because it's going to skew how you think about marriage, probably.
00:55:34Okay.
00:55:35Do you have a good impression of it?
00:55:37Do you have a bad impression of it?
00:55:38All right.
00:55:39What else?
00:55:40What, and then about your work.
00:55:44Tell me about your work.
00:55:46You know, where are you with things?
00:55:48I mean, this sounds more like a business meeting, but it would be more natural than that.
00:55:55You'd be talking about what you like and what you do for work.
00:55:58And that would tell me where you are in the scheme of things.
00:56:01And if you asked me, depending on where I was, that would tell you a lot about me.
00:56:06Let's see, you go all the way back to my twenties.
00:56:10I'll just tell you with my husband, I was a teacher.
00:56:13And so he knew right away that I love children.
00:56:17He knew that, well, I was married before.
00:56:20So there's a great example of just something that comes up naturally.
00:56:24So, oh, well, what happened?
00:56:26Well, and then you get into different values and priorities, which is what happened with my first marriage.
00:56:31And he wanted different things.
00:56:33Oh, well, and then what do you want?
00:56:35Well, I want to have children.
00:56:36I want to be home with them.
00:56:37That ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding is going to tell the guy, well, okay, she wants to be home with him.
00:56:41I guess we're going to live in a one-income family if I stick with this girl.
00:56:44What's wrong with that?
00:56:45I mean, it just gets it out, you know?
00:56:47And if you don't want it, great.
00:56:49Go to the next person.
00:56:50So you should be asking things like, do you want kids?
00:56:54How many?
00:56:55Yes, but it doesn't necessarily have to be so directed.
00:56:57Like I said, it would come up naturally, like I just explained.
00:57:01And he knew just from what I said without having to say, do you want that, you know?
00:57:05The audience are charismatic autists.
00:57:08So they understand how to get something across in a normal way whilst being highly abnormal internally.
00:57:14Okay.
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00:58:21I think you're right.
00:58:22I think that being intentional with dating is one of the most important things.
00:58:26Because I think about basically the way that the human attachment system works.
00:58:29Like not anxious, avoidance, secure, but the human romantic attachment system is basically one big psychedelic trip
00:58:41that hopes that you can attach yourself to this person sufficiently quickly while you're in the drug state
00:58:48before you get to the "my brain's come back online" state.
00:58:52And I wonder how many people started hanging out with this person and, you know, they were nice and hot
00:58:58and I kind of got a bit obsessed with them.
00:58:59They used to text me all the time.
00:59:00And then, you know, we just started hanging out a bit more and that we didn't really move in,
00:59:05but we started staying over at each other's houses a bit.
00:59:07And then we decided, well, we might as well move in.
00:59:09And that was, you know, like nine months or something.
00:59:11And then we got a golden retriever because we thought for Christmas he'd get me a golden retriever.
00:59:14I've always wanted a golden retriever.
00:59:15And then, and then, yeah, we, we just sort of stayed together and things kind of became comfortable.
00:59:21And, you know, we settled into it and then we just thought, well, like you get engaged.
00:59:25That's what people do.
00:59:26You get engaged.
00:59:27And then we, you know, the wedding came along and things were okay.
00:59:31And then, you know, we had the first kit and before, you know, you've fallen backward into a relationship
00:59:36and a cohabiting situation and a dog and an engagement and a marriage and kids that at no point you actually chose.
00:59:43A hundred percent.
00:59:44You didn't choose this thing.
00:59:46This person was around you.
00:59:47That's right.
00:59:48They were in your proximity while you didn't have any serotonin in your brain.
00:59:51That's exactly right.
00:59:52And that is why I have been against cohabitation from day one.
00:59:55And I was saying it from a, in a different way because people, it wasn't from a religious perspective or a sex perspective.
01:00:01It was, it doesn't, it doesn't serve you well to do that for exactly the reason that you described.
01:00:06People often slide into marriage as a result of everything you just described, as opposed to making a conscious,
01:00:12well thought out decision in advance.
01:00:15This is who I want to marry.
01:00:16And you need objectivity for that.
01:00:17You need separation.
01:00:18You need to go home to your own space.
01:00:19But you advise people to do instead?
01:00:21Not live together.
01:00:22Date.
01:00:23At all?
01:00:24No.
01:00:25I mean, once they're engaged, that's fine.
01:00:27Once you've made, it's about making the decision.
01:00:29Make the decision from a distance from living in your own space.
01:00:33Will you marry me?
01:00:34Yes.
01:00:35Aha.
01:00:36And then go about your business.
01:00:37But if you do it before, it's like you said, it's all skewed because, well, you're here.
01:00:42We're in it now.
01:00:43You're LARPing as a married couple without having actually got the wedding done, which makes you think that the wedding becomes more of a formality than a decision.
01:00:50Yes.
01:00:51It's just the natural progress.
01:00:52We're already kind of married, right?
01:00:53We're already doing it.
01:00:54I mean, how many people have gone, well, you know, we're already kind of doing it.
01:00:58That's a really, I've never even thought about it that way.
01:01:00The cohabitation effect, which you're probably familiar with, that gets explained away by a variety of different reasons.
01:01:07But I've never thought about it as keeping you and your partner separate until you make the decision to be engaged.
01:01:14Because what lots of people would say is, I'm not going to marry someone that I don't know if I can live with them.
01:01:18No, but it doesn't.
01:01:19But the difference is you can call off an engagement way easier than you can call off a marriage.
01:01:23And if you're saying the decision that you make is actually the engagement one, right?
01:01:28Once you're on that set of train tracks, the marriage sort of comes along for the ride, but it is a reversible decision.
01:01:34Significantly more reversible than getting the fucking family together and all of the things.
01:01:38And then you've done this big ceremony and rah, rah, rah.
01:01:41If you say you shouldn't make the decision of the engagement, you shouldn't make the proposal until you're sure that this is a good thing to do.
01:01:50And the best way to be sure is to have most of your faculties and logic intact, which means that keeping a little bit of distance is a good idea.
01:01:59I'm sure that people are going to spend weeks together traveling and going on holiday and staying together and stuff, but permanent locked in living together kind of cause you to fall backwards into marriage without thinking about it because it's a natural progression.
01:02:12But then you have still this window of a testing ground of, okay, can we live together?
01:02:19Like, can we lock this in from, uh, engagement up until marriage?
01:02:23That means you're not getting, uh, slip streamed.
01:02:28You're not secretly getting the marriage thing pushed along, but it does allow you to go, oh, fucking hell.
01:02:35Like, I didn't realize that this was going to be such a big deal.
01:02:37And maybe this is something that we-
01:02:39You mean during that engagement period?
01:02:40Yes, exactly.
01:02:41Um, I wonder what the stats are on, if there are any stats on, well, maybe that's, maybe that's what you're looking up.
01:02:49I, I, with you, if you called off the engagement, is that what you want to know?
01:02:52Yeah.
01:02:53Once you're engaged and living together, you mean?
01:02:55Yeah, my point, my point is-
01:02:56Or just living together.
01:02:57Yeah, my point is just, yeah, engaged and living together.
01:02:59If you don't live together until you're engaged, it means that you're not forced to get engaged because you're living together.
01:03:03Right.
01:03:04If you live together during the engagement, it still is a moderately reversible door.
01:03:08I see what you see.
01:03:09If you go, fuck, this does not work.
01:03:11Because most people's, and mine, mine, I'm unmarried, right?
01:03:14Right.
01:03:15My, my concern would be what you're telling me that I'm going to not just get engaged, but get married to this person without knowing if we could live together.
01:03:24That seems like a large risk.
