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Oct. 24, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

03:09:42

2828 The Necessity of Being Inconvenient - Wednesday Call In Show October 22nd, 2014

To what degree should we control our child's exposure to other adults who are not peaceful parents? Which stories or books do you read to your daughter and why? How can I get over my attraction to jerks and develop a more mature understanding of love? Includes: When concerns are not acknowledged they continue, the inability to admit when you’re wrong, modeling behavior for children, having standards for interactions, religious afterlife as a safety net, grandparent trouble, not rewarding non-improvers, media as a substitute for parenting, the military as a library with guns, hitting you forties, being an older parent, vaginal masochism, sleeping around is bad for your heart, living off flings, landmines in relationships, the necessity of being inconvenient to other people and fighting against evolution.

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	Hi, everybody.
	It's Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Main Radio.
	How are you doing?
	It's Saturday night, and it's time for us to take you all the way through to the Seriously Unfunny Saturday Night Live show with our Saturday Night Live show a little bit earlier, a little bit deeper, a little bit more meaningful, but with less Katy Perry.
	So, hope you're doing well.
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	Don't make me turn to phone sex.
	All right.
	I shouldn't even rephrase that.
	Don't make me turn back to phone sex.
	It's possibly some of the worst phone sex you'll ever get.
	We'll give you some samples later.
	But FDRURL.com slash donate to help out the show.
	And you might want to check out the video I put out today on the shootings that occurred in Canada's parliament.
	And I recorded the video on the assumption that the shooter or shooters were Islamic.
	It turns out it does appear to be the case.
	So it's released its way into the wild.
	And I hope that you will have a look at it and get the value of historical perspectives on contemporary issues, which generally are treated about as deep as the foam bubbles on the top of an ocean wave compared to the Mariana Trench, which is where we go deep, baby.
	So, Mike, who do we have?
	On with the firstness.
	All right.
	Bob and Rose are up.
	Their question was, to what degree should we control our child's exposure to other adults who are not peaceful parents?
	To what degree should we control our daughter's exposure to our own parents who are also not peaceful parents?
	What sort of, you know, not peaceful parents?
	It's sort of like saying, how do I control my exposure to not perfectly rational people?
	Well, that could be me on a bad day to Hitler himself, right?
	So what kind of gradation to not peaceful parents, of non-peaceful parenting can we be talking about?
	Okay, well, there's a tiny bit of background I sent Mike, but basically...
	There was some hitting.
	I know Rose remembers a couple of specific instances, I think maybe like two or three in her whole life, specifically spanking.
	I did not remember any instances, but in a conversation I had with my mom in the past year, I told her, like, yeah, you didn't spank me.
	And she was like, really?
	I thought I did.
	So it was kind of like, now I'm wondering, do I just not remember that she did?
	But then I said, I really don't remember any.
	And she's like, oh, well, maybe that was just your brother.
	And by the time you came around, we decided not to do that anymore.
	So I don't remember any instances of physical punishment.
	But the...
	Shaming, guilting, taking away of privileges.
	Insults?
	Yes, some insults, usually indirect, not that those necessarily hurt any less.
	But, I don't know, I guess does that answer your question or do you need more details?
	No.
	So we had spanking and some verbal insults.
	Is that right?
	Yes.
	A couple of instances of spanking.
	Some usually, like, indirect jabs.
	I think Rose was called stupid.
	Okay.
	Hang on.
	Hang on.
	So, Bob, what are you not telling me?
	I don't mean like you're hiding something from me.
	What?
	But the issue to me is not that this stuff happened in the past, which I'm sorry for, obviously.
	It's not great.
	But I'm going to read between the lines, go out on a limb here, Bob, and say that the reason this is still an issue is it's neither acknowledged nor rejected or repudiated or apologized for.
	Bingo.
	Yes.
	Ah, there we go.
	Okay, so this is why these things stay fresh, right?
	And this is what your concern is.
	Because if your parents had done that, and, you know, I apologize to my daughter quite often when I make mistakes or if I'm snappy or anything like that.
	And so we stay on a, you know, continual basis of adjustment.
	And she's very good at apologizing if she does something that's rude or abrupt or anything like that.
	So...
	We don't obviously have any standard of perfection when it comes to anyone around us, but the question I have is, have you talked to your parents about this, and if so, what has their reaction been?
	Should I go first, or you?
	No, Bob was just talking, so we can get Bob's first.
	Okay, for me...
	No, the short answer is no.
	I have not talked directly about these issues.
	Wait, wait.
	Weasel words.
	You have not talked directly.
	Does that mean hand puppets have done the job for you?
	Shadow puppets?
	Puppetry of the penis?
	What have you done?
	Smoke signals?
	Carrier pigeons?
	I mean, what does it mean to say I've not talked about it directly?
	Okay, now there was minimal puppetry involved.
	Meaning, no, I have not talked about my own issues.
	I have talked about the ideas of peaceful parenting.
	I have talked about the impact, in very abstract terms, impact.
	Oh, sorry, that's what you mean by indirectly, that you haven't said, I didn't like the spanking and the verbal put-downs, but you've said, in the abstract, spanking and verbal put-downs are not ideal.
	Yes, and...
	Okay.
	No, sorry.
	So then I apologize for my snarkiness because I think I understand what you mean now when you say indirectly.
	Yeah, indirectly.
	And, you know, I'm a therapist and sometimes my mom will ask her, what kind of stuff do you talk about with your clients?
	And obviously without, you know, breaking confidentiality, I will mention some of these things to her.
	Again, never as, well, you know, I experienced these myself.
	Ah, right.
	I have a friend who has a problem.
	His penis is just too big.
	Oh, I tell you, if I had a dime.
	Anyway, but what do you think, and what has your mom's response been to this?
	Defensive.
	So when you say, you know, peaceful parenting, it's better not to hit your kids, what does she say?
	Oh, yeah.
	She says no, absolutely.
	She will chastise parents that have hid their own kids.
	She will say that's a terrible approach.
	That's her response.
	Wait, so she spanked, but she says it's a bad approach to spank.
	That's a good point.
	Well, actually, she did not remember spanking me, but yes, I think she has acknowledged spanking my brother.
	Has she apologized to your brother?
	No, she has not.
	So she self-righteously says that spanking is bad and she basically can't believe the parents did it when she did it.
	Yes.
	That is a special kind of disconnect.
	That literally is like me doing a video saying, bald guys will always lie to you.
	Oh, man.
	Sometimes, like you.
	And your dad?
	Oh, my dad died when I was six years old.
	I remember very little of him.
	He was an aggressive one.
	He was aggressive?
	I don't remember him being aggressive overall, because I have other memories of him which were actually really great.
	But the most vivid one is an aggressive one.
	And what was that?
	I would have been like four years old or something and he was having a party with his friends next door and I was in my bedroom and I could see the light coming in under the door and I guess it was keeping me awake.
	I couldn't sleep so I got up and started wandering around the room and this still puzzles me to this day because he's an engineer but in my room I had an exposed electrical socket I guess I started fiddling around with it and ended up electrocuting myself, which didn't hurt, but I was startled.
	He ran into the room, yanked me away from it, and kicked me on my ass, which, again, also didn't hurt, but I remembered feeling terrified.
	Oh, I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about...
	Okay, so that's your aggressive memory.
	So he had an exposed electrical socket in your room, you were playing with it, and you got hit.
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	Yeah, like, I mean, if I'm the mechanic and I forget to reattach your brake cables, and then you roll into my car, I'll sue you.
	Yeah, that doesn't make much sense.
	I don't know if this makes any difference.
	I grew up in Russia and every other electrical socket was an exposed electrical socket.
	He definitely was fully capable of fixing the problem.
	Right, as an engineer.
	What happens, Bob?
	Give me the run-through.
	Do you want to do a role-play?
	Because I just want to get a sense of what happens with your mom if you talk to her about this stuff.
	Oh, this will be a mind-bending experience, but yeah, we can give it a shot.
	Okay, good.
	So I'll be you, and you be your mom, all right?
	Okay.
	Mom, I'd really like to talk to you.
	I've kind of chickened out because I've been studying this stuff a lot, learning about this stuff a lot.
	Now, of course, I have a three and a half month old kid.
	And, you know, sometimes we talk about in abstract terms what goes on in my therapist's office.
	And I've really been kind of avoiding this topic, but I'd like to talk about it with you directly.
	And the topic is, you know, we've talked a lot about Not spanking.
	And I remember being spanked by you.
	And I also remember some aggressive stuff with Dad, but of course, that was so long ago.
	But I really wanted to talk about, and I feel scared just even bringing this up.
	I don't know why.
	But I really want to talk about, you know, the history we had.
	Some parts, some aspects of the history, a lot of great stuff, but some aspects of the history around being spanked.
	Because you talk about it like it's a bad thing, but I remember it happening.
	I'm not sure if I didn't actually make myself clear earlier, but I don't remember it ever happening to me.
	But you saw it happening?
	No, I didn't see it happen either.
	I remember talking to my mom about this in the past year, saying, like, we were talking about discipline, and she said something about spanking, and I said, oh yeah, but you know, you never spanked me.
	And her response was, really?
	I thought I did, but I guess maybe that was just your brother, and by the time you came around, we didn't do that anymore.
	Okay, so then I would say, well, it troubles me that you may have spanked my brother, and I don't know if you've ever really talked with that about him.
	And what would she say to that?
	That's a good question.
	I don't know.
	Sure you do.
	Of course you do.
	Otherwise, you would have talked to her about it.
	That's true.
	I don't know why I would avoid it if I didn't.
	You can't tell me you don't know where the tree is if the tree is invisible but you keep walking around it, right?
	What tree?
	The thing you keep walking around, that tree, right?
	Okay.
	I guess it's hard for me to wrap myself around the exact words.
	But I'm sure it would be met with dismissal.
	Okay, so what would she say?
	This is tough because she would speak with me in Russian.
	She might say something like, that was a long time ago.
	And I would say, you know, Mom, I'm pretty well educated.
	I know how time works.
	I am fully aware that it was a long time ago.
	I don't see how that's relevant to what I'm saying.
	I mean, are you saying that in Russia, they don't care about things that happened a long time ago?
	I mean, isn't most of Russia built on stuff that happened a long time ago?
	How can Russians say, well, it's a long time ago, why would we need to discuss it?
	She might say something like...
	I was worried about this happening when you got into this whole psychology thing and now it's all about blaming the parents.
	But what you don't understand, and that's because you haven't been a parent for very long, is just the difficult choices you have to make.
	Well, you just compressed a whole lot into that, which is not really responsive to what I'm saying.
	And I kind of don't want to get dragged off into discussing how long ago it was or whether it's all about blaming the parents or your worry about me.
	None of that is actually what I'm talking about.
	What I'm talking about right now is that I need to know that You're sorry that you spanked in the past because I have a daughter.
	I need to know that it's not okay in your mind.
	Because if it's okay in your mind, to be perfectly frank, if you want to talk about practicalities, if it's still an acceptable option in your mind, then I feel nervous with you around my daughter because what if you decide to spank her?
	Well, I know people don't This is what she would say.
	Like, I know people don't do this here in America, so you don't need to worry.
	I'm not going to spank your daughter.
	I will treat her the way you want her treated.
	This was Russia and a long time ago, and it was different then.
	So, are you saying that it wasn't wrong then, but it is wrong now?
	Or is it just like, well, most people in Canada don't have a samovar, so I don't ask them for the products of a samovar when I go over?
	Is it just cultural, or is it anything to do with right and wrong?
	I don't know what she would say to that.
	And you know why?
	Because I never had their conversation with her?
	Sorry?
	Because I never had this conversation with her?
	No, no.
	You know why.
	It's just that that's an almost impossible question to answer and not lose, right?
	Because if she says, well, it's purely cultural, then she's saying the decision to hit a child has nothing to do with ethics.
	But as far as I understand it, when you've talked about people who've had to deal with spanking and so on, your mother has said, well, the spanking is bad or wrong, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	So she can't just say that it's cultural, right?
	Yeah, I think it would say it's wrong if it can be avoided.
	Okay, but that's like saying, well, you know, stealing is wrong unless you just really need stuff or want stuff, right?
	I mean, of course you can avoid hitting at any time.
	It's like that thing in The Godfather, right, where the guy beats his wife and then says to the Godfather character, Don Corleone says, Are you telling me you've never beaten your wife?
	And he's like, Well, she's never given me reason.
	That's how the mafia talks about wife beating.
	The best you can hope for is to not provoke the guy to beat you, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	And so this idea that it's, you know, yeah, you should avoid it, but yeah, you know, if you have to do it, then do it.
	That doesn't make you feel safe with regards to your kid, right?
	No.
	So unless she's willing to say that it's wrong, it was wrong then and it's wrong now, which is not the end of the world, right?
	We all make mistakes as parents.
	It doesn't sound like she was much of a hitter.
	No.
	And so she just has to go to your brother and, you know, say to you, you know, you're right, thank you, you know, I know it's hard, appreciate you bringing this up, but you're right, it was wrong, you know, and go and apologize to your brother and bingo, bango, bongo, it's done and dusted, right?
	Yeah.
	But if she's not able to admit that she's wrong, this to me is one of the most dangerous traits in the human personality.
	To me, all violence arises out of an inability to admit you're wrong.
	I mean, you think of religious violence, right?
	Doctrinal violence is an inability to admit that you're wrong.
	Putting people in jail for drug possession is an inability to admit that you're wrong about the drug war.
	Mm-hmm.
	So, to me, it's extremely dangerous.
	And I'm not trying to portray your mom as like some time bomb or anything like that.
	But to me, it's a dangerous personality trait when people can't admit that they're wrong.
	I agree.
	And so, I would suspect, Bob, that this is why you're having a fundamental challenge with your mother.
	Because if your mother cannot admit that she's wrong...
	And your, is it a daughter?
	Yes.
	Your daughter is going to go through what's called the terrible twos, which is only terrible for people who can't admit that they're wrong, right?
	Your daughter is going to go through the terrible twos and she's going to be defiant and she's going to be strong-willed and she's going to say no and she's going to say not in a million years.
	And she's going to roll her eyes and she's going to run over, right?
	She's going to be fierce in asserting her independence, right?
	Yeah.
	And if your mom can't admit that she's wrong, what happens to their relationship?
	Right.
	Well, my daughter's going to have to be the wrong one.
	Well, yes, for a time, but your daughter is also going to internalize the value called those with the most power don't admit that they're wrong.
	Yeah, that's true.
	And she's going to see your mother getting away with not admitting that she's wrong and with you avoiding that landmine of can mom admit that she's wrong continually, right?
	Yes.
	She's going to get that you're scared of someone who can't admit that she's wrong.
	Therefore, whoever can't admit that they're wrong has the most power.
	That's what power is.
	Refusing to back down and having other people comply.
	Sounds like a type of bullying.
	Well, certainly, if you can't admit that you're wrong, And we're all wrong, right?
	If you can't admit that you're wrong, then the only way you can pretend you're right is through escalation or avoidance, right?
	Yeah.
	In other words, you know, if you confront me on something and I can't admit that I'm wrong, I either have to shout you down or I have to walk out of the situation and punish you with avoidance, right?
	Yeah, she's excellent on both.
	Okay, okay.
	So...
	That, to me, is...
	That's her secondhand smoke.
	Would be a refusal to admit that she's wrong.
	Fortunately, I think she's the only woman in the world that that standard applies to.
	Oh, that's good.
	Except for most other women I've met.
	And some men.
	Don't get me wrong.
	But that...
	If you have a daughter, I think you want to make sure that the people around her can admit that they're wrong.
	I assume you can.
	I assume that Rose can.
	And that, I think, is a challenge.
	That to me is the important aspect about having that conversation with your mom.
	Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
	I mean, she's not much of a spanker.
	It doesn't sound like she was a terrible mom.
	Whoa.
	You okay?
	Oh, yeah.
	That's my daughter grabbing at things.
	Oh, how cool.
	I miss that age.
	Not too much.
	Just enough to be mildly sentimental and then remembering four o'clock in the morning being a little bit less sentimental.
	So that to me is one of the key things that I look for with people around my daughter is, you know, can you admit that you're wrong?
	Because I want to model that for her.
	I want people around her, if she's right, and this is why I've said this on the show before, we go over this and over this.
	Right?
	So if I say she needs a coat, and then she says she doesn't, we go out.
	And if she's warm enough, I say, oh, who was right?
	And she says, I was.
	And I said, who's wrong?
	You were.
	I said, that is correct.
	And if she's freezing, I pull the coat out from my magic coat hiding place, put the coat on, and I say, I'm not trying to be mean, but let's remind who was right.
	You were.
	Who was wrong?
	I was.
	You know, and that's good.
	We both have that, and we both focus on that.
	And that's just everyone.
	Who's around?
	You know, I mean, because you get real flexibility.