01:03:26What if our lifestyles are incompatible?
01:03:28What if we-
01:03:29Give me an example.
01:03:30Because, you know, there were eons when people didn't live together until they got married, right?
01:03:35More so than there were people who did.
01:03:37And they stayed married more than we do today.
01:03:39That's true.
01:03:40They did.
01:03:41I'm not convinced that that's necessarily because of this reason.
01:03:43No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
01:03:44But I'm saying my question would be, what do you think they did?
01:03:47What, what do you think it was horrible?
01:03:49But what, what do you imagine would, it would be like if you moved in after you were married as opposed to living together?
01:03:57What are the kinds of things, because isn't that, doesn't marriage require you to figure that out anyway for the rest of your life?
01:04:04To a degree, it does.
01:04:05I think what people have, and I'm probably speaking for an entire generation of young men and women who have an ambient fear around there being some fundamental incompatibility that I have with my partner, which is only revealed once we live together.
01:04:21I don't think that's unreasonable to think that it might be the case, that there might be something in there.
01:04:26But I understand what you mean, which is, if you've spent enough time together, you've stayed over at each other's houses, you've spent weeks and maybe even months traveling together and doing things and stuff like that, you know what their sleep pattern is.
01:04:36Yeah, so what do you mean by like, what are the things you learn?
01:04:38Like, you mean dishes?
01:04:40I mean, stupid things?
01:04:41I mean, yeah, your level of tolerance for being together for very extended, very compacted periods of time.
01:04:47I mean, how many marriages did we see break up during COVID because people were spending an amount of time together that they hadn't been exposed to previously?
01:04:58And I have to assume that maybe the same thing might be true if someone had never lived with their partner.
01:05:03Do you think there's a person with whom that wouldn't happen if you were together all the time, that you would love to be with 24/7?
01:05:10Do you think there's a person that would not be an issue?
01:05:13It's a shame that I'm not gay because I've got a couple of friends that I'd happily do that with.
01:05:16I've hung out with a lot of friends for a long time without any distraction and it's been fucking sick.
01:05:23It's just the penis thing gets to me.
01:05:25Yeah.
01:05:28You know what I mean?
01:05:29I'm saying, in other words, you said you want to know whether or not you could live with the person in advance.
01:05:34The level of compatibility.
01:05:36Yeah.
01:05:37And I'm trying to understand why that wouldn't have been ironed out with everything you described, staying over each of those houses.
01:05:41You're right.
01:05:42You're right.
01:05:43I think it's...
01:05:44If it's about being with them all the time because it's so much space together, well, that's going to be the case with whoever you marry, right?
01:05:49So is there a person whom you could spend that much time with and it wouldn't matter at all?
01:05:52Or is that just human nature to rub up against each other?
01:05:55It's trying to avoid some of the huge issues.
01:05:59Anyway, just this cohabitation effect.
01:06:02Divorce rate for people who cohabited before marriage, 31.4%.
01:06:06Divorce rate for people who did not cohabitate before marriage, 25.9%.
01:06:10Earlier research often found premarital cohabitation associated with roughly 20 to 50% higher divorce risk depending on controls and demographics.
01:06:19The sliding versus deciding, that's exactly what you're talking about.
01:06:23So the unclear commitment is a really...
01:06:25And inertia is the same thing.
01:06:26Yeah.
01:06:27Unclear commitment is a really interesting one, which is one of the explanations for the cohabitation effect is that what both partners are doing is saying, you're good enough for right now.
01:06:43You're good enough for us to live together, but you're not good enough for me to get engaged to at the moment.
01:06:48So it's an amount of commitment, but it's not the commitment that everybody's looking for.
01:06:56But obviously, one of the criticisms of the cohabitation effect is that it's a selection effect.
01:07:01People who don't live together before they get married includes a whole host of very religious communities who've got much more stringent rules around divorce.
01:07:11They've got a culture that supports marriage in a different sort of a way.
01:07:14The kinds of people who wouldn't live together before also may be likely to be virgins or less sociosexual.
01:07:21There is something about that kind of person.
01:07:23But I also think that it's too big of a difference between 20% and 50% increases in divorce because of cohabitation.
01:07:30There has to be something about cohabiting which causes that impact.
01:07:34And of course, the studies have been done as you, I mean, the sliding versus deciding is not small.
01:07:42That's a huge piece of it.
01:07:44I mean, you.
01:07:45I've never heard that before.
01:07:46It's such a cool slide.
01:07:47You slide into it because you're already there.
01:07:49And the reasons why you shack up, let's say, are different from the reasons why you get down on one knee and ask someone to marry you for the rest of your life.
01:07:57Those are two different decisions completely.
01:07:59They don't really have anything in common.
01:08:00So you started out with this sort of flimsy thing and then you can't really figure out if this is the one because you're already doing it.
01:08:07And that's where the sliding comes in.
01:08:08And that's the inertia thing too.
01:08:09Yeah.
01:08:10It's just momentum.
01:08:11Yeah.
01:08:12We've already started to, you know, we're paying for the rent together.
01:08:14And maybe they bought a house.
01:08:15That's even, don't ever buy a house with somebody you're not married to.
01:08:18Don't ever buy a house with somebody you're not married to.
01:08:20No, don't do anything financial that binds you if you're not married.
01:08:25You're going to, it's a, it's a, it's a really dumb idea.
01:08:29I don't know how else to say that.
01:08:31Okay.
01:08:32So women dating well, dating with purpose.
01:08:36Dating with purpose or don't date at all.
01:08:38I mean, just date with, and get it out on the table and you will weed out.
01:08:42It's selective.
01:08:43If they don't want it, no hard feelings.
01:08:45Bye.
01:08:46That's fine.
01:08:47Do you feel you with the idea of a shit test?
01:08:48Do you know what that is?
01:08:49From women to?
01:08:50Pick up artistry.
01:08:51Yeah.
01:08:52Yes.
01:08:53The women to the men.
01:08:54Exactly.
01:08:55They shit test their men.
01:08:56Yeah, exactly.
01:08:57To see if they're strong enough.
01:08:58Push their buttons.
01:08:59Yep.
01:09:00Yep.
01:09:01Exactly.
01:09:02I had an equivalent when I was dating, which was, I would send weird psychology articles to
01:09:08the girl that I was talking to, to see what she would respond with.
01:09:12To see what her reaction was.
01:09:13Yeah.
01:09:14So I'm like, look, this is kind of important to me.
01:09:15Yeah.
01:09:16My work is something that I care about and I think is interesting.
01:09:18And marriage is basically one big fucking long podcast.
01:09:22It's a huge conversation that lasts for 20,000 or 30,000 hours.
01:09:25Amen.
01:09:26I'm still having it.
01:09:27It's important to me and relationship.
01:09:30Yeah.
01:09:31My relationships have failed in the past because I haven't had much or enough.
01:09:34Interest in that same thing.
01:09:35To talk about.
01:09:36Yeah.
01:09:37With my partner.
01:09:38And that means it's really important that we can get on the same page.
01:09:40So I would almost over signal weird psychology articles upfront in the same way as you're
01:09:45saying, get it all out on the table.
01:09:46I think that's great.
01:09:47Like, obviously there is an upper bound of how weird you should be.
01:09:50You can be too weird, right?
01:09:52Yeah.
01:09:53Maybe don't talk about your farting problem and your athletes fart on the first time.
01:09:55Yeah.
01:09:56No, no.
01:09:57However, I do think, you know, being you relatively unapologetically you with the intentions that
01:10:04you have and the things that you're interested in is good to get out early.
01:10:08Especially before you've had sex and before you've gone too far down the line.
01:10:12What do you have to lose?
01:10:13Send the psychology today articles before you had sex.
01:10:15Yes.
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01:11:20Okay, so what do you think about timing?
01:11:23Have you talked to women about how long you should date before engagement, be engaged before marriage, marriage before kids?
01:11:30Is that something that you consider?
01:11:32I mean, I get asked about it and I don't have any hard line about it.
01:11:36I think it can be different for different people and I think the circumstances matter.
01:11:41And how old you were when you met and what you're doing and what your background was like and how you are as a person.
01:11:47So I don't think there's a hard line.
01:11:49For example, I knew my first husband for five years before we married and we were married four years and divorced.
01:11:55No kids.
01:11:56I married my husband, current husband, only husband that I think of when I think of husband is a year after I met him.
01:12:04So he asked me six months after we met.
01:12:06Wow.
01:12:07Now I was 29 and he was 33.
01:12:09So I do think it speeds up insofar as you, it's just, but there were a lot of circumstances there that to somebody else that might sound fast, but actually, and it was, but the circumstances were in place that made it make sense.
01:12:23How long was kids after?
01:12:24And because I'd been with five years, sorry, with the other one, obviously I had a thing that, well, that didn't work either.
01:12:29So in my mind, I'm like, well, I guess the.
01:12:32How long were kids after the marriage?
01:12:34I was married at 30, had a daughter at 32 and a son at 35.
01:12:37Yep.
01:12:38Cool.
01:12:39Okay.
01:12:40All right.
01:12:41So you've got this situation where perhaps a woman is going to have to go to their husband and say, I want to stay home.
01:12:50I want to stay at home.
01:12:51I wonder how many men, I think this is probably increasingly true.
01:12:56I wonder how many men are going to feel indignant or not seen in the fact that the lean in quite masculine energy woman that they go into a relationship with who maybe they were trying to encourage into her softness and her femininity for a long time and battle against, and perhaps subdued some of the desires that they had around.
01:13:18Well, you know, she's on a career thing and I guess that's not the kind of life that I'm going to have.
01:13:25So they've kind of got into this expectation and maybe even tried to suggest and encourage that softness and that femininity to come through only for them to find out after kids that they were right, but early.
01:13:40I haven't had that exact same scenario that you just described come up in coaching anyway, but because usually it's from the woman's side.
01:13:49Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:13:50It might not be something that they would freely admit.
01:13:53No, but it's.
01:13:54I was a lean in boss lady type energy for a long time and he actually asked me to do this a while ago and.
01:14:01Totally.
01:14:02And I actually read a book called The Alpha Females Guide to Men in Marriage.
01:14:05I don't know if you saw that.
01:14:06And that's all about how the type A masculinized, hard charging woman can become softer.
01:14:12It's a whole book about how to become soft.
01:14:13Fascinating.
01:14:14What are the key takeaways from that?
01:14:16Gosh.
01:14:17I'm aware it's an entire book to be summarized, but.
01:14:21That was 2017, Chris.
01:14:24That was so long ago.
01:14:25I know.
01:14:26No, the gist of it is there's just a lot of little examples there of ways to soften your approach and delivery so that it's received better.
01:14:36And to understand that all those skills that you mastered and used to be successful at work, which absolutely works.
01:14:43In public.
01:14:44Really well in the marketplace.
01:14:45Yeah.
01:14:46Are a complete disaster at home.
01:14:48That the skills that you have mastered are the exact opposite skills of what you need to make this work.
01:14:55And that is why so many, I think.
01:14:58Wow, you really write unpopular books.
01:15:00I really do.
01:15:01I mean, they sell, but like they're culturally horrendous.
01:15:05They're horrendous.
01:15:06You're actually quite toxic.
01:15:07Yeah.
01:15:08I really am.
01:15:09It's sort of like, what's wrong with me?
01:15:12You know, like, I, you know, it's.
01:15:16Most of what I write comes from either personal experience or things that I've seen that either.
01:15:24A lot of writers are writing what they're working through themselves, you know, so there's that piece.
01:15:28And then.
01:15:29Research is me search.
01:15:30Research is me search.
01:15:31But also just knowing things and you can't unknow them.
01:15:34And you hear the lies that are spread and you just can't shut up about it.
01:15:37I mean, that's basically my writing career.
01:15:39And so I'm like, that's not true.
01:15:42And I want to be helpful to people who are busy living their lives, doing their thing.
01:15:46And unless you do this research, you really don't know that what you're being fed is crap.
01:15:50You know, it bugs the hell out of me.
01:15:53So that's that's my motivation.
01:15:55But anyway.
01:15:56Yeah, I wrote.
01:15:57So so that book is basically saying, look, everything you've been taught to do works great in the marketplace.
01:16:02But if you want to be successful in your love life, you need to develop a whole different set of skills, because that's not going to work.
01:16:08Because if you've married a masculine, you know, just a man.
01:16:11You're going to, you know, he doesn't want that.
01:16:16So it's going to and you don't really, you need the yin and the yang, you need the masculine.
01:16:22There's a line in your new one, when women think and behave like a man conflict in a relationship is inevitable.
01:16:27Yeah.
01:16:28Men and women, the biggest distinction I feel like between them when it comes to communicating is that there needs to be receptivity on the part of the woman that I think is lacking when they're natural.
01:16:57And I can speak from personal experience with this if you're a natural arguer, which clearly I am.
01:17:02That's what I do with my work.
01:17:03So this really did come from my own space.
01:17:05I always want to say the argument, the other side, you know, and it bugs the hell out of my husband.
01:17:10But that's I sometimes that's not necessary or needed in that space.
01:17:16Yeah, disagreeability is actually ability.
01:17:18It's it's positively correlated with earning professionally.
01:17:21Correct.
01:17:22Because it allows you to advocate.
01:17:23I need I need it.
01:17:24I need it.
01:17:25I need a pay rise.
01:17:26Yeah.
01:17:27I deserve a pay rise.
01:17:28That interview with Jordan Peterson.
01:17:30Oh, my God.
01:17:31Yeah.
01:17:32Four times I must have seen it.
01:17:33Just brilliant.
01:17:34One of my favorite interviews of all time.
01:17:35And I loved it when he said, you know, well, you're disagreeable.
01:17:38It's working great for you here.
01:17:39But that was a good Jordan.
01:17:41That was a great Jordan.
01:17:42I mean, but you take that woman in that space, the way she was behaving.
01:17:46Think about everything she was doing in that moment and take her home and her relationship and how that would go over.
01:17:52You know, it just it just wouldn't.
01:17:54It's hard.
01:17:55You know, women used to be a lot more naturally feminine and they were encouraged to be and they were more receptive and they were softer and they dressed like a woman.
01:18:05And all of that's changed.
01:18:06And I'm just saying, you know, wouldn't hurt to bring a little bit of that back if you want to have peace in your relationship.
01:18:11Jared, can you quickly YouTube Whitney Cummings, Chris Williamson, a challenge?
01:18:18And it should be a short video.
01:18:20It should be a short.
01:18:21It did like guerrillion plays.
01:18:24But Whitney basically explains high powered comedian lady leading Hollywood exec, lots of things and had got deeper into her thirties and was still dating.
01:18:36So had maybe developed some of that, you know, professional pushiness.
01:18:42And yeah, that top left 5.4 mil.
01:18:45That one.
01:18:46Yeah.
01:18:48I dated a professional athlete.
01:18:50Great at what he does.
01:18:51There's not a lot of room for emotion to be involved.
01:18:53It's either true or it's not true or you're gonna get your neck broken.