	And when you don't have to be right, you can negotiate, right?
	If you have to be right, as you know, you can't negotiate.
	And when you can't negotiate, you end up in these win-lose paradigms, right?
	Dominate or be dominated.
	And so I think that if you could talk to your mom about, and it doesn't matter if it's this topic or something else, but gauge the degree to which your mom can admit that she's wrong.
	I mean, I think it's important, you know, give you full disclosure, which I always try to do about my own issues, my mom.
	Could never admit that she was wrong.
	No matter what.
	Could never admit that she was wrong.
	And that became increasingly claustrophobic.
	Now, I'm not putting your mom and my mom in the same category at all.
	But this trait as a whole is really, really important in people.
	Can you admit when you're wrong?
	Can other people admit when they're wrong?
	That way you can negotiate to win-win.
	And it's one of these weird things because people who can't admit that they're wrong Have this weird belief that somehow people will not respect them if they admit that they're wrong.
	But, you know, the truth is that only a fool loses respect for someone who admits when he or she is wrong.
	You lost face!
	It's like, okay, maybe I lost face, but I gained brain, and I'll take brain over face.
	I'll take head.
	No, I'll take brain over face at any time.
	And so that would be my sort of suggestion about why you might be avoiding this topic, which is not hugely destructive because, as you say, your mom barely spanked.
	But I think that when I gave her that in the roleplay, when I gave her the question that she couldn't answer through avoidance or manipulation, that's when you dried up, right?
	Yes.
	So that would be my suggestion.
	Okay.
	I don't want to make sure we move on to Rose.
	What's going on on your side?
	Okay.
	Honestly, it's very similar to his.
	Oh, yeah.
	Tasty.
	Tasty.
	Basically, my dad can never admit he's wrong in any way, shape, or form, and my mom just basically bows over to whoever has the most power in the moment.
	So, I don't know if you want to move on to the next caller, because honestly, it's a similar answer, but...
	No, but so my question would be, what do you think it's going to be like or what topic would you bring up if you wanted to gauge your dad's capacity to perhaps chip away at that bad habit?
	Oh, God.
	Sounds like you could do a roleplay pretty easily there, young lady.
	Oh, God!
	Did you just have another baby?
	Right here on the air?
	That would be so cool.
	Yeah.
	We actually did stop talking to them for about a month when I was pregnant because I couldn't do it anymore.
	And then my mom called and I laid out some ground rules to continue our relationship and she asked for some things in return such as me contacting more often which I felt was reasonable.
	Wait, wait, what?
	Wait, what?
	Well, before they were the ones...
	Wait, wait, wait.
	Okay, I just gave birth to three.
	I must mention this to my wife.
	Honey, whip out the boob tubes again.
	So you had standards of interaction.
	They had demands for specific behavior?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	That's not...
	That's not good.
	That's not a good negotiation.
	Like, okay, let's say, Rose, you and I were married, right?
	And you said, Steph, I would really like it if you could be more romantic.
	You know, just snapping your fingers and pointing at your groin doesn't really work for me.
	What they also call Italian foreplay.
	But...
	If you could be a little bit more romantic, I would really appreciate that.
	And if I said, okay, Rose, that's fine, but I'm going to need a whole lot more sex.
	See, you're asking me for a standard of interaction, and I am asking you for specific behaviors that would in fact result from that standard of interaction.
	Like, if I lied to you a lot and you said, Steph, you've got to stop lying to me, and I said, okay, but in return, I need you to completely trust me.
	Well, the trust comes if I stop lying, right?
	And hopefully the sex comes if I'm even somewhat romantic, right?
	Not that that's why you do it.
	Well, I guess it is.
	But you see, you would be asking me for better behavior, and I would be then asking you for the consequences of that better behavior prior to me exhibiting those characteristics.
	Am I just making any sense here at all?
	Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, yes.
	Like, if your parents were more pleasant to deal with, Wouldn't you call them on...
	So you're saying, be more pleasant, and they're saying, okay, but in return you have to call more, and it's like, nope.
	No, because that's the effect of you being more pleasant.
	Make me want to call you.
	Help me help you.
	Make me, like, possess my hand with happiness, and make it get that phone and dial that phone of its own accord, because it so much wants to hear your voice, right?
	Yeah.
	So when they say, call us more, they're asking for the effects of their good behavior as a trade for their good behavior.
	I'm sorry, this is kind of obscure.
	I think you get it.
	One more example for the listeners.
	So if I go to my boss and say, I want a raise, and he says, but your productivity is terrible.
	You have to up your productivity.
	You're costing me money at the moment.
	You've got to up your productivity.
	And I say, okay, I will work at some point at upping my productivity, but you have to double my salary.
	My boss, what would the boss say?
	Oh, sorry.
	He would say no way.
	He would say, Steph, you economic ignorant tomfool.
	He would say, Steph, your salary is the result of your productivity.
	I can't pay you more unless you're more productive.
	I am paying you what you have deserved.
	In fact, I'm paying because I'm losing money.
	I'm paying you more than you deserve.
	I'm willing to give you a shot to increase your productivity.
	And of course, if you double your productivity, then I won't quite double your salary because I'm losing money right now, but it'll definitely go up a lot, right?
	Yeah.
	And that's the difference.
	I'm always incredibly suspicious when people...
	Don't ask for improvements in the methodology of a relationship.
	They ask for improvements in the effects of a relationship.
	Right?
	The effect of love and intimacy and romance is sex.
	And the effect of higher worker productivity is a better wage, right?
	Yeah.
	And the effect of your parents, your dad, say, not having to be right all the time and not being insufferable, and your mom not just kowtowing to the person with the most power, the effect of that change is that you will want to call them more, right?
	Exactly.
	And so when they say, we'll improve our behavior, but you have to act as if we have already done that, what they're basically telling you is, Right?
	Because if I say, okay, I'll work at improving my productivity, just double my salary, and if my boss is crazy enough to say, okay, I'll double your salary, how motivated am I going to be?
	Since I already got the effect of higher productivity, how motivated am I going to be to improve my productivity?
	Not at all.
	Not at all!
	I already got the effects of improving my productivity without having to do all that extra oogie work of improving my productivity, right?
	Yeah.
	If you then agree to that and you call more, you're actually rewarding them not improving.
	Oh, God.
	That's why I sort of stopped you at that point.
	Yep.
	Yep, yep, yep.
	That's a good point.
	And what happened when you agreed to that?
	Did they improve?
	Well, my dad didn't.
	My mom did, but again, I think it's because I showed a spine and, you know, it's the kind of, like I said, she just kind of rolled over.
	But that's because you said, no, your mom didn't improve.
	Why did your mom not improve?
	What did you tell me about your mom?
	Who did she conform to?
	Yeah, that's exactly it.
	She didn't.
	You just showed more spine than your dad in the moment so she conformed to you instead, right?
	Yep.
	So how is that an improvement?
	The water has got a spine because I poured it into the shape of something with a spine.
	It's like, nope.
	Because if you poured it into something with the shape of a Jell-O bowl, it's got the shape of a Jell-O bowl.
	Right.
	So if it becomes more convenient in the moment for your mom to conform to you, then I guess you get a kind of victory.
	But, you know, that's just until something else happens and she conforms to someone else, right?
	No, exactly.
	And it's been very clear that that's the case.
	Because if I talk to her alone, then, you know, she'll be all great.
	And then, like, I know that's exactly what's going on.
	Yeah.
	Two-faced mother...
	Yeah, I, you know, I'm with you in private, but in public I'm going to shiv you in the back.
	That stuff has never been...
	Oh, I haven't...
	My bias, Rose, I completely have trouble with that stuff.
	Like...
	Right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, it's like me with Noam Chomsky.
	It's disgusting.
	No, I'm kidding.
	No.
	I'm not going to ambush someone who is approximately 950 years old, however much I may disagree with him on certain issues.
	Anyway, but this issue of, like, I'm really concerned about that, because if you accept that as a behavior, you're going to be tempted to replicate that with your daughter, right?
	Oh, gosh.
	No, I don't want to do that.
	Well, yes, I understand.
	If you're around that, then that's what you're more likely to mimic.
	I don't want to do that.
	But I think you weren't conscious of it before we talked about it today, right?
	I was conscious that she would conform to the person with more power, but I wasn't conscious of asking for the behavior in return.
	Oh my gosh.
	I wasn't conscious of that.
	Right.
	And that's why I didn't want to jump onto the next caller, because...
	We all bring our own spiderwebs of dysfunction from our histories, right?
	And it's individual to everyone, right?
	No, no, no, I appreciate that.
	Because you certainly, and, you know, as a parent, I don't usually get tempted by this, but occasionally I do.
	So I will never ask for better behavior from my daughter.
	I can't.
	I have to earn the better behavior, right?
	So if my daughter's behaving in a way that I consider not wholly positive...
	Then the first thing I have to do is say, well, have I modeled it in any way?
	Right?
	And if I have, and by God, that's usually the case, then I need to tell her explicitly that I've modeled some bad behavior, I need to apologize, I need to say, I'm going to improve and do it better, and I need to start modeling the new behavior, but I cannot ask her to change.
	Yeah.
	And sure enough, you know, it takes a little while, but it's like spinning the wheel of a supertanker.
	It doesn't look like anything's happening, but you begin to turn, and those turns tend to be permanent, right?
	Because we all get these temptations to demand that our children portray the effects of good behavior.
	So, like, we have the please and thank yous, right?
	They're going to be a big deal.
	Oh, yeah.
	The please and thank yous.
	You want your kids to say please and thank you, and the way that you get your kids to say please and thank you is you say to your kids please and thank you all the time.
	Mm-hmm.
	And then it just happens.
	You know, people remark up, oh, she's so polite, blah, blah, blah.
	And it's not because, you know, it's rude not to say please.
	It's rude to say.
	It's rude not to say please.
	You just got to keep modeling the behavior, right?
	To me, you know, if I teach my daughter that the word for tree is curtain, and then I tell her that it's rude to call a tree a curtain, I mean, that doesn't make any sense at all, right?
	And her behavior comes a lot out of what it is that I do, and other people, of course, in her life.
	And so, again, to me, I don't care.
	Let me put that in a way that doesn't sound so careless.
	So to me, Whatever is conscious can be managed and dealt with.
	So if you're aware of this habit in your parents or this habit in you, which I obviously guarantee you goes right back to the beginning.
	Your parents were probably demanding that you fit through the silhouette of good behavior when you were a kid, right?
	Without necessarily generating in you the legitimate and genuine desire to do so.
	Ah...
	Jeez...
	I do like being polite.
	Look, my daughter likes being polite too.
	I'm not saying that at all.
	Sorry.
	Let me not reject what it is that you're saying.
	Well, my mom tends to act politely towards everyone, including my sister and I. My dad will...
	He doesn't have...
	I'm putting it very nicely when I say he doesn't have very many positive things to say about many people.
	You are a polite young lady.
	Yeah, I'm phrasing it exactly the way my mom would.
	He says nasty things about people.
	Right, so he's like an acid-tongued gossip.
	Oh gosh, yes.
	Were you raised religious?
	Yes, I was.
	I'm guessing from the name.
	Okay, so did you, and it's not a leading question, like I'm genuinely curious, did you genuinely believe in God when you were a kid?
	Oh yes, I did.
	And did you genuinely want to go to church?
	Yes, I did.
	And how long did that last for?
	Only until actually about, geez, last fall or last late summer.
	Oh, wow.
	Yeah.
	And now you can use the word geez.
	See how it all pays off?
	You may have been stripped of life, meaning, and eternal life, but you get to say the word geez with no thunderbolts.
	And have you talked...
	I'm sorry, go ahead.
	Realizing religion is ridiculous has been a real fun one.
	Oh yeah, no kidding.
	I never know whether that band-aid should come off quickly or slowly, you know?
	Yeah.
	Well, the worst part is, you know, we had just recently gotten pregnant and I felt like You know, I was walking on life like a tightrope walker, and I thought there was a safety net below me, and I'm walking along it, and I say, hey, I feel so confident.
	Here, throw me a baby.
	And someone from the audience throws me a baby, and as the baby's in midair, I realize there's no safety net below me.
	And if I fall, you know, that's it.
	And not only that, there's a baby about to land in my arms, and if she falls, that's it too.
	It's terrifying.
	In which religion do they teach you that babies come from an audience?
	Just kidding.
	Worst porn ever!
	Baby throwing, right.
	No, that's a fantastic metaphor.
	I only mock it because it's better than anything I could come up with, so I apologize for that.
	And if you don't mind me asking, Rose, what happened?
	What changed?
	Actually, Bob...
	He pointed out how if there really was a God, he had no morality.
	And it just really struck me.
	He talked about how if I argued free will, we have free will, and he said, yeah, but if We see, oh geez, he makes argument better than I do.
	I think I just talked about this with a guy in the show, like, if I kidnap your daughter and then say, do what I say, or bad things happen to your daughter, that wouldn't be giving you free will, right?
	Yeah.
	And so if God says, obey me or burn in hell, that's not quite the same as having free will.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I mean, even James T. Kirk understood it a little bit better than that, right?
	That free will means not even having the aliens know you're there, let alone going down with faces to their heads saying, do what I say, or, you know, your third tentacle-armed brain gets it, which he probably has right before calculating with it.
	But, yeah, so, okay, so.
	And are your parents still religious?
	Yes, they are.
	Right.
	Well, that's another challenge, right?
	Yeah.
	And I use the word challenge simply because the word clusterfrak, I think, is verboten on the internet.
	Yeah, I am so, so, so angry.
	I did not take life nearly as seriously as I would have.
	I put myself in dangerous situations I wouldn't have if...
	I had known that that would have been it.
	Like, if something happened to me, that would have been it.
	I wouldn't have...
	Oh, you mean because you believed in an afterlife, you put yourself in dangerous situations, because that's your safety net.
	Is that right?
	Yeah, exactly.
	Right.
	So you see how essential it is to have a religion for a military country, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	No, my fundamental caution in life is based around, that's it.
	Ain't no second act.
	Once that curtain comes down, there's no encore.
	It's freaking terrifying.
	It is.
	It is.
	And, of course, it gives you more vulnerability with regards to your kids, right?
	I mean, if you die, you don't get to meet them again.
	I'm so scared for her.
	In what way?
	Well...
	We actually had three miscarriages before we had her.
	I'm so sorry.
	And I'm afraid of losing her the way I lost them.
	And actually, one way I got through losing them was I thought that I'd be able to see them and hold them at some point.
	Oh, right.
	Right.
	Because they would have had souls and you would have seen how they were after life, right?
	Yeah, and I... She's so precious to her.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, and I can totally see, Rose, how people do believe in the soul.
	You know, in my daughter's skull is this unbelievable magic called thought that comes out of, like, a tadpole and an egg.
	It's completely bizarre.
	It's like throwing a sausage at a Jackson Pollock painting and ending up with a human being.
	To me, it is completely freaky.
	And of course, nobody knows fundamentally how any of it really works.
	I mean, consciousness and all that.
	I can certainly understand that from, I mean, you'll obviously get this as you go forward.
	Your daughter is miraculous enough already, I'm sure.
	But as this goes forward, it's just astounding.
	You know, my daughter has taken on the last name Hero, and she just sat down and spelt it out.
	I just, I think that's so cool.
	I wrote it out, and that, you know, she'll tell me dreams that I know are half stories.
	And she just will make up stuff.
	And yesterday, we were going through syllogisms, right?
	So, you know, all cats are furry.
	Fluffy is a cat.
	Therefore, Fluffy is furry.
	You know, we can do it through syllogisms.
	And we needed to talk about impossibilities.
	Like, because you can prove stuff through syllogisms.
	And I wanted to give her self-detonating statements.
	So I said, okay, Jenna, because that's her name these days.
	Jenna.
	I need you to draw me a square circle, and if you do, you get a great treat!
	And of course, you know, what do you get?
	Like, oblongs with round edges.
	I was wondering if she was going to do a cylinder, because that's what sometimes you get for square cylinder.
	No, square, whatever.
	Anyway, so, and so she was just, we were just laughing so hard trying to come up with all the things.
	Okay, draw me a line that goes up and down at the same time.
	So, of course, she jumps off my lap, gets two pens and draws one up and down at the same time.
	I'm like, ooh, that's good.
	Very good.
	So she got a treat for that.
	And we were doing this, I don't know, for like half an hour, and we were just laughing so hard, like we were crying.
	I actually recorded it because it was just so much fun.
	Just the audio.
	And that is just incredible when you see...
	I think she might...
	I'll be right back.
	I think she might eat a bed.
	Now I'm lactating.
	Damn.
	Okay.
	I thought that would pass by now.
	Excuse me.
	Okay, we're good.
	I'll edit the video.
	You'll edit the video.
	That's right.
	Sorry, I'm a bit of a squitter.