01:18:55He could date whoever he wanted or sleep with whoever he wanted.
01:18:58And we were like arguing about something and I was like, well, why would you date me if like I'm the person you date if you want like a challenge?
01:19:04And he just went, why would any man want a challenge in their relationship?
01:19:09In that moment was like, oh my God, I thought it was like hot to you.
01:19:12I thought it was like what guys wanted.
01:19:14I thought it was like feisty.
01:19:16Like I apologize.
01:19:18Well, especially if you're dating somebody that is high performing in any realm, has goals.
01:19:23If you're working that hard in the office, you really want to come home and be like, right, there's that to do list done.
01:19:28I wonder what fires I need to fight when I step through the front door as well.
01:19:31I dated that.
01:19:32Yeah.
01:19:33That's the alpha book that I wrote.
01:19:34That's exactly in a nutshell.
01:19:35Like who wants that?
01:19:36That's not gonna work.
01:19:37And so there's a lot of this going on in relationships because of this.
01:19:40What's the truth about the financial requirements for raising a kid?
01:19:44Oh, my.
01:19:45Well, it's really not that expensive in the early years, for one thing.
01:19:49You just need diapers and formula, right?
01:19:52Over the years, you know, if you're looking at the whole 18 years, there's a financial piece to it for sure, but it's also not mandatory to do in a certain fashion.
01:20:04In other words, you don't need to have a lot of money to have children.
01:20:08You need to want to have a family and utilize the monies that you have to make that work.
01:20:17So it's not like, in other words, don't have children because I can't send them to private schools and I can't send them to college and I can't buy them all the nice things and we can't go to Disney or whatever.
01:20:25You don't need all of that, even if it seems like everybody's doing that around you, in order to have children.
01:20:32So like in the early years, for us, there was no, we didn't live the way we did, say, when they were in high school, when they were early, when they were young.
01:20:42I mean, you, you live on less, you know, you make those choices and you make trade-offs and that's worth it to you if you value and you, if you value family and you value having a person at home then, or a mom at home or whatever.
01:20:58It's just a no brainer.
01:20:59Like it never occurred to me, oh, well, I can't do three vacations a year, so I shouldn't do this.
01:21:04Or, oh, I have to send in a private school to be able to do it.
01:21:07It just, you work with what you have.
01:21:09Why do you think it's the case, if that's true, if it's not as expensive to raise a child as people think?
01:21:15It doesn't have to be.
01:21:16Yeah.
01:21:17It doesn't have to be.
01:21:18Why do so many women, and men too, but primarily women, cite economic requirements and economic instability as one of the main reasons that we can't afford to have a child?
01:21:29Who can have a child in this economy?
01:21:31I feel like this is the fourth time I've said this.
01:21:34I have a theory that social media has been extremely harmful in a lot of ways, but especially for people's perspective of what's real and what's not.
01:21:48And believing that, A, if someone says it, it must be true.
01:21:55B, if everybody that you're seeing looks like they're saying this and living this way, well, that's the only way to live then.
01:22:02You know, this is it.
01:22:03I can't do it.
01:22:04But when you're not exposed to that, you have a more insular, which is good insular in this sense, perspective, just with your own little community and your own family.
01:22:16It's just not, it's just been really harmful, in my opinion, to see all these lives that look like they're the norm, and it makes you feel inadequate.
01:22:24And I think that plays into that, believing that you have to live this certain way to have children.
01:22:31No, you don't.
01:22:32I mean, you can do things your way.
01:22:34If you can't afford that lifestyle, that doesn't mean you don't have kids.
01:22:37I mean, is the argument that kids are harmed by that?
01:22:40You know, that's another interesting thing.
01:22:42Kids don't need all that.
01:22:43It's interesting.
01:22:44I wonder whether people think that kids would be more harmed by not having three vacations a year or more harmed by not having mum at home.
01:22:50What do you think they would say?
01:22:53That's kind of a trite example.
01:22:56That's a silly example.
01:22:57I don't think that even the more extreme people.
01:22:59No one would say that would be true.
01:23:00But, you know, certainly, I don't know, conversations.
01:23:06I don't know what it is that people think that they need.
01:23:08Maybe the size of the house.
01:23:09Like, certainly housing's a big deal, right?
01:23:11So few people want to raise a family in an apartment.
01:23:14They want to have a house.
01:23:16They maybe want to have a little bit of garden yard to play in with the kids.
01:23:20And lots and lots of people are in housing that is not built for kids.
01:23:26Like, do you want to raise a family in a fucking apartment?
01:23:28Really?
01:23:29I mean, if you ask most people, they're going to say no, right?
01:23:35But it doesn't have to be a, as they say these days, forever home either.
01:23:39It can be a starter home.
01:23:41I mean, starter homes are really expensive, too, these days.
01:23:43But, I mean, you can raise a kid in the first, I don't know, five, six, seven, eight years in a three-bedroom house, a two-bedroom, small, like, 1,500-square-foot house if you had to.
01:23:53I mean, it's just hard because I would-
01:23:54It's also, look at, sorry for interrupting, just think about what people are optimizing for.
01:23:57Yes, right.
01:23:58That people are optimizing to be near the coffee shops and, like, the cute place that they go for brunch with the girls.
01:24:03You go, maybe this is a period, like, the kids aren't going to school, so if you're okay to move within the next five years or something.
01:24:10I mean, the market's, like, a fucking nightmare at the moment.
01:24:12Yeah, it is.
01:24:13At least in Austin.
01:24:14Austin's, you've seen Austin's market, Jared?
01:24:15It's, like, two or three times as many sellers as there are buyers.
01:24:18Yeah, it's fine.
01:24:19It's like the craziest sex ratio in history.
01:24:21Anyway, that's one of the things that people optimize for that they probably wouldn't want to not.
01:24:28But you go, hey, if you move, fuck me, if you're prepared to get 30 minutes outside of Austin, you can get a lot of house.
01:24:36Like, a shit ton of house for your money.
01:24:38Exactly, bingo.
01:24:39Again, it's just be willing to go out 30 minutes more.
01:24:42There's so many options that aren't entertained if it's not exactly what you envision or want.
01:24:49From the start.
01:24:50So much about wanting what you want right now instead of, there's a stepping stone to that.
01:24:55And a lot of that has to do with, yes, inflated expectations for sure.
01:25:00Again, social media plays a role into that.
01:25:02But also, the longer you live without getting married and having kids, going back to what we were saying before.
01:25:06The greater your lifestyle inflation.
01:25:08You're making it really hard on yourself, in my opinion, actually, doing it that way.
01:25:12Because everything looks harder in some ways.
01:25:15We've always said that's the thing you're supposed to do.
01:25:18For decades, you've been saying, wait, wait, wait, do everything in your 30s.
01:25:21You know, there's just this whole theory, philosophy around that, that I don't agree with, but that's the philosophy.
01:25:27And it's been touted for a long time now.
01:25:29But again, nobody ever talked about the flip side of that, which is what we're talking about as you're getting used to the certain life.
01:25:34Hugely, yeah.
01:25:35Hugely, yeah.
01:25:35I mean, the opportunity to grow, to become accustomed to a particular type of life.
01:25:43So much of what we're dealing with at the moment is people getting what they want, not what they need.
01:25:48And it's not what they want, it's what they think they want.
01:25:50100%.
01:25:51And puppeted by, and this is true for all of us, right?
01:25:54Like, we're mimetic social creatures, like it's the way that it works.
01:25:57A friend gave me a really interesting thought experiment that kind of relates to the kids might be better off having three holidays a year than having mum at home, or something like that.
01:26:07That, imagine that you had a situation where two mums decided that they were going to start up a solo business looking after children.
01:26:16So they were going to become nannies, and each mother was going to look after the other's child and pay each other the exact same amount for it.
01:26:23Or the mother would stay at home and just look after their own.
01:26:26In one of these, she's a self-starting business person that is praised and has a lot going on for my friend's situation.
01:26:34And in the other, they're just a mum.
01:26:37And the, it's such a cool example because it kind of shows the expectation, or like if it was two kids, no one would be a full-time nanny for one kid with one kid.
01:26:48Yeah.
01:26:49But to do it for two or to do it for three.
01:26:50Yes.
01:26:51And you go, well, I can fund my childcare with me doing childcare.
01:26:55And it's just, I don't know, I'm just aware that I'm horribly on the outside pissing inside of this tent, but like.
01:27:05What sense does that make?
01:27:06What sense does what you were just describing make?
01:27:08Yeah, of course.
01:27:09Look, I'm allowed to comment on stuff.
01:27:11I'm sat in the stands throwing, hurling mud and muck at people that are trying to make this work.
01:27:16I am trying to be very empathetic about it.
01:27:18But it really differentiates, I mean, again, that's exactly something you would learn about somebody when you're dating them, right?
01:27:23Are you doing this because this is what you value?
01:27:27In other words, basically it comes down to that as what do you value?
01:27:33What do you want?
01:27:35If the most important thing to you is being present in your children's life and building that relationship and being responsible for that person's character and development and all the rest.
01:27:45I don't care about any money or any other things.
01:27:48Like that's, that's it.
01:27:49That's the focus.
01:27:50The person who has to have the paycheck in order to feel good is going to have a different approach to all these decisions, these family decisions that you're making with her.
01:28:01And so much of it is the inertia.
01:28:04It's the momentum that you've had of what did my friends value?
01:28:07What was my lifestyle like when I was younger?
01:28:10What did I use social media in order to be able to advertise online?
01:28:15Like I'm not going to be able to talk about my travels anymore.
01:28:18I'm not going to be able to show where we're going for trips.
01:28:23I'm not going to be able to wear the outfits and go out.
01:28:26There's a lot of costs in the sort of marketplace that people are inhabiting.
01:28:31It's lots of costs.
01:28:32There are a lot of costs.
01:28:33There are a lot of costs.
01:28:34And there are costs.
01:28:35And this is, I think, important.
01:28:36There are a lot of costs that women pay that the men don't.
01:28:38Like the guys can still, six months into baby, the guys can still go out and see their friends and go and watch the game on a weekend.
01:28:47That's going to be much, that's going to be like, oh my God, this is the first time in six months that I've been able to go out for mom.
01:28:54That's not going to be the same.
01:28:55There are requirements and lifestyle sacrifices that women have to make that men don't.
01:28:59And that being that social media and the current currency is attention and status.
01:29:06That's a big hit to what the rest of the world valued you for.
01:29:11The latter being the most important piece of that because there's so much opportunity for growth and learning about this whole piece of the world that you've turned your mind away from.
01:29:23That you're going to learn by not getting a paycheck and caregiving and throwing yourself into this space that's so unfamiliar to you and scary at first.
01:29:37But the things that I hear from people who have done that is, oh my God, I mean, I wouldn't have changed that.
01:29:43Like you said that, you said how many people, how many women would change their mind?
01:29:46Yeah.
01:29:47Yeah.
01:29:48The growth is there, but we just don't, again, we don't value it and we're not allowed to talk about it.
01:29:54And you don't advertise it in the same way.
01:29:55No.
01:29:56So all they hear are the costs.
01:29:58There's this whole other piece that's missing.
01:30:01I mean, there really isn't any way to explain to somebody when you're home with a two-year-old, let's say, and they're climbing the steps one at a time.
01:30:12And you've already been home and you're bonding and you're doing the attachment, you know, it's all in place.
01:30:17And she or he is two years old and he's climbing steps for the first time.
01:30:20And you're, of course, behind him so he doesn't fall.
01:30:23And each time he climbs to the next step, he'll turn around and see if you're there.
01:30:28Then he'll go back and he'll take the next step.
01:30:31And he turns around to see if you're there.
01:30:33And by the time it's done, you have just created a human in that little space there of trust that is going to carry them for the rest of their life.
01:30:44And those are the things that are intangible and that nobody talks about.
01:30:48And you have to actually do it to see it.
01:30:50And I just want people to know about it before so they understand what's really going on there.
01:30:55What do you think the lessons are that men and women are told about the value of money versus time at home?
01:31:07I don't think there's any attention paid to the value or the significance of time at home.
01:31:18I think there is only focus on money.
01:31:21I don't, I mean, we have never been more materialistic ever in history than we are today.
01:31:29And once you get on that treadmill, I guess, it's, you're just, it's almost, it's like autopilot.
01:31:39You just don't even realize there's a whole world outside of you.
01:31:42It's called life, right?
01:31:44Life that doesn't, you know, chores, errands, raising children, cooking.
01:31:50There's just this whole world that has nothing to do with earning money that is like life.
01:31:54It's the stuff life is made of.
01:31:56Somebody has got to do it, which sounds like it's a bad thing to do, but a, somebody has to do it.
01:32:01Yes.
01:32:01But also somebody gets to do it, you know, and, and with no attention on that, um, I don't think that people even, um, recognize it as there.
01:32:16And then when they do it, they get resentful about it because they're so focused on trying to make money that this, all this other stuff I just described is getting in the way.
01:32:25Of their path that they're on.
01:32:27And it's like, that's where the resentments coming in.
01:32:29But this is actually a job in and of itself, creating a home, raising children, doing errands, cooking.
01:32:36I mean, cooking is a subject in and of itself because we're fast food nation now and people are overweight and they're like, how did I get this way?
01:32:43And it's like, cause no one's in the kitchen cooking anymore.
01:32:46It's so daunting when you're constantly working, no one's going to cook at the end of a 10 hour work day.
01:32:52Nobody.
01:32:52That's when it all started to go downhill when nobody was home to cook.
01:32:55That's interesting.
01:32:56I mean, the obesity, the childhood obesity, which tripled in the last 50 years happened at the same time mothers left the home in mass.
01:33:05Because what do you, who do you think was cooking before?
01:33:07When we, before, when we didn't have, um, the obesity crisis, why was that?
01:33:13We, people talk about chemicals and oils and that's all fine and great.
01:33:16But the truth is there was a mom in a kitchen cooking.
01:33:19Well, calories are king, right?
01:33:21And if you know what you've put into your food, regardless of the seed oils, it's.
01:33:26It's calories in calories out.
01:33:27Correct.
01:33:28Yeah.
01:33:29And if the kids are getting takeout on the way home.
01:33:32It's the lifestyle.
01:33:33It's a lifestyle switch that has happened that has created all these other problems.
01:33:38What do you think about, there's a big debate around the, the double shift for women.
01:33:42The sort of share of housework between men and women.
01:33:49Every, every, every question, every question that I ask you, it seems like it kind of comes with, it pains you.
01:33:57I'm sorry.
01:33:58It's just, um, sometimes you're asking me some things that I haven't actually talked about or thought about a while, but I've written about extensively.
01:34:04So I just have to pull it out of my mind.
01:34:06Yep.
01:34:07Um, full-time motherhood includes all of those things that people are now fighting about between each other.
01:34:19Um, husbands and wives or couples about who does more or whatever.
01:34:24So if you have somebody at home raising children, those things that we're talking about are going to naturally be part of that lifestyle of raising children.