	Sorry, Mike.
	It's okay.
	He's got his hazmat suit on for the occasional lactation.
	So, I mean, like I really get why when you look at the meat of a human being, there's this incredible yearning to believe in this magic essence of immateriality that makes it all work.
	And so I get that.
	And there is a vulnerability.
	But in that vulnerability, of course, comes a treasuring of the moment, right?
	These moments, we have a fixed amount of them.
	You've got a countdown clock.
	You've got a countdown clock in the ether, and nobody knows how many days, months, weeks, hours, seconds you have.
	But there's a countdown clock, and it only goes one way, and I think it is important to remember that and to recognize that.
	It's a stupid way of putting it, but if you have a video game that you pay $100 for and you can never respawn, you play differently.
	You just do.
	And we don't get to respawn.
	It is really important to treasure and enjoy.
	And I also think that there is a funny kind of courage that comes out of that too.
	Because whatever improvements you can make in this world, to me, the improvements you can make in this world, compared to infinity, compared to heaven, compared to eternity, kind of vanish.
	But if this is the only place where the world and human beings can be improved, whatever improvements you make are the biggest you can make.
	You know, so if through this show people stop hitting their children, Or get out of abusive relationships or get into therapy or are more honest with the people around them.
	Think more clearly.
	I think through this show, like, you can't do better than that.
	Because there is no, well, in heaven everything's perfect, and, you know, I don't have that infinite perfection to compare the sort of grudging step-by-step climb up the moral ladder that we actually have to do, for which there is no substitute, and for which you cannot compare it to infinity and have it vanish.
	Yeah.
	So, like, nobody bothers climbing a mountain or trying to climb a mountain that's infinitely high.
	And I think that's what happens with, not everyone, of course, a lot of religious people do enormous sort of secular and practical good, and a lot of atheists are...
	Selfish and lazy bastards.
	But let's do that topic another time.
	But to me, like in my mind's eye, the good that I can do in the world, because the mountain is not infinite, every step I go up the mountain is just one step higher on the mountain.
	And everyone I can encourage to climb is going to get closer to the top of the mountain.
	But if the top of the mountain is God in heaven, you can never get there from here.
	Yeah.
	And so I think that there will be a lot of – there is a vulnerability and I think in that vulnerability there is a commitment to the moment.
	There is a commitment to the connection.
	There is a commitment to the richness of what you can achieve in the here and now.
	So I really, really – I mean I don't want to tell you your experience but I think I understand.
	Yeah, no, that's exactly it.
	I'm not going to lie, sometimes it's tempting to want to go back because it's like I can't stand the thought of, you know, if one of us dies, like never seeing her again.
	Like, I can't stand the thought of it.
	It's too scary to...
	I love her so much, but, you know, you can't go back.
	Like, I would always know better.
	No, I mean, it would be...
	It's sort of like saying, well, you know, maybe I can revisit this tooth fairy thing.
	Yeah, but every moment, like, it's just amazing being with her, and it really does make every single moment so much more important.
	It's incredible.
	I'll tell you something else that's amazing, too.
	You know, I have trouble finding the right light bulb to screw into a light socket.
	I have trouble finding the right memory to put into my computer.
	But I made an eyeball.
	No, did you look at those eyes and say, I don't know how they work?
	I kind of made one.
	Yeah.
	And napped.
	Right?
	I mean, but what we can make without knowing how it works is truly astounding.
	Like, I've always been curious about ordering a bare bones computer kit and assembling my own computer.
	Mm-hmm.
	But I kind of know what would happen is I end up somehow with some body part attached to the computer and then have to walk around with the computer for a while.
	But you can make something that thinks.
	You can make something that has a liver and a kidney and eyeballs and hearing and tiny little hair on the nose.
	You can make all of that.
	And you don't know really how any of it works, but you can make it.
	I mean, it blows my mind.
	It just does.
	Yeah, she's lying here right now looking up at me and listening to you.
	Oh, good.
	She's trying to cuddle it out.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Well, of course, it also helps too.
	I mean, I was talking to her way, way back in the day when she was just a little flutter in my wife's belly.
	I was like reading her stories and stuff.
	Because also I've read that because the male voice is deeper, it resonates more in the womb.
	And if dads do that, then the kids respond better to the dad's voice even when they're born.
	It does work with the mama too, but it's just a little easier for them to hear the male voice.
	So yeah, keep that voice thing going.
	That would really help you, I think.
	Alright, listen, do you guys mind if we move on to the next caller?
	I know I didn't give you any particular answers, but it sounds like if you have these conversations and can map the areas of...
	Whatever you're conscious of in other people, I think you can pretty much work with.
	I mean, assuming it's not unconscious of the fact that they've got a chainsaw and they're running at me, right?
	I mean...
	If you're conscious of what's going on in your relationships with other people, I think any decision you make is going to be good.
	If you're not conscious of it, then almost all decisions are either conformist or reactive.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	So just work to keep mapping what's going on with your folks, and I think then all decisions that you make regarding that will be the right ones.
	Okay, great.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	And congratulations, guys.
	I mean, it's a fantastic and thrilling time.
	I'm incredibly sorry about the miscarriages.
	I mean, for those who haven't gone through that sort of stuff, it is the kind of agony that gives you a swift sense of what hell might be like.
	And I'm incredibly sorry for all that happened with regards to that stuff.
	It's unbelievably hard.
	And, you know, the happy ending is all the more sweet, but nobody wants those little tiny graves behind them.
	So I'm sorry about all of that.
	Thank you.
	You're welcome.
	Alright, who do we have with the next?
	Alright, Daniel is next.
	He wrote in and said, My partner and I are talking about having kids together in three years.
	Until then, I'm getting ready with peaceful parenting, nonviolent communication, and with getting as much knowledge as possible.
	Not getting ready for everything, but to recognize as many signs as conceivably possible.
	My questions are, what stories do you read to your daughter, and why?
	And what stories do you refuse to read to your daughter, and also why?
	I don't know that I've refused.
	Maybe the giving tree.
	I've never really liked the giving tree.
	It's a story about this tree that's like, here, take this limb for your walking stick.
	Here, take this limb for your house.
	Here, take this limb.
	And basically the whole tree just gives itself until it disappears.
	I can't remember.
	It's been years and years.
	I wouldn't read or anything quite that self-sacrificial.
	Um...
	I mean, we head to the library and we just, you know, she loves cats, so we get books on kitties and stuff like that.
	And I don't find that there's much to be offended by in most kids' stuff.
	We spent, I think, 18 months reading The Hobbit because she really liked this story.
	And, of course, I watered it down quite a bit, you know, like people would fight until one of them got tired and had a nap.
	So we did that, then she got bored of that.
	We read a little bit of Roald Dahl, although she wasn't really into that.
	And reading the Roald Dahl stuff, it's...
	Especially James and the Giant Peach gets kind of silly and like not in a good way.
	So I remember reading that when I was a kid and she liked that stuff.
	We've read a few things with movies that she's liked, but that's never really Aladdin.
	Well, she didn't really like the movie Aladdin, but we read the story Aladdin.
	And so what else?
	I've read her about a third of Pride and Prejudice, but I found that really hard to translate into four-year-old ease.
	I mean, she was interested, but it was just me like I was exhausted trying to downshift it to four and a half.
	What else did we read?
	We did try some fairy tales, but I don't find them that good, just in general, like the Grimm stuff and all that.
	And what we're doing now is we've started on Oliver Twist, which she's enjoying.
	We did make it about a third of the way through Lord of the Flies.
	But, boy, William Golding is a big one for the some-dappled descriptions of everything that's florid on the island.
	And I'd forgotten about a slow-moving book.
	It is.
	And, of course, I know later on what happens, so I didn't really want to get too far into it.
	So I sort of tried to give her a variety.
	I assume that, you know, she's fascinated in things outside her experience, I think, like a lot of us are.
	And she's never had any particular problems with, you know, like Mean Dragons or anything like that.
	I mean, Smaug was a character that we played around for quite a bit.
	When she was like, I think it was three and a half, it was really interesting.
	So we used to play this...
	This game, I guess we still occasionally do, where I'm like a sleeping dragon with all the treasure.
	I'm like lying on the bed.
	I'm a sleeping dragon with all the treasure sort of piled up around my belly.
	And then she has to come in and get the treasure without waking me up.
	And then if I do wake up, I sort of jump up.
	It's got my treasure!
	I sort of go chasing after her.
	And she used to go and run and hide.
	And...
	I'd come in and sort of sniff around and look for her and all that.
	And sometimes I'd find her and sometimes I wouldn't.
	And she was about three and a half or three and three quarters.
	And it's just amazing.
	She's like, to hell with that.
	I'm just going to turn and fight.
	And so she just, I'm chasing her down the hall.
	And she just like, she just turns like, she's fighting me back.
	And I was like, Smog is now surprised.
	Smog does not know exactly what to do.
	Smog is going to run away.
	And so we've done that kind of stuff.
	And so she has no problem differentiating fact from fantasy.
	So she was talking to some kid the other day and The kid was saying, I have an invisible unicorn, right?
	And she's like, invisible.
	She can't see it.
	The kid's like, well, no, invisible.
	Can you touch it?
	No.
	Can you smell it?
	Horses can be smelly.
	No.
	And a couple other questions, and she said, okay, so...
	How is just not the same as not being there, right?
	It's like, okay, well...
	So she's very good at knowing what is real and what is not.
	She has a very active fantasy life, but she knows that it's fantasy.
	And I think that she doesn't usually ask me now whether...
	The stories are true or not, because she kind of knows.
	She does want to know if it's a realistic story, like Lord of the Flies.
	She wants to know, did this actually happen?
	Which is a perfectly fair question, right?
	She doesn't know a novel from a documentary, because we watch stories and we also watch nature documentaries occasionally as well.
	So, I haven't found anything...
	I mean, I like stories of courage.
	I like stories of intrepidness.
	I like stories of daring.
	And...
	She is vaguely aware that there are bad people in the world.
	And she also is aware that it's important to know who they are and that if you have a talent or...
	Feel a calling in that direction that it's a noble thing to do battle against evil and serve virtue.
	Okay.
	And so I like the stories where that kind of stuff occurs and she strikes these heroic poses and wants to be a champion and all that and hates princess stuff.
	She's never...
	I think when she was like maybe two and a half or three she liked princess costumes but that's been about it for the princess now.
	She's like, she just hates princess stuff.
	She wants to be queen and of course I pointed out that A... Great band, B, that if she's going to be queen, I said, if you hate princesses or princess stuff, if you're queen, what's your daughter going to be?
	She's like, oh, right, a princess.
	Well, it would be okay for her.
	You know, I'm willing to have an exception.
	It's like, hey, no exceptions.
	It's a philosophy, baby.
	And so I try not to limit her to anything in particular, but I have no worries about...
	Her thinking magic is real.
	Yeah.
	You know, like, I have no...
	So when she meets people who talk about things that are fantastical, she's just like, well, that's just silly, right?
	Like, so I've never found that exposing her to fantasy has had any negative effect on her capacity to differentiate between fantasy and reality, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, it does.
	Thanks.
	Yeah.
	What are your thoughts?
	Well, I'm worried about falling into the classic Disney traps I don't want to get into the bad stereotypes, the wrong ideas, the sexism, the princess and knight type of stories.
	That's something that I would love to read to my children.
	And which sort of Disney stories are you talking about?
	Do you mean like the Frozen stuff and that or other things?
	Well, yeah, I did listen to your truth about Frozen and your truth about Maleficent.
	And I was amazed.
	I enjoyed these movies, but I was amazed at the depth, the amount of things that just went through my – that I just never noticed.
	And I said, if my kids get to watch these movies or read such stories over and over and over again, because as far as I know, that's what they do.
	They like a movie.
	They watch it 25 times.
	But you talk to them about it, right?
	Well, I would love to do it.
	That's why I'm getting ready for that.
	I've had these conversations.
	And you're wise to do that.
	Just before you continue, I really want to...
	Media, to me...
	It's not bad for children unless they're just watching the media without parents around.
	So when my daughter is interested in a movie, I'll read up about it.
	We'll maybe go and get it.
	And then we'll talk about it while it's going on.
	I'll pause the movie and talk about it.
	We'll talk about it afterwards.
	And I ask her what she thinks.
	I tell her what I think.
	And it becomes a great...
	Vehicle for a conversation.
	Like, you know, one thing my wife and I miss is we go to movies.
	We used to go to movies and we'd sit at a coffee shop after the movie and just have the greatest conversations about the movie.
	I loved it, right?
	It's a little tougher to do now.
	We can do it sort of at home.
	So I think media gets a bad rap from people because media is used as a substitute for parenting rather than as a launching point for discussions with your children.
	Yeah.
	Like, oh, just go watch the movie.
	But kids don't say, like, she liked the movie Cars, but she never tried to talk to a car.
	You know, because we talked about all that kind of stuff.
	Like, so the other day, she said that, we were talking about fairies, right?
	And now she knows that fairies aren't real.
	But I said, how do we know that fairies aren't real?
	And she said, well, you know, we can't see them.
	And I said, well, but there's stuff that we can't see, but we still know that it's real.
	Like, have you ever seen Jupiter?
	But, you know, you've seen pictures or whatever.
	You haven't seen it directly.
	So we went through all this stuff, and then we...
	I said, well, how big...
	I said, how big are fairies?
	And she said, oh, this big, tiny bit.
	How big are their brains, right?
	Because the brains have to be smaller than the fairies, otherwise that's pretty much the grossest fairy you can possibly imagine.
	The tips of wings and fingers coming out of a tiny fluttering brain would be like, yuck, like zombie fairy movie from hell.
	And so I said, well, how big would the brain have to be?
	And we talked about the brain the other day in language.
	And I said, so if the brain is like the size of a grain of sand...
	Would the fairy be able to talk?
	Like, how big a brain do you need to be able to talk?
	And she said, well, it would have to be a lot bigger, right?
	It would have to be way bigger.
	And I said, well, yeah, because cats have, you know, pretty big brains and they can't talk.
	And dogs have even bigger brains and they can't talk.
	And apes have even bigger brains and they can't really talk.
	And so that's how we knew that fairies weren't real because, you know, fairies got a brain the size of an ant.
	Ants can't talk and therefore fairies wouldn't be able to talk either.
	So that kind of stuff.
	So to me then, her knowing about fairies is kind of cool.
	Because it's a launch point to talk about What is real and what is not and how we know.
	And I think that is cool stuff.
	I see the potential for opportunity every single time.
	And I like that.
	The issue that I was having with my friends when we were talking about that, because I asked on my Facebook profile and I said, would you let your children watch Disney movies?
	And a lot of them said yes, some of them said no.
	But the problem that I have when someone says, yeah, but it's the parent's job to talk to the kid about it.
	The problem that I have with that is that not all parents are equipped to spot the issues or to talk about them.
	And so that's where I want to get more knowledgeable.
	I want to make sure that the...
	As I said, I don't want to answer every single question, but I want to be ready for what comes up.
	And so that was my main question, specifically for kid literature.
	Because I can't seem to find, let's say, libertarian stories for kids, you know, how to get them into that frame of mind, the non-violent communication thing, not using force, the understanding of virtue and stuff like that.
	Your material really, really transformed me.
	It changed my life.
	Seriously.
	Thank you.
	I cannot tell you how much.
	But what I can say, though, is that for a long time I've been a man who has never wanted to have kids.
	Ever.
	Yeah, you and me both, brother.
	And I met this wonderful woman, who's my partner right now.
	And she does want to have kids.
	And I said, with you, I really feel great about that.
	But I'm in Quebec because I live in Montreal.
	I do not want to have kids in Quebec.
	I prefer going elsewhere.
	So that's why we said three years.
	So we're going to be traveling a little bit and visiting a few countries, see where we want to settle.
	And ideally, I'd go to New Zealand.
	But that's our choice.
	But before going there, before her being pregnant...
	I want to get to know as much as I can.
	The Peaceful Parenting is truly a gem.
	It's unbelievable.
	The Bomb in the Brain, your material there, it encouraged me to buy a Kindle and I've not stopped buying books online on these subjects.
	And your work is...
	Has transformed me completely and entirely.
	It's unbelievable.
	And so, for the first time, I can tell you...
	First of all, let me just say, thank you so much for saying that.
	I mean, that is a wonderful thing to hear, and I think it's very kind of you to say so.
	I'm very, very glad that the work has been helpful.
	Just to clarify, so the bomb of the brain, FDURL.com slash BIB. Not my work.
	I'm basically a typist and a reader, right?
	So we go and assemble the work.
	So I just really want to...
	I think some of the Peaceful Parenting RTR stuff, definitely got some original stuff there, but a lot of it is just assembling stuff.
	You know, my basic philosophy is if it blows my mind...
	Then it's probably a good thing to talk about with listeners.
	And the Bomb of the Brain stuff, to me, was mind-blowing.
	And, like, in the same way, when I read, like, The Bell Curve 20 years ago, it's just mind-blowing stuff.
	And, no, 20...
	Yeah.
	I think this October was like the actual 20-year anniversary.
	I think it was October 1994 that The Bell Curve came out.
	Anyway, so I really appreciate that.
	It's very, very kind of you to say so.
	And the fact that, you know, there'll be more of us because of this show means that you obviously, first of all, you have to name your child Free Domain Radio.
	Yeah.
	That's, I'm afraid, you may not have read the fine print of the EULA, but after your third podcast, it has to be, or it has to be named Big Chatty Forehead, which actually is quite appropriate for most toddlers, particularly babies, but that's very kind.
	But I think, as far as, like, libertarian stuff for kids, you know...
	Economics is a very interesting thing to teach to children.
	They're very good at it.
	They're very good.
	We're born traitors, which is why it's so tragic when the government gets in the way.
	We're born negotiators and born traitors, which is why when aggression in parenting and aggression in society robs us of our essential humanity because we are, by nature, Traders and negotiators, which is just two ways of saying the same thing.
	A negotiation involves a trade, and all trades involve negotiation, because you're looking for a win-win.
	Even if the negotiation is simply, I agree to that price, that is.
	So we are absolutely born voluntary.
	We are born traders and negotiators.
	We are born peaceful, and we have to take a huge amount of Muhammad Ali-style cultural blows to the head in order to feel that anything else is human.
	When people talk to me about human nature, It's completely insane.
	It's like saying that the nature of a tree is to be a cabinet.
	It's like, no, you cut down the tree, you shave the shit out of it, you hammer it in pieces and you lacquer it, maybe you get a cabinet.
	But the nature of a tree is a tree, and you can transform it into other things, but it involves a hell of a lot of aggression.
	And it's the same thing with human nature.
	So for me, I feel...
	So far that I'm teaching my child economics, although we will talk about it explicitly sometimes, I'm teaching my child economics and the free market through parenting.
	Because we trade and we negotiate.
	And because she does that with everyone around her, When she encounters the free market, it will not seem like an alien thing.
	You know, when people encounter the free market and they recoil or react negatively to it, all they're confessing, and it's tragic that they don't see this, and it's tragic that more people don't see this.
	But when people are like, oh, the market, you know, whatever, right?
	They're merely confessing that voluntarism and trade and negotiation is Are foreign and threatening to them, which tells you everything about how tragically they were raised.
	I mean, if the cabinet could think and look at the trees and look at the forest and the sunshine and all that, and if the cabinet looked at the forest and said, yuck, how horrible, there's bugs, you know, all the cabinet would be saying is that it kind of knows how far it is from the forest, from its natural state. all the cabinet would be saying is that it kind And it recoils and rebels against its natural state because you can't put the cabinet back in the forest, right?
	So there's a tragedy and a loss there, which shows itself up as an explosive hostility.
	And so when people rail against the market, they're just telling me everything that has occurred with their parenting.
	Yeah.
	And people think that they're like, it's so weird, man.
	I mean, people keep talking about things like they're not talking about themselves.
	And I don't know, I guess, I mean, they must be fooling enough people that they keep doing it.
	People keep talking about, like they're talking about something other than who they are.
	Like people talk about God, like they're not talking about their caregivers as children.
	People talk about governments, like they're not talking about their caregivers as children or their teachers or their priests.
	And people talk about the free market, like they're not talking about how much they were allowed to negotiate with as children.
	And like, all...
	All that's happening is people are confessing their childhoods over and over and over and over again, using bigger words and more complicated words and more staggering tsunamis of bullshit.
	It's astonishing.
	Almost all contemporary and historical discussions of ideas are confessions of childhood.
	Yeah.
	And when you see that, it is as explosive as anything that you can get in this life.
	And it allows you to not be offended.
	You know, I think the free market is exploitive.
	Okay.
	So you don't understand the free market and you don't understand exploitation, but you have a very strong reaction to voluntarism.
	What does that tell me?
	It tells me that you have been bullied and you're justifying it.
	Yeah.
	Because not being bullied is bad, right?
	So you have to justify being bullied as a child.
	And so the freedom and the free market is a bad thing.
	And particularly when you start talking, I mean, talking about the free market in money is one thing, and that's difficult enough for people.
	But by God, as you know, talking about a free market in relationships...
	Well, it's okay to talk about a free market in relationships when it comes to marital partners, because that generally benefits women, because most women initiate divorce.
	But when you start talking about the vertical voluntary relationships between adult, child, and parent, right?
	And people just rage against that.
	Some people do.
	And all that tells me is that they want the subsidy called Kids Have to See Me, no matter how badly I behave.
	Yep.
	They have to.
	So, yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, don't tell people they don't have to see me.
	You know, somebody sends a letter to my wife saying, you know, you don't have to be married.
	She's like, I know.
	I love being married.
	Same thing with me, right?
	I mean, no threat to me.
	Voluntarism in marriage is no threat to me.
	Voluntarism in marriage is only a threat to abusers.
	And volunteerism in...
	Adult, child, and parent relationships is only a threat to abusers.
	And that is as clear a confession as anyone.
	I can't stand the idea that there's voluntarism between adult children and their parents.
	Why?
	Why can't you stand that idea?
	Well, for the same reason that the post office doesn't want to be privatized, right?
	Because it doesn't work in that form, right?
	Except it's much more personal and much more volatile.
	But that's such a clear confession that just goes on and on.
	There's just this continual.
	Everybody opens their mouth.
	All they're doing, confess, confess, confess.
	Childhood, childhood, childhood.
	Trauma, trauma, trauma.
	Justification, justification, justification.
	Abuse, abuse, abuse.
	Stockholm, Stockholm, Stockholm.
	It's all you're hearing.
	And people all pretend they've got these hand puppets of massive intellectual distraction to pretend that that's not exactly what is continually going on, with some exceptions, but not many, tragically.
	I've actually purchased all of your books, and I also purchased them again when I got my Kindle, so I wanted to carry them to me.
	But I learned a lot through those, especially RTR. And, you know, when we were younger, my brother and I, our parents, didn't know how to raise us without raising their hands, if I may say so.
	Didn't know how to raise them.
	You have read these books, right?
	Yeah.
	So why are you trying to smuggle something in there, brother?
	Talking was not much of an issue.
	It was not much of an option.
	What do you mean they didn't know?
	They didn't know how to raise you?
	What does that mean?
	I mean, there was a lot of spanking there, right?
	I know, but how does that mean that they didn't know?
	Oh, I'm coming to that.
	And we had that conversation where my dad and my mom, like any of the old parents, what I've heard, is that, well, we did what we could with what we had in time, right?
	At that time.
	And I don't think that today, in this day and age, I don't think that's an excuse anymore.
	You cannot use this.
	With the amount of information that's out there...
	Sorry, how old...
	How old are you?
	I'm 39 now.
	And so I had that chat with my dad and my mom was listening and sitting next to us.
	And they said, I understand that back when we were 5, 10, knowledge was not that available.
	But today it's not an excuse anymore.
	So I've made my peace with that, with their approach to parenting.
	Just to be clear.
	Yep.
	I think it's a sensible book of childcare or something like that, so Benjamin Spock, you know, the other one.
	Okay.
	In the post-war period was recommending no spanking.
	In the post-Second World War period.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	So that is 60 years ago.
	Yeah.
	And this was the most popular childcare book that was around, which strongly recommended to not spank.
	Mm-hmm.
	So, we're not asking for quantum physics in the Middle Ages here, right?
	I understand.
	Although Quebec, so...
	They might have had an older manual for child raising.
	Something, you know, originally written in ancient Aramaic.
	But anyway, go on.
	What I mean by that is that in this day and age, it's much more easy.
	It's much easier to get that information.
	And so...
	That's what I'm putting into use for myself and for my future children.
	What I've learned...
	Okay, but when you had the conversation with your parents, was there sorrow and regret on their part?
	Yes.
	My dad did apologize because he said, at that time, I did not know.
	And I said, I understand that you did not know.
	That's okay.
	It's not something that we can transform.
	Well, but did he try to know?
	Like, what books on parenting did he read?
	I have not asked him that question.
	You should ask him that.
	Yes, next time.
	Because, you know, it's one thing to say I didn't know, although I read 20 books on parenting, which is the bare minimum.
	Yep.
	Right?
	I mean...
	I mean, I swear to God, people read more about how to work their smartphones than they do about how to raise their children.
	So if your parents say, well, I didn't know, and you say, well, okay, well, what are the books on parenting that you read?
	And they said, well, we read this book and this book and this book and this book, and they all said that spanking was the very best.
	And they all had studies, and I'm like, okay, well, that's really tragic, you know?
	And obviously, even if I read and if I end up harming my child...
	Even though I've studiously tried not to, I still feel like crap.
	I'm still going to apologize.
	Like, I'm not going to say, like, I'm now an evil guy, but I'm obviously really sorry and sad, and, you know, that I... You know, if I'm roughhousing with my daughter and I give her an owie, I'm like, of course I wasn't trying to.
	I was trying to do the opposite, but I'm incredible.
	I feel terrible, and I really apologize, even though it was a complete accident.
	And so my question is...
	Well, you embarked on raising children.
	That's the most important job you're ever going to have as a human being.
	And I recognize that.
	That's why I'm getting ready for it.
	It was necessary for me to sit down with my parents and have that discussion about spanking because I wanted them to know about what is now known in the scientific domain about the result of spanking.
	And now they understand a little bit more where I'm coming from.
	They understand why I want to...
	My parents will probably be around when I'll have my kids.
	And they'll be...
	You know, the grandparents will be present.
	So I want them to understand my approach to child rearing.
	And for them to also apply it.
	Not use what they know.
	Sorry to interrupt, Daniel.
	Sorry, Danny.
	Do they know that you want to have kids now?
	Yes, they do.
	Yeah, see, there's going to be stuff that changes in parenting.
	I don't think anything foundational.
	But there's going to be some stuff that changes in parenting between now and when I become a grandfather.
	So it's incumbent upon me to continue to study parenting.
	Like even when my daughter is 20, 25 or whatever, it's still incumbent upon me to...
	Study parenting.
	Because I'm going to be a grandparent, which means that I'm going to need to either brush up on the skills I haven't used in a while, or improve them through the latest research and methodologies, right?
	That's a great point, actually.
	And so this, you know, this is a call to parents out there whose children are grown.
	It's really important to continue to study parenting.
	If your kids have any interest at all in becoming parents, and even if they don't, you know, as you say, you didn't want to, I didn't particularly want to, but then you meet the right person and there you go, right?
	So you need to, as a parent, even after your kids grow, you need to study parenting.
	Also, of course, as parents, you have a lot of credibility to other people, and there are always going to be kids in your life that you can positively influence, you know?
	Yep.
	Neighbors, kids, your second cousin's brother's roommate.
	Someone you can influence for the better.
	Yeah, yeah.
	That's right.
	Good reference, man.
	I knew we were the same similar age.
	It's one of my favorite movies, though.
	I know.
	It's a great, great movie.
	What is the actual quote?
	I can't remember.
	I'm your father's brother's cousin's nephew's former roommate.
	Yeah, yeah.
	That's right.
	That's right.
	It's a funny movie.
	It really is.
	Anyway, so...
	Yeah, keep studying parenting.
	I mean, to me, it's just a civilized thing to do.
	You know, like a decent knowledge of literature is a civilized thing to have.
	A decent knowledge of art is a civilized thing to have.
	Maybe even learning another language.
	A decent novel of computers is a civilized thing to have.
	And a decent knowledge of parenting is just a civilized thing to have.
	Whether you have kids or not, or whether you want to have kids or not, there's always going to be somebody you can influence for the better.
	You know, there's very few of us who go through life with zero idea of nutrition, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	And we all know a little bit of something about nutrition.
	We all know a little bit of something about exercise.
	We all know a little bit of something about cooking and how to dress and self-grooming and all of that.
	So there's just some basic things that you go through life knowing about.
	And some you have to and some are just sort of the mark of a civilized human being.
	And to me, parenting has got to be kind of front and center.
	You just need to know about parenting, no matter what.
	It's more important than cooking.
	It's more important than whoever is winning in mixed martial arts or whoever's winning on some sports team.
	That stuff's pretty unimportant.
	But when it comes to parenting, everybody.
	Should study parenting.
	And, you know, it can be an hour a week.
	Just read some articles.
	You know, subscribe to parenting magazines.
	Read what's going on.
	Just learn about it.
	Because there's always going to be someone you can help.
	You don't have to become a professional parenting coach any more than reading a couple of books on nutrition means that you have to become a dietician.
	But you should know it is the fundamental mark of a civilized human being to know something about parenting on an ongoing basis because it is continually...
	I'm glad that you gave me the opportunity to mention that, because I wanted to talk about that for a while.
	And you are my excuse.
	And so people who say, well, I just didn't know, it's like, what, do you get into a car without knowing how to drive it?
	Like, if you don't know how to drive stick, do you go to a car rental place and they say, here, drive stick?
	And you're like, well, I'm sure I'll figure it out.
	No, you learn how to do things that are important in life.
	You learn how to do things.
	You don't build a house having no clue what you're doing.
	It's going to fall down.
	And so people who say, well, I just didn't know...
	Did you study?
	If not, then you're just driving drunk and you're still responsible for your lack of knowledge.
	I would say that my dad working three jobs a day and only sleeping four hours a day, maybe for him, but I have no excuse for my mother.
	Wait, wait, hang on, hang on.
	Okay, so maybe no excuse for your dad, but did your dad, like was he doing that from when he met your mom?
	No, my dad was in the military when they met.
	Oh, are you telling me he didn't have time to read in the military?
	Are you kidding me?
	The military is just basically a giant fucking library with guns.
	I will not be answering questions that I cannot answer.
	I mean, you send the military to Iraq without an Xbox and they'll frag your ass.
	I mean, holy crap.
	So much of the military is like, hurry up and wait!
	If it moves, move it.
	If it doesn't move, paint it.
	And now sit around for four days while we figure out where you're going next.
	Listen, I mean, from what I've talked about with military people, you have quite a lot of time to get other things than shooting people done in the military.
	It's a lot of hanging around.
	I mean, it's the government, for God's sakes, right?
	I mean, so, yeah, I guarantee you that he met your mom while he was in the military.
	So, you know, if he assumed, as I guess most people in Quebec...
	I assume, since it's a Catholic-influenced province, to say the least, okay, I met a woman, we're probably going to get married, so we're going to have kids, so it's pretty important for me to learn about parenting, so I'm going to go read up some stuff, right?
	Actually, it was, oh, you're pregnant, oh, let's get married.
	Okay, so nine months.
	You can learn a lot in nine months, right?
	And he's responsible for getting her pregnant anyway, right?
	True.
	Anyway, I don't want to take too much time from the other callers.
	So if it's okay with you, I'll just let you talk to the other ones.
	The other question that I had very quickly...
	I'm being dumped.
	Mike, hold me.
	He doesn't want me anymore.
	Wow.
	I have to be a really shitty host of people like, you know, yeah, you changed my life and all that, but, you know, I got to go.
	You know, I got to go and I got to go with some friends and stand over here.
	Yeah.
	I got some laundry to sort.
	I mean, it's been sitting there for a couple of months, and I really need to go through some of my old basement books and see if I still need them.
	So, great chat, though, Steph.
	Well, look, if you want, I can stay online.
	No, no, no.
	I'm kidding.
	I'm kidding.
	Well, Daniel, actually, before you do go, there is something that just dawned on me that I think is worth discussing.
	I think Steph has talked about this on the show before, so it could be pretty interesting.
	You said you're 39, right?
	Yeah.
	Yes.
	And you want to wait three years to have your first kid.
	That's the going plan, right?
	Yes, the reason for that is that my partner is finishing some studies and I want to move out of Canada.
	I don't want to live in Quebec anymore and I would like to move outside of Canada.
	I don't think Quebec is a suitable place to have children, in my opinion, especially with the state education that is absolutely crappy.
	That's why I'm looking to move into New Zealand.
	My girlfriend would like to visit the country before we go there.
	So we've scheduled a trip in one year because we need to put all the money together so we can leave for about six weeks and explore the country.
	If she likes it, we will be moving there.
	So that's why there's that time frame.
	How old is your girlfriend?
	She's 10 years younger.
	She's 29.
	Alright, okay.
	So we're good for that.
	Well, I was just interested because I'm sure this is something you've given a lot of thoughts of, but the pros and cons of being an older parent versus a younger parent.
	What?
	And a lot of people that are making those decisions now, I'm sure would be interested to hear what you have to say on the subject.
	If I had my good ear turned to your mic, I'd be highly offended.
	I did take quite a long time to think about that.
	Listen, I'm just telling you, if you're going to be a 42-year-old dad, God help you.