01:34:34So for example, when I was home and my husband was working, I would do more child, I would do more, um, household chores because I'm there.
01:34:41I'm physically home-based and there.
01:34:43So I did the grocery shopping.
01:34:44I did the cooking.
01:34:45He would come home and do the cleaning.
01:34:46He did plenty.
01:34:47He changed diapers.
01:34:48He cleaned.
01:34:49He did all that he could do on top of his full-time job.
01:34:51But at no point did I fight with him or play tit for tat about who's doing more because you didn't have to because once you've divided it up that way, it's kind of obvious.
01:35:01That stuff only came into play when women started working full-time too.
01:35:05And now you've got both people doing it and men and women don't respond to the home stuff in the same way.
01:35:12So women think men are supposed to respond the way they would respond.
01:35:16But again, my, if, if you come with the argument that men and women aren't the same interchangeable, it makes perfect sense.
01:35:21But to them it's, well, what do you mean we're equal?
01:35:23So I should do this and you should do this.
01:35:24He's going to step over the sock maybe because he doesn't see it or he doesn't care about it.
01:35:28It's not because he thinks you're supposed to pick it up.
01:35:30That's not the point.
01:35:31It's just, he doesn't care.
01:35:32And you care.
01:35:33And women care more about the home because they're nesters.
01:35:36They're nesters by nature, even if they work.
01:35:39There's a cool study that's done that women's level of sexual arousal based on how tidy the house is.
01:35:49That basically, if there's not orderliness around the house, then they can sometimes struggle to switch off.
01:35:58So that's being irritated by the sock is a perfect example of that.
01:36:01I don't know how many socks it takes to turn off your horniness, but maybe not many for some women.
01:36:05Maybe some women are more sock sensitive than others.
01:36:08My point being that the same is not true for a man.
01:36:13Not at all.
01:36:14On average, let's say.
01:36:15There's another great story I saw on Twitter.
01:36:17It was so good.
01:36:18A woman had asked the man to do the dishes while she was out.
01:36:23And she came back to find that he'd grouted the shower.
01:36:26He'd like re-grouted the shower.
01:36:28So he'd gone in and fixed all in between all of the tiles and he'd done this seal stuff.
01:36:32And he came back and was like, so happy for it.
01:36:35And she was mad at him because he didn't do the dishes.
01:36:39And it kind of speaks to this.
01:36:41There are certain tasks and roles that aren't necessarily seen by each other.
01:36:48As important.
01:36:49Yes.
01:36:50Yes.
01:36:51100% that is.
01:36:52I haven't even noticed.
01:36:53How often do you think she thought about the grouting in the shower?
01:36:56Never.
01:36:57Never.
01:36:58Or the fact that the oil in the car hadn't been changed?
01:36:59No, never.
01:37:00And that's a big difference between men and women.
01:37:02And that's why the playing tit for tat is so bad.
01:37:05And going back to what you just said about a woman not being able to overlook the sock.
01:37:09A great...
01:37:10I always tell men to like if they...
01:37:11Well, you can't do this on any kind of regular basis, I guess.
01:37:13But if you were to move a wife from the home and get her in a hotel room, let's say.
01:37:17Or just, I don't know, somewhere else that's not the home.
01:37:22Sexually, I'm talking about.
01:37:23She's going to be able to be more receptive because she doesn't have to tune out everything in her midst.
01:37:28Which is what you were getting at.
01:37:29That's interesting.
01:37:30That needs to be done in the home.
01:37:31She's totally in sexual mode because, oh, I'm in a hotel room.
01:37:34Or, oh, I'm at a party.
01:37:35Or whatever it is you're taking her to is away from that drudgery, which pulls away from her sexual desire.
01:37:41Because you want to go get to that stuff.
01:37:44Jared, how old's your kid?
01:37:46Eight months.
01:37:47Eight months.
01:37:48Okay.
01:37:49Well, there's your hack, dude.
01:37:50If you need to pipe it a bit more.
01:37:52Yeah.
01:37:53Just...
01:37:54Hey, darling, I've got us an evening in a hotel and a nanny.
01:37:56Locally, locally.
01:37:57Yeah.
01:37:58Sick.
01:37:59Report back to me.
01:38:02There's an interesting bit of old school productivity bro advice, which is you shouldn't have your desk inside of your bedroom.
01:38:11There should be a separation of work and sleep.
01:38:13Yeah.
01:38:14Because for the exact same reason.
01:38:15Yeah.
01:38:16But what's interesting here is the stay at home mom's office is the house.
01:38:21So that means, hey, if you're asking me to do something that is different in energy to what I do here typically, that might be a bit hard.
01:38:35Yeah.
01:38:36Because a woman doesn't feel sexy when she's, you know, cleaning the kitchen.
01:38:39That's not a sexual...
01:38:40Depends what outfit you're in.
01:38:42Okay.
01:38:43Daycare.
01:38:44What do you think about daycare?
01:38:54It's a necessary evil for many people.
01:38:55They think it's a necessary evil.
01:38:57They've got work.
01:38:58They can't be at home with their kids.
01:39:00It's a necessary evil for many people.
01:39:01It's a necessary evil for many people.
01:39:02It's a necessary evil for many people.
01:39:03It's a necessary evil for many people.
01:39:04It's a necessary evil for many people.
01:39:05It's a necessary evil for many people.
01:39:06It's a necessary evil for many people.
01:39:07It's a necessary evil for many people.
01:39:08It's a necessary evil for many people.
01:39:09It's a necessary evil for many people.
01:39:10It's a necessary evil for many people.
01:39:11It's a necessary evil for many people.
01:39:12It's a necessary evil for many people.
01:39:13It's a necessary evil for many people.
01:39:14It's a necessary evil for many people.
01:39:15It's a necessary evil for many people.
01:39:16It's a necessary evil for many people.
01:39:17It's a necessary evil for many people.
01:39:18When it opened up, which it did over time, to just anybody who wanted to use it just because, regardless of their financial circumstances, that's when it ballooned and became, eventually over time, just a way of life.
01:39:33Like, just normal.
01:39:35And one of the things that's been really interesting is watching, even like I told you I started this 25 years ago when I was first writing about this, that was at a time when the mommy wars were all raging.
01:39:45And it was kind of understood that you had to defend your choice of using daycare if you were using it.
01:39:54Like, people were writing about it because it was instinctively understood that that was not good.
01:40:00It was understood.
01:40:02Fast forward 25 years and I have noticed people are talking about it like they're taking a shower, dropping off their two-year-old in daycare or one-year-old or whatever, six-week-old, literally like it's nothing.
01:40:13And I look at that and I see what's happened and I, this is not, this person literally has no idea that daycare is bad.
01:40:24No clue.
01:40:26So you can't, it's almost like you can't blame her per se because she just doesn't know what she doesn't know.
01:40:32And I truly believe that's where young moms are today.
01:40:34They really have no idea.
01:40:35Daycare is the last place that, that littles belong.
01:40:40Littles belong at home with their mom.
01:40:43If not with mom, with dad.
01:40:44If not with dad, then grandma.
01:40:46If not with grandma, nanny.
01:40:47If not with a nanny, a neighborhood, small.
01:40:50I mean, daycare is the bottom of the bottom.
01:40:53Why?
01:40:54It's, the reason why is it's so giant.
01:40:58It's so un, it's, um, it's too big, number one, and you have so much turnover and in and out of people coming and going that the attachment that you are trying to replace for what they need in those early years that can only be really done with one-on-one person, it can't be had in an environment like that.
01:41:11They, it's way too stressful.