	Yes, I'm expecting it.
	No, listen.
	Exercise, man.
	That's the key.
	You've got to work out.
	People occasionally crap at me like, oh man, he lifted a couple of weights during the show.
	It's like...
	Yeah, my daughter's 48 pounds and I'm throwing around like a spinning top.
	I need some strength.
	Actually, it does sort of help me listen and it keeps my blood flowing, keeps me going in the show.
	I don't know how, like, Rush Limbaugh sits.
	I stan the whole, all these shows.
	I can have you sits for...
	Yeah, you do.
	You know, there's nothing that scares you out of a sitting show more than looking at Rush Limbaugh, you know, picking up a cigar butt in a tutu.
	You haven't seen that?
	Let's just say they're somewhat specialized.
	I didn't even tell you what he was picking up the cigar, but with.
	Clinch and lift.
	But yeah, that's excellent in broadcasting.
	Yeah, just stay healthy, man.
	You know, stay healthy and keep exercising and make sure you don't gain any weight.
	So I'm back down to 197.
	I'm slowly recovering from last year's chemo and all that.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, just stay healthy.
	I mean, that's the key thing.
	Because, you know, your bride's going to have 10 years on you, so she's going to be a tad more spry.
	I mean, 39 things hadn't really affected me that much.
	But, yeah, in your 40s, basically, you just feel like a zombie with bits falling off you.
	Like, I'm sorry.
	I didn't, like, people told me that when I was younger.
	People told me, like, oh, man, in your 40s, you know what happens?
	Your parents get sick and your teeth have problems.
	So now I'm, like, crazy brushing teeth and all that.
	But yeah, in your 40s, I just sort of feel like, ah, let me leap into my 40s from my 30s where I was...
	Oh my God, what happened to my leg?
	Oh, my arm hurts.
	Why?
	Because it's going to rain in four days in another part of the world that you need to be aware of.
	And I don't know what the hell happened, right?
	I mean, it's just like, why do I have this spot?
	What's going on here?
	Like, I got this weird little spot on my head.
	It's just like, why do I have age spots?
	Like, why?
	Why do I have pointillism from, like, the Crypt Keeper on my hand?
	I don't understand that.
	Why do I have just bits sticking up and falling out and owieing and stuff like that?
	Like, I've been doing the same workout off and on for, like, 30 years.
	I hit my 40s, and it's like, nope!
	Can't do that anymore.
	Why?
	No reason.
	You're just in your 40s.
	Sorry.
	Sucks to be you.
	You now get clicking noises when you chew.
	Why?
	Just to keep you awake.
	Hey, do you like sleeping through the night?
	None of that for you, I'm afraid, because your bladder has shrunk to the size of Tinkerbell's thimble.
	So, anyway, I won't get into all of the...
	And why?
	Why the fuck do I grow these sloth-toed toenails to the point where I can, like, climb trees without shoes on?
	Like, I used to have nice toenails.
	Like, they're coming in like these giant, like, fucking fungal tsunamis.
	Like, what the hell is going on with that?
	And why do I clip-clop on hardwood?
	Like, my feet have turned into these hooves.
	Like, I... My wife told me about this.
	Well, you see, what you have to do is you have to get these emery boards and sand the shit out of your feet in the shower.
	I'm like, what?
	Why?
	It's your 40s.
	That's all I can tell you.
	I am getting ready.
	To answer Michael's question very quickly, because you've really opened my eyes through the subject of peaceful parenting and through your material, I've really understood that if I wanted to live in a peaceful society, I must take steps in order to see that change.
	So I must be that change.
	And I understand that it's a multi-generational issue.
	If I want to live in a peaceful society, we have to start somewhere.
	What you're doing is absolutely fantastic.
	And it has inspired me to do the same thing.
	And so that is why I've said, okay, kids, good.
	It'll be a sacrifice.
	I understand what I'm getting into.
	But I think it's necessary.
	If I want to do my job, my part, even though I may die before the end, before seeing the result, it's okay.
	I've made my peace with that, and I agree, and I'm good, and I understand that I need to be the change that I want to see.
	And so that's my reasoning.
	That's for you, Michael.
	That's my response.
	Oh, thanks, Dan.
	Yeah, no judgment or anything.
	I'm just, I'm aware, certainly a lot of people planning futures and stuff and when to have kids, and it's an interesting topic for conversation.
	Older parent versus younger parent, when's the best time, all that kind of stuff.
	So I'm planning to be self-sufficient.
	As much as possible, I would love to be able to be an at-home dad, just like Yusufan, if possible.
	That's what I would love to do.
	And my partner is okay with that, and she thinks that it's an amazing idea.
	So that's what we're planning.
	That's what we're working on.
	Okay, and are you fully prepared for an approximately 40% drop in your testosterone?
	I understand, yes.
	No, I mean, I figured I was going to sing like John Henderson and get a full head of hair again, like I have so much testosterone drop.
	I used to be pretty punchy, and now I'm basically just this giant deflating paper bag of compliance.
	I don't think most people know about that science.
	Yeah, so when you become a dad, your testosterone level will drop, because...
	Unlike lions, we're not supposed to eat or young, however tasty they may look in certain baby burritos.
	And the more time you spend with kids, the lower your testosterone goes.
	Yes.
	So I'm basically a hysterical Jane Austen character these days.
	That's my particular bent.
	You know, like I was watching the Downton Abbey.
	Uh-huh.
	The other day.
	And a character dies.
	It's my big spoiler.
	A character dies.
	Oh no!
	Fucking bawling for like 20 minutes.
	You know?
	My wife is just drawing a thicker mustache on me to retain some respect for my masculinity.
	But, oh yeah, no, basically, your testosterone will drop considerably, especially if you're a stay-at-home dad.
	And I think, I mean, that's obviously to the best.
	That's what nature is designed.
	It's like, oh, so if you're the woman, be the woman.
	That's sort of what happens.
	And I think, I mean, it's fine.
	It's certainly been interesting to me, but it's just something to...
	To be prepared for that, you know, when you see people phoning their grandparents in commercials, you will burst into tears and you will be a hysterical character out of some Tennessee Williams play, sobbing her way to an Oscar.
	So I just think that's an important thing.
	Yeah.
	To be aware of, which I was not fully aware of until I realized that I was basically getting C-cups.
	I am reading up on the material as well.
	And I've done a bachelor's degree in sexology.
	That's my background.
	I know a little bit about it.
	So yeah, I'm getting ready for that.
	That is a great, great...
	That's how you meet a 29-year-old.
	Hey, baby!
	I got me a bachelor's in sexology, and I don't plan on remaining a bachelor's forever, if you know...
	And if you can pull a Gene Simmons and lick your own eyebrows, pretty much you'll just be raining women all over you.
	It's a good thing I matter after the bachelor's degree.
	Yeah, you want to be well-trained.
	Let's keep that...
	And I'm very bendy.
	Well, at least I was till I hit my 40s.
	Mike's all like, my internet's fast and I can touch my toes.
	How nice for you!
	I'm thrilled to be working with people younger.
	It's okay, Stoyan will start talking to you about his spryness.
	Oh, Steph, I dropped something.
	Why don't you bend over and pick it up?
	It's a one-way trip.
	It's a one-way trip.
	So when I was younger, I used to do a lot of diving.
	And I was pretty good.
	I did double flips and twists and a half.
	I did a lot of diving when I was younger.
	And at some point in my 30s, I'm standing on a diving board and I haven't done it in a while.
	And I'm thinking, let's just do a little bit of a rational calculation here.
	If I do it, I'll have recaptured my youth a little bit.
	So I guess that would be nice.
	If I do it, I could end up in a body cast.
	Hmm.
	And at some point, you do this cost-benefit.
	And when I was 17 or 16 and doing all that crap, I went skydiving.
	Who cares, right?
	Yeah, I'm immortal right there.
	I'll live forever.
	And then you get older and you're like, ooh...
	I could pull something doing that.
	I think I'll just ease back in my rocker and whittle something or other.
	That's all you got.
	And I mean, I'm only 48, right?
	So, I mean, 50s, you know, of course, after last year, all the next decades, it's like, yay!
	I love getting older because the alternative sucks.
	So, but yeah, it is funny.
	You know, I still have, like I did, I had a workout injury from like six years ago where I pulled a tendon.
	I was doing this class, which was like...
	Like, disco weights.
	Like, it sounds gay, and God it was.
	But great, good gay.
	I'm not judging.
	Yeah, no, it really was.
	It's like, and so you had this, like, these little risers that you use for aerobics, and you were, like, dancing all over the stuff with weights, you know?
	And of course, do I do anything intelligent?
	No!
	Do you know why?
	No!
	Too much fucking testosterone.
	I wasn't a dad yet.
	So I'm like, I will get the giant weights.
	And I will dance all over and do these giant weights because that is attractive.
	And the thing is, it's like incredibly happily married, but it doesn't matter.
	You know, like, never going to have an affair, never act on it.
	Must!
	Look!
	You know, it's just the same thing.
	Like, I mean, I'm incredibly happily married.
	A woman walks by...
	Right?
	Got, got, got!
	Meet spine!
	Right?
	It's just this reflex, right?
	Like my wife touches my arm.
	Flex!
	And she says, you don't have to flex.
	It's like, I don't even know I'm doing it.
	It's not my arm.
	It's just my arm wants an egg!
	Egg!
	Egg!
	And so I'm doing these, like, I'm doing these dances, and I was actually pretty good at it.
	I'm doing all these dances with these weights, and I didn't even notice it at the time.
	But, like, two days later, I'm like, am I having a fucking heart attack?
	Like, deep in my chest, there's like this pain, this throbbing.
	I'm like, what the fuck is going on?
	Anyway, so it turned out, like, there's this tendon that runs from your arm, like, and goes back to your shoulder.
	Why?
	I don't know, but it's just something that's needed.
	And I pulled it, and it pulled it so badly that it calcified, which I also didn't know could happen.
	And so it shrunk.
	And so, yeah, I've had to, I had, like, I did ultrasound.
	I did acupuncture, which is fucking sadism.
	And I also did this thing called cupping, which is basically when you try to reproduce the financial resources available to your average medieval Chinese villager.
	And the cupping actually did help, and I think it helps because it sucks a whole lot of oxygen-rich blood into the area.
	But anyway, it's mostly better now, but it's like...
	Shit like that.
	Like, oh, it hurts.
	Okay.
	It's pretty much going to hurt for half a decade.
	So, welcome to getting middle-aged.
	And anyway, so now I'm much more cautious because now that's happened a couple of times where it's just like, I had to take eight months off doing weights because I hurt my arm just doing some weights.
	Doing the same thing I'd done forever.
	Because, you know, you get older.
	And so, yeah, that's just something, you know, if you're sailing into parenting, you know, your time of big parental activity is going to be like when the kid is four or five and six years old, where there's, Daddy, come chase me!
	Don't chase me like a zombie!
	I can't!
	Over 40 zombies, all I have, you know, chase me into the woods.
	I can do that because I'm leaving a trail of body parts that allows us to find our way back.
	So, yeah, it's, you know, and, you know, kids run like a blur.
	Like, I have to really work.
	I'm a fast runner and I have to really work to catch my daughter.
	I mean, because basically she's so small and fast.
	She basically runs like Luke Skywalker drives and You know, like on this hover car.
	The tops of like three blades of grass is all she needs to walk on.
	So she has no friction.
	And she can just keep going and going.
	And I'm like, circle back.
	Daddy's having a contraction.
	And the other thing that happens in your 40s too is shit that you just worked because you were alive doesn't work anymore.
	Right?
	So, like, I do a bike machine at home.
	It's my cardio.
	And bike machine doesn't do anything for your calves.
	So I don't really care about that, right?
	So, yeah, you know all this, right?
	So, like, I'm chasing a bunch of kids up a hill, and at the top, I'm like...
	I sound sinister.
	Yeah, sorry.
	Up a hill, as they're desperately attempting to get away, or find anybody in a uniform, I think was the phrase that they were thinking.
	No, like, it was at a kid's party, and I was, you know, I'm generally the one who goes out and plays.
	And I'm chasing them all up a hill, and I get to the top, I'm like...
	What the fuck are my calves hurting for?
	Oh, that's right.
	I didn't exercise quite the same level as I did my quads and my...
	Oh, my God.
	And it's like, now you fussy budget bastards.
	I mean, come on.
	Give me some love here.
	I mean, I'm doing cardio.
	It's not enough.
	You can do your calf exercise.
	Your calves are going to hurt.
	Yeah, like I had to worry about going to proportionately exercise when you're 20.
	No, you don't have to fuck all when you didn't.
	I didn't even floss when I was 20.
	Anyway.
	Yeah.
	Now it's like, I got to floss, and I got to use a water pick, and I got flamethrowers and shit like that in there, just to keep you, anyway.
	And then the, when you were talking about your wife, and you know, with your arms, and being able to see other women, you know, see what I mean?
	There's one thing that I've made sure that I've told my girlfriend.
	I will always, always...
	I love women.
	I will always keep looking.
	And she has to understand that.
	But that's okay.
	She's accepted it.
	Because I told her one day, I may lose myself in other women's breasts, but I always find my way back into yours, baby.
	Well, listen.
	The reality is that I genuinely think that my balls have this basic belief that That somewhere, when a woman is walking by, she's just gonna drop an egg.
	Like, it's just gonna, like, roll out, I don't know how, it's just gonna roll down, and I don't know, I could just, like, through flexing muscles, I could inseminate it, and then it's just gonna crawl back up, like a little Pac-Man go back up.
	I don't know what the hell my balls were thinking.
	You know, we're not going anywhere.
	Monogamously happily married.
	But they're just like, egg.
	I'm just going to whisper this one.
	Egg.
	Egg.
	Just somewhere there's an egg.
	And I don't know.
	It's mad.
	But, you know, I just accept that this post-Monkey beta expansion pack that's buggy as hell is obviously not finished its clear-cutting of errors.
	And just recognize that apparently I'm willing to spring into alternative procreation strategies at a moment's notice.
	Right?
	Yep.
	I don't know.
	Woman dropped something.
	Egg!
	Like, what are you doing?
	I have a child.
	I love her.
	I love my wife.
	We're not going.
	Egg!
	Shut up!
	Shut up or I'll exercise you.
	That's right.
	Well, you've answered all my questions.
	All right, thanks.
	He's got to go.
	I'm totally being dumped again.
	I can't take it.
	Yes, I am dumping you, Stefan.
	No, I'm busy.
	I have to go.
	Well, it's not you.
	It's me.
	It's me.
	Okay, go find some tips to lose yourself in and we'll talk to you soon, man.
	Thank you very much.
	Let us know what New Zealand is like.
	I hear it's wonderful if you've got furry feet.
	All right.
	I will let you know.
	One more, but not too long.
	The chat room just wanted to point out that for your shoulder thing, hemp oil apparently is...
	If you stuff coffee grounds up your armpit and jog in place listening to Beyonce, you will look ridiculous.
	Alright, Gloria's up next.
	Gloria wrote in and said, how can I get over my attraction to jerks and develop a more mature understanding of love?
	Mike, did you need to mock the question there?
	Was that essential?
	Was that something you felt compelled?
	So, Gloria, tell us about these bad boys.
	What do they do for you?
	Well, okay.
	I totally would have been one before becoming a dad.
	I'm just telling you that right now.
	Huh?
	No, before I lost all my testosterone, I totally would have been one of those bad boys.
	But anyway, go ahead.
	Oh, okay.
	Well, I just turned it up a little bit.
	So...
	I just want to say that I have been listening to your show for a while and something you talk about that really resonates with me is just as much as it's men's responsibility to not be shallow and not judge women completely on looks, it's women's responsibility to not be chasing these guys that, even though they may be sexy, won't be good partners or good fathers.
	I don't know.
	I find myself continuously longing for guys that have hurt me and are clearly not good guys.
	And it's strange.
	I feel like I don't really know how to control it.
	Well, you do know how to control it, right?
	I do.
	I guess I don't want to.
	I mean, you sit like a lady.
	You cross your legs.
	Do you, right?
	I mean, unless they have like weird squid-like termite burrowing penises, then they can't get it, right?
	Yeah.
	You grit your teeth and you, right?
	I mean...
	You know, like, it's the fatal attraction, like the Glenn Close stuff, right?
	I mean, that chick had crazy written over her, like, in markers on her forehead.
	And so, I mean, technically, you know how to control what you do, but it's more the impulse, right, that you want to control.
	Yeah.
	Well, also, I think I have a hard time even seeing it.
	You know what I mean?
	Seeing what?
	Seeing that they're not good guys.
	Because...
	Oh, okay, okay, okay.
	Right, because I... I think I have this thing where I'm very able to convince myself something is true just because I want it to be true.
	Oh, yeah.
	Well, welcome to called being a bald biped.
	I mean, I think we all have that.
	We all have that.
	I'm a philosopher.
	Anyway, have you ever used the word chemistry?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	Okay, so tell me, because I don't want to go on a big rant about chemistry, but I'm sure I feel it bubbling up and I can't control it.
	But because this word chemistry is usually a good indicator that you're lying to yourself.
	Yeah.
	So how do you use the word chemistry?
	I usually use it when I am feeling...
	When I'm feeling really excited by somebody or I'm feeling like their company is Is doing something more for me than my company, or how should I say it?
	Their company is doing something more for me than other people's company.
	Like, I'm feeling like a connection on this heightened level.
	No, you're feeling sexual arousal, isn't that what you're saying?
	Yeah, maybe not.
	I mean, you don't have to use, you're anonymous here, right?
	Like, they're doing more for me than, say, a llama.
	It's like, you're talking about the guy's got you really hot and bothered, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And women also use chemistry to friend zone guys, right?
	You know, you're attractive.
	I can get that at an abstract level.
	There's just, there's no chemistry.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	In other words, you'd be a good staple and provider.
	You don't serve my vaginal masochism enough.
	So I'm afraid I'm going to have to put you over there in the waiting place, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	All right.
	All right.
	And can you give me a recent example, just a sort of a general overview of how the pattern works in your relationships?
	Yeah.
	Sure.
	Well, okay, well, I guess a really good example is the sort of one of the first guys I was ever sexual with, I guess you could say.
	Or I guess you would say.
	I guess you could say.
	Remember, no euphemisms.
	You do not have to be a good girl on this show.
	So...
	It was shortly after college began, but he was someone I knew from high school.
	He was someone who was vaguely a friend of mine, but he was more like a friend of a friend.
	He was very sexual with me right off the bat.
	What does that mean?
	I don't want you to shake my hand.
	What does that mean?
	No, like he was...
	Like very flirty?
	Very flirty.
	But not in like a nice guy kind of like sweet way, just very like, just very forward.
	And it took me a while.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	See, not nice guy flirty to me is like, this drink may taste a little funny, but when you wake up, you'll be happy.
	I mean, what does that mean?
	Like he was flirty in a not nice way.
	I don't...
	Well, he wasn't like, oh, you're beautiful or whatever.
	He was more like, oh, show me your tits.
	Oh, show me your tits!
	Now, I must say, I've seen a few romantic comedies in my day.
	Show me your tits was really never a line that got anyone other than anything other than a slap.
	Did he really say show me your tits?
	Yeah.
	Now, I don't want the male audience to feel, although this strategy may have worked with this fine young lady, I would not recommend it in general.
	So this guy was pretty crass, right?
	Yeah.
	And this was exciting to you?
	Yeah, it was.
	But I was kind of naive at the time.
	And it still kind of took me a while.
	Like, I was still kind of just...
	Wait, wait.
	Naive about...
	What do you mean?
	I don't know what that means in this context.
	Naive about guys.
	I didn't have much experience with relationships and stuff.
	Okay.
	But did...
	So when...
	Because when a guy says, show me your tits, he's basically saying, like, you are incredibly sexy.
	Let's screw, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And, of course, that is flattering, right?
	I mean, that's kind of what the tits are for prior to the babies, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	Right?
	I mean, they're basically...
	It's tit sand, right?
	I mean, there's quicksand that's supposed to trap mammals or other animals.
	They're not supposed to, but it does, right?
	And you've got tit sand, which is supposed to attract and sort of catch a man, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	Okay.
	And so he was very...
	Forward, I guess you could say, and you found that exciting and then you had a romantic sexual relationship with him, right?
	Yeah.
	And how did that play out?
	Not well.
	Do you know what's true?
	Do you know what's true?
	Yeah.
	Let me tell you something here.
	I've heard this.
	Other women have tits too.
	Yes.
	That's the problem.
	Yeah.
	Nice tits.
	I think there's more than two.
	Not just on you, although maybe, but that's the problem, right?
	I mean, whatever you catch with tits, you know, if you live by the tits, you die by the tits, right?
	So how did that, what happened with this guy?
	So basically, after a while of just sort of hanging out and flirting, eventually we ended up having sex.
	And after that, I mean, he was just like...
	I'm so sorry to interrupt.
	And don't answer it if it's too personal.
	But was that your first time?
	No, but it was up there.
	Like, it was maybe third, fourth time.
	So, when you say that you were naive, this was after having had sex intercourse three times with three different guys?
	Not with three different guys.
	But, yeah, just like...
	Two different guys?
	What?
	Two different guys?
	No, one.
	Oh, one guy?
	Yeah.
	So you'd had intercourse only three times before with one guy?
	Yeah.
	Okay, okay, okay.
	And so what happened with him, and then, you know, it was in, I guess in my head, I was thinking, oh, this is going to be the onset of a relationship.
	I was just really naive, you know?
	And it wasn't only that it didn't turn into a relationship that bothered me.
	He was a complete dick to me afterwards.
	Like, just wouldn't talk to me.
	Or if he did, it was very, like, snippy or, like, kind of insulting.
	Like, he just turned into a complete accident.
	Gloria.
	No, Gloria.
	Can I just be completely annoying for a moment?
	Yeah.
	He didn't turn into a dick.
	No, he really didn't, right?
	Show me your tits.
	That's pretty much dick up front, right?
	Yeah, it's weird.
	I guess I just didn't see it that way.
	But no, you're right.
	Right.
	I mean, you know, he started off with show me your tits.
	And later he became oddly crude.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	Now, how pretty was he?
	How pretty was he?
	Or how handsome was he?
	You know, he's not the best looking guy in the world.
	I would say probably a seven.
	A seven?
	Yeah.
	Where do you think he got the confidence?
	I mean, not that that's exactly confidence, but the brazenness, I guess, right?
	He's got a certain kind of, I don't even want to say it's charm.
	No, look, I mean, somebody who's that open about their desire.
	So, you know, you know where you stand or you know in what position he wants you, I guess, right?
	Yeah.
	All right.
	So he's got a certain kind of charm.
	But, I mean, even that charm comes from a certain kind of confidence, I guess.
	Confidence is not the right word, but...
	Right.
	No, he is confident.
	He is, like, sharp and, like, witty.
	All right.
	Well, he's got intelligence mockers, right?
	Yeah.
	Although, actually, just by the by, since I was thinking about this today, and I don't mean to sound, this sounded like a pickup line, but this is a pretty good place to wedge it in.
	But I think that, actually, you know how, like, men have developed this capacity to make women laugh?
	Yeah.
	Right, so, oh, he's cute and funny.
	That's what you always hear from, like, tweens or whatever, right?
	Do you know, I think there's a twofold reason for that.
	The first reason is that it shows intelligence, right?
	Like, if you can make someone laugh, usually it's because you have some sort of connection or some sort of intelligence.
	But secondly, I think that women who aren't laughing can hide their age.
	So I think that men also developed the capacity to make women laugh so that a woman will show her true age by laughing.
	Because a woman who doesn't laugh is showing no wrinkles.
	Like, I don't look any particularly different than I did when I was 30, except when I'm laughing.
	When I laugh, people can see, right, I got the crow's feet and all that, right?
	So I think it's a way of determining a woman's real age when you obviously didn't have birth certificates or anything like that.
	I think it's a way of figuring out whether the woman is in her 20s or her 30s, right?
	Anyway, it's neither here nor there.
	But how long did that relationship last?
	Oh, God, like a couple weeks.
	Well, okay, well, here's the thing.
	Not even a couple weeks.
	It was like a couple days.
	But then what happened was about two years later, the same thing happened again.
	With him?
	Yes.
	What do you mean when you say the same thing happened again?
	Almost the same thing.
	We started talking again.
	All of a sudden, he's sending me messages over Facebook and stuff.
	I don't know.
	He's told me that he's different now.
	I believed it.
	The messages weren't as crass as the earlier stuff, right?
	No, no.
	They were very different.
	Yeah.
	Show me your soul.
	Yeah.
	And so I believed it.
	And then the same thing happened again.
	And that time, we kind of dated, sort of, for maybe a couple weeks.
	And then he was just like, I kind of met somebody else.
	And I think I like her better.
	So bye.
	Pretty much how that went.
	And what's...
	No, sorry, you were going to say?
	Oh, and then just after that, two years later, the same thing happened the third time.
	With the same guy?
	Oh, Gloria!
	Yeah.
	You know, your naivete excuse at the beginning might not work as well the third time.
	I know.
	But this is what I'm talking about.
	This is what's so insane about it.
	Like every time I believed, like I just believed that it was going to be different.
	Like I really believed it.
	And it wasn't, I mean, it was that he was saying it.
	No, no.
	He was obviously, he's a player, right?
	So he's, he knows what to say, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	But the question is, why is he trying to play you?
	And he's planning to play you because it works, right?
	Yeah.
	All right.
	Now, I'm happy to hear more.
	I may have heard enough.
	I'm happy to hear more or I can ask some questions.
	What would work for you?
	Oh no, just that.
	Well, I guess the end to that story is that it's completely not going to happen again.
	We haven't spoken in.
	So I figure since it's been an every two years thing, once I'm past the two-year mark, I'm good.
	And it's way past two years at this point.
	It's been like four years.
	And what's the longest relationship you've been in?
	Four months.
	And are you early, mid, late 20s?
	Late 20s.
	Late 20s.
	So you got to get your shit together, right?
	Yes, I know.
	Right.
	I mean, and how many boyfriends have you had?
	Or how many sexual partners?
	Boyfriends?
	A good amount.
	I've like had a lot of flings, I guess you could say, or things that last like a few months, probably around 20.
	20?
	Yeah, it's an estimate, something like that.
	And what do you think of that?
	I think it's a problem.
	Like, I think that I definitely have an issue picking the right guys.
	It's bad for your heart, right?
	Oh, yeah, it's really bad.
	I mean, it leaves you shell-shocked, right?
	Like, heart-scared, right?
	Yeah.
	Where's he at, right?
	Right.
	And in the relationships, like the 20 or so flings, or what happens usually at the end?
	Who, like, did the guys leave, or do you leave, or what happens?
	So I've been both on both ends of it.
	So a couple of times, I think it could have lasted longer, but I was going to be moving, and Both the times, actually.
	There was once when I was getting ready.
	Nope.
	No, because, Gloria, look, if it's going to work, you don't move.
	Or the guy comes with you.
	Like, if it's that important.
	Yeah.
	Does that make sense?
	I mean, it wasn't like you were going to prison, but he couldn't come, right?
	Right.
	Right.
	I guess we weren't committed enough to want to make a move.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	Um...
	And would you like me to ask some questions or do you want to mention a few more things?
	No.
	Well, just that this guy wasn't the only, like, sort of bad boy type whatever that I've gone for.
	That's probably apparent from the other things I've told you, but just that.
	Yeah, no, I assume that if it's only working out a little bit or for, you know, weeks or months that it's not...
	There's no compatibility fundamentally, which means that there's something else going on, right?
	Yeah, okay So your father My what?
	Your father.
	Yeah.
	What's the story?
	Honestly, we have a really good relationship.
	And I find it weird, too, that I have this really good relationship with my father and I have such horrible relationships with men.
	It's weird, but I get along great with my father.
	I mean, it's not like it's always been perfect, but now, you couldn't ask for a better father.
	He's totally cool.
	Yeah, okay, but what about when you were actually being formed as a human being, right?
	So what about in your early childhood?
	I mean, I remember him being the softer one.
	My mom was a little more strict.
	My mom would get mad at my dad because she thought he was too much like a friend and not enough like a dad.
	We've always just done lots of stuff together.
	He can be kind of moody.
	And I remember some of that.
	He wouldn't want to be bothered sometimes.
	There was once when I was seven where he just hauled off and smacked me across the face and that was weird.
	But I've talked to him about it since then and he was really apologetic that he just lost his temper.
	I'm so sorry.
	Could you just repeat that part again?
	That he smacked me across the face?
	And how old were you when he did that?
	I think I was around seven.
	Yeah, that was just a very weird, isolated thing.
	Like, that wasn't something that happened a lot.
	I don't even think...
	I mean, I remember when I was filling out that ACE thing.
	Like, I don't even think I was thanked.
	Like, if I was, I can't recall it.
	My parents are really good with kids.
	Like, my sister's got kids.
	And they're great with them.
	You know, I never see those...
	They don't even yell at them.
	So, you also have lived with an alcoholic or drug user?
	Well, yeah, my sister had problems when she was younger.
	Your sister had problems?
	Yeah.
	And household member depressed, mentally ill, or suicide attempt?
	Yeah, so my sister, she was doing a lot of drugs, and she just had a really rough time in high school.
	And when did she, sorry to interrupt, is she older or younger?
	Older.
	And when did she start using drugs that you know of?
	That I know of?
	Well, see, I was really young, but I'm pretty sure it started happening when she was around 14 or 15, so pretty young.
	Um, and she, uh, so what happened was she ran away from home, um, and she was around 14 or 15 and my parents kind of put her in, or not kind of, they did put her in a place for like troubled teens and she was there for a while.
	Um, and, you know, came back, was continuing using drugs and So she had some issues, and now she's fine.
	You know, she's worked past things.
	But yeah, there were problems with her.
	Now, I mean, running away when you were 14 is a big deal, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, obviously, you don't need me to tell you that, but why did she run away?
	You know, it's not something that's talked a lot about.
	You mean, sorry, it's not something that's talked about then or now or at any time?
	No, it wasn't ever talked about much at any time.
	But she really doesn't like to talk about it.
	So she was involved with some just like kind of, she was like in the wrong crowd, I guess is the way to put it.
	So you both have this as a bit of a habit, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	She had actually a really bad boyfriend when she was in high school.
	I think bad, like he hit her and stuff.
	I never saw it, but that's what I kind of gathered was going on.
	Again, it wasn't really talked about.
	I definitely heard them have like screaming fights and stuff.
	And your parents knew that this was happening too?
	Oh yeah, and they didn't want her to see him.
	I think that was a reason that she ran away.
	And what about you, Mama?
	What was your relationship like with your mom when you were a kid?
	Good.
	When I was like a little kid.
	When I was a teenager, it could be spotty because...
	My mom really likes kids, but maybe has more issues with teenagers.
	I don't know.
	Like, I remember her temper flailing up a lot.
	Like, a fair amount when I was a teenager.
	And how would that look, the temper?
	Just yelling a lot.
	And what would she say when she was yelling?
	God, I can't remember.
	Um...
	It would usually be about a specific thing, you know?
	Like if I... If I... God, I can't remember.
	It would be about specific behavioral things, you know?
	Or, like, if I kind of just, like, had a bad attitude or something, she would just yell about that.
	But she wouldn't, like, hurl insults at me.
	You know what I mean?
	It would be about something.
	And then it would be, like, a blow-up and then it would go away.
	Right.
	And how often would those blow-ups happen?
	I remember it being pretty frequent.
	Probably a few times a month.
	That's not too frequent.
	Yeah, I mean not all the time.
	I was thinking like everyday kind of thing, right?
	Right, right.
	No, it wasn't all the time.
	And how did your parents get along with each other?
	Pretty well.
	So my mom, not really anymore.
	But when I was a teenager, I remember her being a big yeller.
	She would yell a lot.
	And my dad kind of like wouldn't retaliate.
	I remember that.
	He would just kind of let her.
	Sorry, I was just interested that you used the word retaliate there.
	What do you mean by that?
	What would retaliation look like?
	Well, yelling back or something.
	Well, but that's not the only option, right?
	Right.
	No, he would just ignore it.
	That's also not the only option.
	Right.
	What's another option?
	Well, to stop the behavior.
	Can't do that.
	Can't stop other people's behavior, right?
	What's another option?
	To disapprove of the behavior.
	Well, that's just another way of saying stop it, right?
	Yeah.
	What's another option?
	I don't know.
	Right.
	I think it's important that you don't know.
	Yeah, probably.
	I mean, what I'm thinking of is, you know, you say, whoa, whoa, hang on, hang on.
	And then you sit down with your wife, your mother, right?
	Your dad would sit down and say, look...
	I don't like this yelling.
	It's not good, right?
	I mean, we've got to figure out something else.
	You know, maybe we need to take, you know, read some books on parenting.
	Maybe we need to, I don't know, maybe even see a therapist or something.
	But this yelling stuff doesn't work.
	It's not fun to be around, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, I don't like being around people who are having...
	Right, but what I'm saying is that, so you said, well, he didn't retaliate.
	Like his only option was to yell back at her, or to try and control her, or to, you know, whatever.
	But to reason with her, to negotiate with her, to try and figure out what the problem is, what the cause is.
	Because, let me ask you this.
	When your sister ran away...
	Mm-hmm.
	What was the story in the family?
	Like, why did she run away?
	What did your parents say?
	Or what did they think?