01:41:24There is, I mean, I think if people go into daycares, really go into them and see what goes on, they'd have a better, um, understanding of what it really looks like.
01:41:38But it's like you're lined up, like you're one of a bunch of people and you're just, it's, it's a pecking order, you know, you're, you're a part of a machine almost.
01:41:48There's no, all those, um, needs that need to be met in the early years can't possibly be met in an institutional environment like that.
01:41:56I mean, the sleep alone, I mean, babies need sleep and they need to be on a schedule and they need quiet and they need peace and they need to be cared for in a way that is not possible to replicate in a daycare center.
01:42:12And because one kid is awake and crying or making noise while another is trying to sleep.
01:42:17As an example, yes, or, or 10 people are, and how can you sleep with 10 people, you know, um, or if you're hungry, you're not necessarily going to be fed until they can get to you.
01:42:27Or you start to attach yourself to somebody and then that person goes into another room and gets moved or he, he or she leaves, she usually she leaves the building altogether after you've started to develop an attachment.
01:42:37And then the, the, the, the exhaustion, the mere exhaustion.
01:42:41So all those tears.
01:42:42And by the way, just to clarify, there's a big difference between a couple of hours in an environment like that and 10 hours for a one year old, let's say, and people don't delineate or talk about that.
01:42:54There's massive difference.
01:42:55I mean, a baby can handle an hour or two apart or even an environment like that temporarily if they know that they're immediately, you know, going back to mom.
01:43:04But 10 hours being left there, eight hours or whatever is, is awful.
01:43:10It's just bad.
01:43:11I, uh, posted a couple of clips with Erica talking about, talking about daycare.
01:43:17Some of the interesting sentiments that came back from moms, uh, things like my kid loved going to daycare.
01:43:23He, he can't wait.
01:43:24He wants to run out of the car or, or, uh, like he's always really happy and, and smiley when I drop him off at daycare.
01:43:31What do you think about that?
01:43:32So there are many things that occur in the, um, drop off pickup scenario with a mom and a baby.
01:43:41I mean, nine out of 10 times when you first introduce a baby to that environment, you're going to get tears.
01:43:47Actually, both, both people, both people are crying usually both mom and the baby.
01:43:51And you'll hear story after story.
01:43:53I have any way of story after story of moms dropping them off for the first time and hysterical all the way to work.
01:44:00I mean, just crying.
01:44:01It was horrible, horrible, horrible, which to me is a signal that something's gone wrong.
01:44:06This is not good.
01:44:07This is not normal.
01:44:09The baby's crying.
01:44:10You're crying.
01:44:11That's something you should pay attention to.
01:44:12That's something you should push away, which is what society wants you to do is push it away.
01:44:16It's okay.
01:44:17He'll be fine.
01:44:19And what that baby does or child does, um, in trying to get his needs met and seeing that they're no longer going to be met, they just sort of stop and give up and they're not crying for that moment.
01:44:34And so you think they're fine, but actually they just sort of, well, gave up because nobody tended to their needs.
01:44:40That doesn't mean they're fine.
01:44:41It just means they're just quiet.
01:44:42In fact, the quiet ones, sometimes you need to worry about more.
01:44:45I think this was actively a lady or maybe a few ladies saying, um, they love it.
01:44:50They seem actively positive to be going there when I drop them off.
01:44:54Yeah.
01:44:55And, and they, well, that would be an older child, not a baby.
01:44:57Yeah.
01:44:58Yeah.
01:44:59Like a three or four year old.
01:45:00Yeah.
01:45:01And by three, you're fine.
01:45:02You can go into preschool, but again, um, so let's say you have a three year old and you are having them in daycare 10 hours a day or something, which is different from preschool, which is just a couple hours in the morning, um, which is perfectly age appropriate for a three year old.
01:45:17Um, there are a lot of repercussions that are also not talked about that may not come in the form of tears.
01:45:28Um, and that is the exhaustion piece because you should really still be napping at that point.
01:45:35So they're really, really tired and overstimulated from this environment.
01:45:39And then the, the child that you're receiving at the end of the day, that's going to bleed over into the rest of the night with the discipline that you're trying to instill.
01:45:47Yeah.
01:45:48Because at that point they're so tired.
01:45:49Like I always like to, it's just pointless to even attempt to discipline a child who is so tired.
01:45:57He's out of his skin.
01:45:58He can't even think straight.
01:45:59He's like drunk.
01:46:00So don't even attempt anything.
01:46:01You just have to put them to bed, basically.
01:46:03So there's a huge piece of sleep deprivation that is also not discussed with those early years in long care that bleeds over into the home and your ability to parent properly and well because of that exhaustion piece.
01:46:18Or you have to put them to bed right away because they're so tired and so then you don't see them.
01:46:22Then there's that.
01:46:23What's an alternative to daycare?
01:46:24Some, some households are unable to survive on a single person's income.
01:46:29Mom needs to get back to work at some point or mom wants to get back to work at some point.
01:46:34Extend it as long as you possibly can before you do that and exhaust every possible means of care that is not group care in that way.
01:46:48So what are some of your favorite?
01:46:49That's family members.
01:46:50That's tag teaming.
01:46:53Some people tag team with their husbands.
01:46:55That's another thing.
01:46:56Some people can do that depending on your job situation where one's in and one's out.
01:47:00It's not great for the marriage, but if you do it temporary because you don't see each other, but you could get away with it temporarily.
01:47:05And I've known people who have done that.
01:47:06One's working days.
01:47:07One's working nights.
01:47:08So someone's always with at home.
01:47:09That's one thing.
01:47:10But your neighbors or your friends like trading off with your friends.
01:47:13So maybe your baby stays with your friend while you're working and then her baby is with you.
01:47:17So it's just you and to your kid and your friend.
01:47:20Two on one.
01:47:21Yeah.
01:47:22Yeah.
01:47:23The smaller, the better.
01:47:24Yeah.
01:47:25I mean, look, one of the most interesting conversations I had.
01:47:29There's a company called Athena that make virtual assistants and I had the founder and CEO on.
01:47:35And I was saying having a virtual assistant or an assistant at all is wonderful, but how many people have got access to that?
01:47:42That's not that realistic.
01:47:43He said, well, there's lots of ways that you can basically get the exact same function of that just by using your friends.
01:47:51And one of his examples was childcare.
01:47:54Yeah.
01:47:55He says, if you want to work one day a week or two days a week.
01:47:59Yes.
01:48:00You only need one other mum.
01:48:01Yes.
01:48:02To alternate.
01:48:03Yeah, exactly.
01:48:04And like one on two or one on three, maybe like you can probably get away with that.
01:48:08You can come to our house if you can go to yours.
01:48:11And then, hey, if we organize our working schedules, you could get two days a week of workout.
01:48:16And look, I mean, the days when you're going to be at home outnumbered two to one or three to one by kids.
01:48:21Like that's also going to be a pretty like challenging day, but it means that you aren't having to do the daycare thing.
01:48:27It's free.
01:48:28And you've got two day or two and a half, you know, okay.
01:48:32You do half of Wednesday and Thursday, Friday and I'll do Monday, Tuesday and half of Wednesday.
01:48:36I'm a big believer that necessity is the mother of invention.
01:48:39And if the daycare system, and it is a system.
01:48:42I mean, it is a, what's the word I'm looking for?
01:48:45It's a, well, I'm blanking on the name, but if it weren't there as an option.
01:48:53People would figure it out.
01:48:54People would figure it out.
01:48:56They had to back in the day.
01:48:58As I said, we had a Head Start program.
01:49:01We had a thing in place for truly, truly, truly, truly needy families.
01:49:05Of course, there's a lot more needy families today than there was 50 years ago.
01:49:08But you just, what are you going to do if it's not there?
01:49:12You know, if something isn't there, you go to the next thing and you figure it out.
01:49:16I believe that.
01:49:17I think it's just become, my issue is more that it's become so normalized that we're not even allowed to talk about the fact that the thing that looks so normal actually is really bad.
01:49:26That's my issue.
01:49:27I just want to be able to talk openly and say, actually, this isn't good.
01:49:31And here's why.
01:49:32So that they know, because truly, I believe people don't know.
01:49:35I believe it's come to that.
01:49:37There was a time when people knew instinctively this was not good and they could talk about it.
01:49:40But now what's the most compelling reason that you give to some, a mom who feels like daycare is fine, but you think, hey, this is something that you should know.
01:49:50That the most important thing for a child in the first three years of life is to develop the intangibles of love and trust that will then carry them into their own adult relationships later on.
01:50:09So that if they do not become attached to you in those early years or to your singular alternative person or whatever, that will stay with them for life.
01:50:20And it will show up in their relationships later on.
01:50:24And that's real.
01:50:26I mean, that's a real thing.
01:50:28And it's, I think, surprising for a lot of people.
01:50:30They just don't know about that.
01:50:32It's an interesting duality.
01:50:33Another one of those paradoxes that we were talking about earlier on.
01:50:36A lot of people are into therapy.
01:50:38A lot of people love books like Attached by Amir Levine or Jessica Baum's book.
01:50:44Amir's got a new one out called Secure.
01:50:46I just saw that they're on my home.
01:50:49Yeah, just got rid of them.
01:50:50Lots of people are very informed on the attachment literature.
01:50:53And a lot of people that are going to therapy are also understanding the fact that, hey, my parents maybe didn't care for me in the manner that would have been optimal to give me secure attachment.
01:51:03And I'm now having to unpick and unwind some of these things.
01:51:06Well, what are those?
01:51:07Well, you know, they didn't hold me when I needed it.
01:51:09They didn't see my needs without me asking.
01:51:11They weren't understanding.
01:51:12I didn't feel safe and secure.
01:51:13There wasn't consistency, availability, reliability, responsiveness, and predictability, like the five elements of secure attachment.
01:51:19Those things weren't there.
01:51:20But, and yet, yeah, let's not talk about this thing.
01:51:26I can pay that forward.
01:51:27It's like, I'm going to go to therapy to unpick the patterns from the past because I don't want my kid to inherit my bad patterns.
01:51:34But because of the situation that I've constructed or that I need to or feel like I need to from education and employment and lifestyle demands, I am now potentially just recreating the thing.
01:51:49Not only recreating the thing that happened to me and I don't want, but that I'm actively trying to unpick in an attempt to not pass down.
01:51:57And this is where, this is like why I think that when it's said in a sober way, in a calm way, in a gentle way that accepts the challenges and the fucking like really odd economic and cultural situation that young women find themselves in now.
01:52:17That it should be something that if it's, if what you're saying is heard properly for what it's supposed to be, it should be pretty well received because look at how fucking hard you're working in therapy.
01:52:31Why?
01:52:32Well, because you want to be happy yourself and you don't want to be, you know, fucking puppeted by these patterns and stuff like that.
01:52:37But because you don't want to pass it down to your future kids too.
01:52:40Like you're really, really working hard at this thing.
01:52:43You're just working hard at it within the confines, this model that exists that these are the rules that you play.
01:52:49Well, you earn lots of money to have the therapy so that you can not pass the patterns on to your kids.
01:52:54But that means that they've got, you can't afford to stay at home because you need to.
01:52:58So literally that's the reason I wrote How to Build a Better Life, which is the, my most recent book.
01:53:03And it was, it's for women who want to prioritize marriage and love and family really like to have that be the core of their life.
01:53:10And that requires starting early to make the decisions that we've talked about.
01:53:14If you do that, all this stuff doesn't, it ceases to exist.
01:53:19That's kind of like the whole point, you know, like if you create this life that's countercultural and not like the way you've been taught to do it.
01:53:26You wouldn't end up in this boat of worrying about repeating the patterns of like your attachment issues.
01:53:35If it's circled back and understood that daycare is going to create that, then you can stop that in its tracks before it starts.
01:53:46But at the very least, it's not going to make it better.
01:53:48Yeah.
01:53:49Yeah.
01:53:50So anyway, I just, that's, there's just a whole different way to do life, I guess is my point.
01:53:56And that's why I wrote that.
01:53:57And it's, it's, it's there for the taking, but you've got to be presented with the information and you've got to have people willing to talk about it.
01:54:04Cause it's so taboo to talk about.
01:54:06Well, you've got a line, live your life, not theirs.
01:54:12Yeah.
01:54:13So that was the end of that book.
01:54:14And it was essentially saying you're, if you're building a life based on what you're told you're supposed to do, even if it goes against what you might really want.
01:54:25And sometimes you're all the way in before you know that that's true.
01:54:28Um, you know, you're going to be unhappy.
01:54:30You have to live, you have to be satisfied.
01:54:33You have to know what you want, know what you value, build a life that create, that has that as its core and not worry about everybody else's.
01:54:42And which is so, so hard with so I'm going back to social media today.
01:54:45I, we didn't have this, you know, social media is new in my, I'm 58.
01:54:49So I don't know how long has social media been around.
01:54:51When my kids were little, it didn't exist.
01:54:53It didn't exist.
01:54:54So I think it was, they were in high school.
01:54:56Facebook's about 20 years.
01:54:58Yeah.
01:55:00They were in high school by then.
01:55:02So like being raised, just seeing all these images and seeing how other people are living, people that, what do you even care about these other people?
01:55:11They don't even know them, you know, or they live across the world, but I certainly can understand when you're young, you're going to see it and be like, I need that.
01:55:18Yeah.
01:55:18And then your life's going to look terrible in comparison because they've got that, but, but they don't have what you have either.
01:55:24So you, you have to have perspective on it.
01:55:26So I think social media has been really, really hard, really destructive actually for this concept of loving your life and not worrying about theirs, but you really have to keep your eye on the ball to be happy or you're going to be sucked into this other space.
01:55:42What do you wish more young women knew if you were able to put a billboard up that all young women would see on their way to work?
01:55:52What do you wish you'd be able to tell them?
01:55:59Um, nothing in your life is going to compare to the euphoria and the satisfaction and the meaning of having a baby and raising that baby and having a family and having that sense of security and peace when the world's going batty around you.
01:56:20And you just have your little home that you've created and nothing you do and no amount of money you're going to make is ever going to compare.
01:56:28But you don't know that yet, but I'll put my money on it.
01:56:32Let's put it that way.
01:56:33So if I'm wrong, what's the worst that's happened?
01:56:36You know, I've, I'm wrong.
01:56:37And then, um, the point is that you have choices.
01:56:41If you, if you believe me and you set up your life that way, you will have choices and that's where I want you to be.
01:56:47Heck yeah.
01:56:48Suzanne Venker, ladies and gentlemen, where should people go to keep up to date with everything you're doing?
01:56:51Um, well, they can go to SuzanneVenker.com and I'm on, I'm mainly on Substack these days, but everything is at SuzanneVenker.com.
01:56:57Heck yeah.
01:56:58I appreciate you.
01:56:59Thank you for sticking your neck out and touching every third rail in existence.
01:57:03Thank you.
01:57:04All right.
01:57:05See you next time, everyone.
01:57:06Thank you very much for tuning in.
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