	Or what was...
	Because to me, that would be like a...
	Well, first of all, I mean, if my daughter is getting involved with the guy who's hitting her, that is a huge wake-up call for me as a parent.
	Like, something has gone really, really wrong.
	Yeah.
	And she gets involved with drugs.
	She runs away.
	It's like, oh my God, what a, this is a disastrous scenario, right?
	I mean, a 14-year-old girl running away gets killed, gets raped, gets STDs, gets pregnant, you know, God knows, right?
	Yeah.
	Prostitution, I mean, that's about as bad a disaster as you can have as a parent, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	So what happened in the face of this disaster?
	Yeah.
	Well, you mean the reasons why she did it or how they reacted?
	Yeah.
	How did they process that this happened?
	I'm just telling you from my standpoint, it would be like, oh my God, we've got to get this family to a therapist.
	I've got to figure out what went wrong.
	Oh my God, this is a complete disaster.
	We did go to family therapy after that.
	So, like, when she was gone, you know, like, there was a search and everything, and she was found.
	And then we went to therapy.
	They put her in a girl's home.
	Hang on, sorry, sorry to interrupt you, Gloria.
	I apologize for that.
	So, is it my understanding that the therapist took your sister out of the home?
	No, um...
	We were going to therapy while she was there.
	Well, but was it the therapist's idea that she go to a home?
	I don't know whose idea it was.
	But that's kind of important, right?
	Right.
	I mean, again, I'm certainly no expert in any way, shape, or form in this field, but occasionally I'll watch a Dr.
	Phil and he'll say, you know, this kid's got to come out of the family environment and got to go somewhere.
	Mm-hmm.
	And that happens when the family environment is too toxic.
	I think it was more my parents' idea.
	I think it was just a lack of knowing what else to do.
	Wait, wait.
	Weren't you all in therapy?
	Yeah.
	Isn't therapy partly about teaching you alternative ways of doing things?
	Yeah.
	It is.
	But they...
	I don't know.
	I think it was just very...
	Felt like a very desperate situation.
	Yeah.
	Well, it was.
	I mean, that's what I just said, right?
	Yeah.
	And so my question is, what did your parents do in the face of this desperate situation?
	So they went, they got her found, they went to therapy, and they put her in a teen ranch or something like that, right?
	Yeah.
	And how long did she stay there for?
	A while.
	Six months or so.
	Okay, so she ran away when she was 14.
	She came back.
	She went to the team ranch.
	So she's probably like, what, 15 or now?
	15 or so now?
	And then what happened?
	She came back and then continued having problems for a while.
	How long?
	Well, she ended up going back into the girls' home because she still wasn't getting her act together.
	I think it was a sort of deal she had with my parents, like That she had to get kind of cleaned up and stuff, and she didn't live up to it, so she ended up going back.
	And she was back for a while longer, came back again.
	And then I remember, she didn't really, I don't think she was really better until she was around 18.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, because she dropped out of high school.
	She got her GED. Which was even hard to get her to do that.
	But I think my parents really insisted that she get the GED. Then she went to a community college.
	And then I think when she was in the community college, then she started improving a lot and wasn't doing as much drugs, was hanging out with better people.
	So she was doing drugs from like 14 to 19?
	Yeah.
	Yikes.
	Yeah.
	I mean, you know what that does to emotional development, right?
	Yeah.
	The thing is, though, she's fine now.
	So she just kind of cleaned herself up.
	It just took a while, but eventually she just...
	I don't know.
	When she started taking classes in community college, she started doing well.
	She ended up transferring to a four-year, and then she met a guy there who's a really good guy.
	They're married and have kids now, and he's great.
	He's a really nice guy.
	So she just kind of snapped out of it.
	And I don't understand, and maybe I should understand the whole story surrounding it, but she doesn't like to talk about it, and I don't think my parents like to talk about it either, so I'm sort of kept in the dark about it, but it was this weird kind of thing that I grew up around, but she's fine now.
	And did your family continue to go to counseling through that time period, or was it mostly at the beginning?
	I remember my parents getting upset at one of the counselors.
	And we kind of stopped going kind of shortly after that.
	But you kind of stopped going?
	I'm not sure what that means.
	Like you'd go one foot in the room and one foot out of the room?
	We stopped going completely.
	And what did your parents get upset about?
	It was something about...
	I think they were...
	Suggesting that maybe they were...
	No, no, I do remember what it was.
	They said something about my brother getting attention for being kind of the athletic one and me getting attention for being like the creative one and then my sister kind of not getting any attention from them.
	Because, or they didn't think that she had any real talents or something, and that really got them upset when he said that, and then they stopped going to therapy.
	And what do you think of that decision?
	Well, it probably was that they were just very defensive about any criticism being made of them, which...
	No, I get that.
	What do you think of that decision?
	Not that it wasn't a good one.
	That it's really not good to not be able to criticize yourself.
	Well, I assume that they put it forward as a hypothesis rather than this is exactly or maybe it's because of this or whatever, right?
	So it wasn't even a criticism.
	It was a potential criticism.
	Yeah.
	I guess it was too much for them, though.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	This is the thing about my family...
	Things aren't really talked about.
	You probably could gather that.
	No, I get that.
	I get that important things aren't talked about.
	I think that was too much.
	But you want to know some of these things, I would assume, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so you want to know some of these things, Gloria, but you can't talk about it with them because what happens if you do?
	They...
	Just kind of don't want to talk about it.
	No, I get that.
	I understand that.
	What happens if you were to sit there?
	I mean, we can do a role play if you want, but what happens if you sit there and say, no, listen, I was part of this family.
	This was a huge mess.
	This massively impacted my teenage years.
	I need to get some answers here.
	I'm in my late 20s.
	I can't sustain a relationship with a man.
	I think that a lot of terrible stuff happened for like a half decade in my formative years.
	Yeah, I should add that I'm five years younger than my sister.
	So I was...
	You were eight?
	I was eight when this was going on, yeah.
	So you were eight, and this went on until you were like, what, 13 or 14?
	Yeah.
	So that was a huge mess.
	And of course, it meant that there were that much fewer resources available for you, right?
	Yeah.
	Because everybody's focused on this mess, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so you have important stuff to talk about with your parents.
	So...
	The reason why...
	I'm going to go way out on a limb here.
	I can't prove this.
	I'm just telling you what I think and what I feel.
	So none of this is true.
	I just want you to understand that.
	You're a hard person to get to know because you put a lot of stuff up that sounds plausible until someone digs a little deeper.
	Right?
	Right?
	Yeah, I have heard.
	Hang on, hang on.
	Sorry.
	No, hang on.
	You said at the beginning, what did you say about your relationship with your dad?
	That it's really good.
	It's great.
	Mm-hmm.
	Great.
	But you can't talk to your dad about important stuff, very important stuff, formative stuff.
	Yeah.
	How can that be great?
	It's very conscribed.
	It's very confined, right?
	Yeah.
	If your dad doesn't want to talk about it, you don't get to talk about it.
	Yeah.
	If you have questions, that's bad.
	If you have anything that may be a criticism, if you have complaints, you can't talk about this stuff.
	So what can you talk about with your dad?
	Yeah, I guess we just have music in common.
	Yeah, we talk about surface-level stuff.
	Okay, so you talk about surface level stuff with your dad and your mom, I assume.
	They're kind of a team in this, right?
	Yeah.
	The moment, like with the therapist, when things got even remotely deep or threatening, they'd gone, right?
	Yeah.
	Even though being in the therapist's office might be essential to saving your sister, even though she then continued to have four more years of drug-addicted dependence and dysfunction, they bailed on the therapy process because it was a little bit uncomfortable for them, despite the fact that it may have had incredibly destructive effects on the rest of the family.
	Yeah, you're right.
	And you can't even ask them about it?
	You can't even talk about it?
	That's a very bad decision.
	Yeah, therapy can be uncomfortable.
	Your fucking daughter ran away.
	She's getting beaten up.
	She's doing drugs in the street.
	Yeah, take a little discomfort.
	Don't just run out on a process that is pretty essential because it's a little uncomfortable.
	You understand, that's the same habit that pushes people into drugs.
	My emotions are uncomfortable.
	Drug them.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	I can't handle discomfort.
	I can't handle criticism.
	Run away.
	Right?
	Your sister ran away.
	Your parents ran away.
	Your sister...
	Yeah.
	do it by silencing because they have that power and your parents do it by withdrawing from a therapist because they have that power your sister didn't have that power so it had to be drugs yeah so that's why I find it hard to accept it when you say you have a great relationship with your dad yeah
	Because if you don't know what's missing, the depth and openness that's missing from your dad, how can you recognize how to have a deep and meaningful relationship with a man?
	Where you can be yourself.
	Where you can be inconvenient.
	Where you can be uncomfortable.
	Where you can speak things that make people feel upset and still be loved.
	And be loved all the more for it.
	Yeah, I guess I just...
	I just have learned to not talk about things that make me uncomfortable.
	No, no.
	Are you talking about these things with me?
	No, I am.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Do you feel uncomfortable?
	No.
	At first I did a little.
	No, you don't.
	This is how blended things are in a negative way.
	You just said to me, Gloria, that you don't like talking about things that make you...
	You've learned not to talk about things that make you uncomfortable, but that's not the truth of the matter, right?
	You've learned to talk about things...
	Sorry, you've learned not to talk about things that make who uncomfortable?
	Other people.
	Who in particular?
	My parents.
	Right.
	So you are used to...
	Obeying your parents, right?
	Yeah.
	You are used to obeying your father against your own self-interest in very necessary things.
	And you know what that results in?
	That results in, show me your tits.
	And that gets your tits.
	Because you comply.
	Because that's what you were taught.
	You do what the man says.
	Man doesn't want to talk about it, you don't talk about it.
	There's this issue that everybody in the family was obsessed with for years.
	And you said, we don't talk about it, right?
	Yeah.
	But everyone's thinking about it, and they're lying to each other by not talking about it, right?
	Yeah.
	You must have been thinking about it.
	Where's my sister?
	You must have been staying awake at night.
	You must have been, I mean, you may have a dim switch, like you can turn it down, but you must have been obsessed about it for years.
	Yeah.
	No, it was really horrible.
	I remember so, I remember very well how I felt when I didn't know where she was.
	It's agony.
	And your mind plays out the most disastrous scenarios because they're not unlikely to come true.
	So your whole family is obsessed with this, and rightly so.
	My God, if there's ever something to be obsessed about, it's where's my 14-year-old daughter out there in the night with God knows who.
	So everyone in the family is thinking about this night and day, night and day, night and day.
	Can't turn it off.
	You're thinking about it at school, at home, at friends' places, at the movies.
	No matter what's happening, you've got this ache in your heart the size of your sister, right?
	Yeah.
	Everybody is thinking about it, and nobody can talk about it.
	Which means you can't be close.
	And not only could you not talk about it then, but now...
	13, 14 years later, you still can't talk about it.
	So I don't think, Gloria, that you know what it means to be close.
	To be close to someone is to be who you are and to not be silenced for fear of attack, for fear of rejection, for fear of hostility, for fear of abandonment.
	To be who you are.
	You saw that clearly with the therapist.
	Were you in the room when this happened?
	I assume you were, right?
	I was, yeah.
	Therapist says something makes your parents a little uncomfortable.
	Your parents leave and never come back.
	Yeah.
	So you saw that.
	You know, right?
	I said, what happens if you talk about it?
	Well, you saw what happens when people say things that are uncomfortable for your parents, right?
	Which means that you fear abandonment for authenticity.
	To be who you are in a relationship is now not to have that relationship.
	Yeah.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Yeah, it's really unfortunate.
	You've missed...
	Well, tell me what just happened to you there emotionally.
	Go ahead.
	No, it's just...
	No, you're probably right.
	I have had people tell me that I seem very much like I'm withholding things about myself.
	Like that I have that quality.
	And...
	It probably is just very hard for me to connect to people in a romantic way because I can't connect to people in any way.
	Right.
	Because what you most needed to connect to with your parents, you weren't allowed to talk about.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, still not.
	And you're still not.
	And what do you think would happen if you sat down with them and said, listen, we really, we need to break the silence on this?
	Well, I think what would happen is they would kind of just say it doesn't matter now because your sister's fine now.
	Okay, let's try it.
	You'd be your dad or your mom.
	And I would say, but it matters to me.
	They would probably say, okay, let's talk about it.
	So when I was eight, my sister disappeared.
	And we never talked about it.
	I never felt like I was allowed to talk about it.
	That was an incredibly hard burden for me to not only deal with the disappearance of my sister, but also not have the support of my family in helping me process this.
	Why was I not allowed to talk about it?
	Yeah.
	I think that what might happen is that my dad might leave the room.
	Right.
	Which is, I think, a bullying and controlling thing to do, frankly.
	I think running out on a conversation when you get uncomfortable is a bullying and cowardly thing to do.
	I'm going to be perfectly frank with you.
	I'm not saying I'm right.
	I'm just telling you that's what I think.
	I really hate it when people walk out of essential conversations.
	It is a threat of abandonment.
	It is cowardly.
	It is weak.
	It is controlling.
	It is manipulative.
	It is bullshit.
	If someone in your family wants to talk about something that's important to them, sit the fuck down and listen.
	Oh, I'm uncomfortable.
	So what?
	So what?
	You deal.
	You sit down, you shut up, and you listen.
	And you ask questions, and you take the criticism.
	And we do that, we take the criticism for the same reason we floss our teeth.
	Nobody loves to floss their teeth, but it sure beats the alternative.
	Nobody loves to sit there and be criticized by someone that they're close to, but it sure beats the alternative, which is this kind of dead zone, right?
	Of shallowness and emptiness and compliance and avoidance and blah, right?
	Yeah.
	If it's important to you, it should be important to them.
	They don't get to define what is important to you.
	Nobody can tell you, Gloria, what is important to you.
	You're right.
	I think that, I mean, do you think I should try and have this conversation?
	Because I'm pretty sure I know what's going to happen.
	I think the first step is to know that you haven't had this conversation.
	And to accept that you haven't had this conversation.
	I don't know what you should do.
	But it is important.
	I will always encourage people to accept the truth.
	And the truth is that you've been silenced in your family on a very essential issue for 20 years.
	And you'll never get those 20 years back.
	That's two decades of not being able to connect with your family on something very, very important.
	Something that defined your youth, right?
	Defined your childhood, this whole situation.
	It was the most important thing that was going on in your world for years, your formative years.
	And you can't ever get those years back of not talking about what's in your heart with the people you're living with.
	And I think if you define that as a great relationship, you'll never be close enough to a man to sustain a relationship, in my opinion.
	Yeah.
	That is not a great relationship where the defining element and aspect and trauma of your childhood is a forbidden topic with the people who ran the show at the time.
	This avoidance, this, as you say, the shallow talks you have with your dad, it's not a relationship.
	That's like I met a guy on a plane conversation.
	But you were not taught how essential it is to be yourself no matter what.
	And you've had 20 years or more, probably more, of not being who you are and being loved and accepted for who you are Not even like no matter what the inconvenience is.
	If we are not inconvenient to others, we are not ourselves.
	Because our true selves are always inconvenient in one way or another in the short run.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	And our degree of intimacy is the degree to which we not only accept but welcome and embrace differences of opinion.
	I'll give you like a tiny example, right?
	So I did...
	A show earlier this week, this is the Judas-like primary FDR betrayal.
	So I did a show, was it last week?
	Remember the show that you and Stoyan hated?
	Oh yeah, the first draft of the White Privilege.
	Oh yeah, I did a show on, yeah, Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly and White Privilege.
	And Mike and Stoyan had the kind of reaction you'd have if you sort of put on a rubber boot and there was a scorpion in it.
	Cut off my leg.
	Save my body.
	They really didn't like it.
	And I think they were right.
	And remember what I said when I re-recorded?
	Thanks for pushing back.
	Yeah, thank you guys so much for pushing back.
	I hate re-recording, but sometimes it's exactly the right thing to do.
	Because I love the spontaneity that comes from the first round, and I feel like I can't recapture it, I'm going to get something else wrong, it's going to get more frustrating.
	But Mike and Stoyan said, I don't like it.
	I mean, basically, what came out of the conversation, you weren't nicer than that, but basically that's what came out of the conversation.
	And I'm like, yay, you know, I didn't express anything negative, did I? No.
	Very positive.
	Very thankful.
	I appreciate that.
	And we got a much better show of it.
	It's cruising past 60,000 views and I think added some useful spices to the conversation, right?
	So was that inconvenient to me?
	Would I rather they said, we love it!
	Well, I would rather it be something that they could spontaneously love, but it wasn't that.
	And so I did the re-record, it was much better, and it was also half the length, which was better, a little more compressed.
	So that inconvenience led to something better.
	And what really are my options?
	Are my options to say, you guys have no voice, you just have to love everything that I record no matter what?
	I mean, that would be terrible, right?
	Their inconvenience was essential for me.
	Yeah.
	And whenever I have overridden people's inconvenience to me, disaster results.
	That's just a lesson that you learn the hard way or the easy way.
	I happen to have learned it the hard way, but...
	But you don't want to be a yes person.
	You don't want to be conforming to other people's preferences at your own expense.
	You want to talk about this stuff with your family, right?
	Um...
	Yeah, I mean...
	I don't mean to program you and say, like, don't conform to me.
	It would be helpful or useful or a relief, right?
	Yeah, I mean, if it...
	I mean, I definitely think that there is something wrong with the fact that I can't sustain a relationship.
	Like, I know that it's not ideal that I'm 29 and I haven't had a relationship longer than four months.
	And whatever could help.
	I mean, yeah, I just don't really believe that I would get anywhere talking to my parents.
	No, no, no, I didn't ask whether you, I mean, but you would like to talk about it, I think, because it was important to you and we should be able to talk about stuff that's important.
	Yeah.
	So you'd like to talk about it from that standpoint.
	You'd also like, I assume, to talk about it to at least know it's not a forbidden topic, that if it's on your mind, you can talk about it.
	And also, if it does have something to do with not being able to sustain a relationship, then it would be pretty important to talk about it, right?
	Yes, definitely.
	Do you want to get married?
	Yes.
	Do you want to have children?
	Yes.
	Right.
	And you know your fertility.
	I'm not trying to alarm you.
	Your fertility, as you know, has already started its descent, right?
	Yes.
	Okay, so if you want to, I mean, let's just work backwards, right?
	And I know you've done this already, but just, you know, for the younger men and women out there, right?
	So you want to know a guy for at least, I assume, a year or two before you get married, right?
	Yes.
	So if you meet the guy tomorrow, that's 31.
	How long do you want to be married before you start trying to have kids?
	Probably a year.
	Yeah, maybe two.
	I mean, you've got to work things out, right?
	Figure out how to negotiate, how to resolve.
	It's different living together, right?
	Especially married, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so then we've got four years.
	That puts you at 33 when you're trying to start to have kids, right?
	How many kids do you want?
	Probably two.
	Okay, and so if you, you know, get pregnant at 33, 34, you have a kid at 34, 35, you're going to breastfeed for a year and a half, the recommended, then you try again.
	So you're 36, 37, 38 when you're trying for your second kid, even if you meet the right guy tomorrow, right?
	Yes.
	And that's some pretty terrifying math, right?
	Yeah, no, I know.
	I've kind of come to terms with the fact that the whole kids thing might not happen.
	No, don't come to terms with it.
	Fight!
	Fight it!
	Don't come to terms with it.
	But do what is necessary to achieve it.
	Have your parents...
	Has your father...
	I'm always picking on the mom, now I'm picking on the dad.
	Has your father talked to you about you having kids?
	No.
	Why?
	Why?
	Does he not know it's important to you?
	I haven't talked to him about it.
	How old was he when he had children?
	Young.
	So my parents got married.
	So younger than you.
	It doesn't, right, but younger than you.
	Yeah.
	Does he have any idea whether you want children or not?
	No.
	We've never talked about it.
	He doesn't even know or he thinks you don't?
	No.
	He doesn't know.
	We haven't talked about it.
	Now, why am I facepalming here?
	Because it's something you should probably talk to your children about.
	My daughter and I are already talking about it and she's five.
	To not know if your children want children is to not know your children.
	I mean, they're only there because you want children.
	It's the most basic biological drive we have.
	You know, there's a species of lizard out there that does push-ups to attract its mate.
	And do you know what happens if they give the lizard steroids so that it can do more push-ups?
	It does push-ups until it dies.
	That's how powerful the reproductive drive is.
	The reproductive drive is stronger than life itself, which is why in the praying mantis, aka the MGTOW world, the male praying mantis, after inseminating the female, allows himself to be eaten.
	By the female.
	So that she has enough energy for the eggs, right?
	This is why salmon go back upstream to spawn and then die.
	Float back downstream as corpses.
	The urge to reproduce is stronger than the urge to live.
	A man or a mammal, a male mammal who doesn't have children, requires about one-tenth or less the resources that he requires if he has kids, right?
	In other words, he has a ten times greater chance of survival if he doesn't have kids.
	But they're all banging and having kids, right?
	So, the reproductive urge is the most foundational urge there is.
	It's really, why do we eat food so we can have sex, right?
	Why do we build shelters so we can invite people in to have sex?
	Why do we buy cars to drive people on dates so we can have sex?
	Why do we go to work, right?
	I mean, it's foundational.
	And so, if you don't even know whether your children want to have kids, you don't know Their relationship to the most foundational drive that we have.
	That any living organism has.
	So, I invite you to change your definition of great in relationships.
	I mean, I've chatted with you for 45 minutes or so.
	I know that you want kids.
	Your dad's known you for 29 years.
	He doesn't know.
	Are you kidding me?
	Yeah.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Yeah, you're right.
	It's just weird.
	I have this way of normalizing it, but it is pretty...
	No, no, you still don't follow.
	And I get it.
	I mean, it's not because you're not smart.
	You're wicked smart.
	You're wicked smart.
	But it's not that you normalize it.
	You're viewing this like it's some flaw on your point, on your purpose.
	What is the truth?
	It's not that you normalize it, right?
	The truth is probably that I'm scared of questioning it.
	Nope.
	That's also making it your fault, or a fault in you.
	I don't, I don't know.
	The fault has nothing to do with you.
	The fault is not yours at all.
	You do what is necessary to maintain a relationship with your parents.
	Yeah.
	Like, as we all do.
	Because parents for a child are survival.
	Whatever the parents need.
	Oh, do I need to become a Muslim?
	Okay, I'll become a Muslim.
	Do I need to get the end of my penis cut off?
	Okay, I'll get the end of my penis cut off.
	Do I need to wear these uncomfortable clothes and go sit in church?
	Okay, I'll wear these uncomfortable clothes.
	Right?
	Children do.
	This is how culture reproduces.
	It reproduces on the basic dependency of children to their parents.
	We do what is necessary to maintain the affection of our parents, and that gene is essential to the species because if that gene did not flourish in children, those children did not live in history.
	And this is why I mean when I say I really dislike people as a whole who walk out on essential conversations, but the worst and greatest cowards are the parents who overtly or implicitly threaten the child with abandonment for the child's legitimate personality and questions.
	You have done what has been necessary to maintain a bond, for want of a better word, with your parents.
	If your parents don't like it, you won't do it.
	And that's true for all of us.
	That's the most fundamental power in the world.
	That is not a power that comes from the free market.
	It's not a power that comes from virtue.
	It's not a power that even comes from size and strength.
	It's a power that comes from the unbelievable dependence that children have on their parents.
	We are weird in this species.
	This species is unique in the unbelievable amount of time it takes for children to become independent.
	We are born way too early.
	You know, as I said before in the show, human babies are born like three and a half minutes before their head becomes too big to fit through their mother's birth canal and explode them like a piece of watermelon falling on a sidewalk.
	We are born so ridiculously early that it takes us a year to walk.
	You know, like a scorpion mouse that lives in the desert is fully independent of its parents and off hunting scorpions, for God's sakes.
	Off hunting deadly poisonous scorpions at four weeks of age.
	Four weeks.
	Yeah.
	Our brains take 25 years to mature.
	25, four weeks.
	They're off doing it.
	My daughter could not take down a scorpion at four weeks of age.
	I'm fairly sure of that.
	I don't think I could have either.
	My wife, absolutely.
	But not me!
	But not me.
	So, we are ridiculously dependent on our parents.
	Chimpanzees, I think it's like 8 or 10 years they're completely and fully independent.
	You know, we're like double that.
	And of course now, higher education, the economy, the entire wealth of the middle class has accumulated since 1940.
	It's been completely destroyed over the past decade or so.
	We've got this like endless thing, right?
	Like a third or half of kids who graduate from college go back to live with their parents.
	I mean, it's becoming pathological and ridiculous and totally understandable with a disgusting and vile...
	Economic environment, but we are so dependent on our parents, and this goes on for a ridiculously long amount of time.
	That's just biology.
	The psychological result of that Is incredible compliance to parental norms.
	Culture is an effect of the fact that we have these giant brains have to be born prematurely and the majority of our brain development occurs after the womb, which is insane.
	But that's just the way it is.
	It's the way it is.
	We can't have these infinitely wide hips because we actually need to walk around from time to time and we can't do that if we're shaped like a weeble.
	So the biology is we have to be born ridiculously early to the point where 75% of a baby's food is going simply to feed its brain.
	75% of what you feed a baby is only growing its brain.
	That's how much our brain is born premature.
	So the biology is we are incredibly dependent on our parents.
	The result of that is that parental prejudice dominates our thinking.
	I would say dictates our thinking, except that there are a few people who can break out of it.
	But parental preferences, parental prejudice, right or wrong, good or bad, parental preferences dominate, overwhelmingly dominate our thinking.
	Whatever our parents want us to do, we will do.
	We may resent it, we may complain, we may bitch and moan at them in our heads, but we will outwardly comply if we know what's good for us and our genes make sure we know what's good for us.
	Culture, which requires a giant brain, fundamentally reproduces because of the dependence needed to grow a giant brain.
	It's this weird Mobius strip of culture and brain.
	Religion.
	Requires a giant brain, although atheism requires a larger one.
	Atheism tends to increase as intelligence increases.
	But religion requires a giant brain, and religion propagates because of the dependence on children that is required to grow the giant brain that religion requires.
	So you and me and everybody else on this planet who is human...
	Is incredibly, completely, and totally, and utterly dependent upon our parents.
	And whatever they dislike, we will not push.
	Because, and I'm not saying your parents would have done this, but at a biological level, at a biological level, threats of parental rejection are death threats.
	We experience them as we would experience a tiger four feet away in the bushes, or a shark fin in the water.
	That's how we experience threats of parental abandonment.
	And parental rejection And this is the awesome power that I keep reminding everyone about in this show.
	The power of parental rejection is the greatest single driving power in human society.
	It dwarfs the state, it dwarfs prisons, it dwarfs religion, because all of those things are dependent upon parental approval and rejection.
	This is why I keep nagging parents to be peaceful, to be rational, To not reject the child for the child's authentic emotional experience.
	Because when you reject a child, you threaten that child with what the amygdala experiences as we are now going to leave you at the age of six months old in the jungle to fend for yourself.
	Dead.
	We're leaving you behind.
	We're leaving you on the ice.
	We're leaving you on the beach.
	We're dead.
	And this is why children are so terrified, and rightly so, biologically.
	We are so terrified of displeasing our parents, and parents who have grown up without power, people who've grown up without power when they become parents.
	So much power.
	Nobody has to listen to me.
	Everyone can turn me off and never has to be bothered by my voice ever again in their entire life.
	My wife doesn't have to listen to me.
	Mike can walk out and never come back.
	My friends can all wander off.
	My daughter can't.
	If I were thwarted for power, if I were thwarted for an audience, if I were thwarted to getting my way...
	All of that thwarted power hunger would be taken out on my children.
	And they would damn well have...
	I would have so much power, it would be like a drug for me if that's what I wanted.
	And power is a drug.
	And power is an endorphin producery.
	We know that because monkeys when they go up in the hierarchy get measurably higher endorphins.
	Power, if you are traumatized, then power over your children is a drug.
	It is an addiction.
	And the power to control discourse, the power to control conversation, the power to banish and censor and destroy potential topics, the power to avoid any kind of discomfort in the emotional sphere by dictating to and dominating over your children, that power is an incredibly addictive drug.
	And for children to stand up and say, this does not make me happy.
	I don't like this.
	I would prefer something else.
	I'm sorry if it makes you uncomfortable, mommy and daddy, but this is important to me.
	For a child to assert, even an adult child, even at 29, even as I was doing it, at the age of 26 or 27, I really started doing this.
	It's hard.
	It goes against all of our instincts to stand against parental authority and say, no, I want it to be different.
	And that's not just because we were children, but also the most successful organisms also enroll grandparents in the care and support of their children.
	So even if you're an adult and you want to have kids, if you alienate and piss off and you get defood by your parents, your children have a much less chance, greater chance of survival than if they have parental resources and parental, sorry, grandparent resources and investment.
	And therefore, it's not just our own childhood history of dependence that makes it hard to stand up against parental prejudice It's also that we need, biologically, we need our parents or our elders' investment in our own children in order for those children to survive.
	And so, given that in a tribe, our parents and all the other parents, all the elders, would have pretty much the same beliefs.
	If I offend and piss off my parents, I'm going to offend and piss off the other elders.
	They're not going to invest in my...
	They might let me stay, but they're not going to invest in my kids.
	They're not going to bring resources.
	They're not going to take care of them.
	They're not going to guard me while I'm breastfeeding and whatever.
	Of course, I'm going to have a husband to do that, and that's obviously very helpful, but it's not as much as having all the elders or at least the grandparents around to help and give resources.
	So it is a very difficult biological principle to stand in the face of and assert your own needs and preferences against the preferences or prejudices of your parents.
	It is hard.
	It is hard to do.
	It is hard to do.
	But women have taught us how to do all of that.
	Because women stood up against their husbands' preferences in the 60s, in the 50s and 60s.
	When feminism came along, the feminism that I love and respect, when feminism came along and said, ladies, I know that you feel like you need men, but you must stand against that, and you must not be in abusive relationships, and that is how we progress as a species.
	So women have taught us how to do this.
	And I, hugely, with no shred of cynicism or no shred of sarcasm, no shred of snarkiness, genuinely and massively respect what women have taught us about going against biological dependence and standing up for what is right and standing up for the truth and authenticity of your own experience.
	I don't think I could be talking about what I talk about in voluntary adult relationships if it wasn't for feminism.
	Now, the degree to which it's got co-opted by the state and it's become political, it's a whole different matter, right?
	But just because I'm against affirmative action doesn't mean I'm not for equal rights.
	I'm totally for equal rights.
	I don't like the affirmative action.
	So...
	When you say, well, it's, you know, I have this, I'm just afraid, or it becomes your own fear, but I would argue that your parents have misused their power over you, and they have taught you not to welcome and treasure being who you are and to speak what is on your mind, but to be silent and conform to their prejudices and their avoidances.
	And you've had to do that because you were the child, but it was out of a misuse, an unjust use of their power that you have ended up with this No training in authentic communication.
	I'm sorry for that long speech, but does that make any sense?
	It does.
	It makes complete sense.
	It's just like, where do I go from here?
	It's a great launching pad.
	Yeah, I mean, I think a therapist is, you know, this is what I talked about earlier in the show.
	Therapy is great because the therapist should never be inconvenienced by what you think and feel.
	The therapist should welcome it.
	And it's a great training ground to have the opportunity to be your inconvenient-ass self and be welcomed.
	Yeah, you got to pay for it.
	It's too bad.
	It's a shame.
	It's a shame it shouldn't be like that.
	But so what?
	It's still what you've got to do.
	So if you can find a good therapist and all of that, then I think that's...
	Going to be the most important thing for you to do.
	I don't know.
	I mean, I don't know what you do.
	I mean, I don't know your parents and I don't know what you should do with them.
	But I do know that I think therapy is very important with this kind of stuff.
	And there's lots of good evidence as to the reality of why.
	And I've got interviews with experts and data all over the website about why therapy is so good and what it's so good for.
	So that would sort of be the number one thing that I would do.
	The number two thing that I would do if I were in your shoes, Gloria, is...
	We end up with what we praise.
	This is a fundamental reality in life.
	We end up with what we praise.
	If you praise your relationship with your dad as it stands, that's all you're going to get in general.
	If I think an abuser is someone I love, I'm never going to get away from abusers.
	We end up with what we praise.
	What we praise is our future.
	It becomes our future, I should say.
	And so I would really be careful and evaluate the degree to which I said, this is great, this is fine, this is wonderful.
	And you do that, I think, to avoid the loneliness and the missed opportunities of having had a real connection.
	But I don't think you'll be able to have a real connection until you redefine what a relationship is.
	And that's going to be painful because, in my view, I think that your relationship with your parents is lacking, to put it mildly.
	But the problem is that you're going to run out of tits, right?
	Yeah.
	Young women can get attention.
	I mean, I assume you're an attractive young woman.
	And Young women can get attention, regardless of personal authenticity or virtue or commitment to honesty, because men want the eggs.
	They want to have sex, right?
	Yeah.
	But that's not going to last, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, in a couple of years...
	Yeah.
	29 is kind of when it started hitting me.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Getting a little creaky, right?
	Eggs start getting a little dusty, face starts getting a little lined, things start sagging that didn't used to sag, right?
	And we end up tripping over our boobs and going into the grave, right?
	So, you know, it's late, but not too late.
	I was trying to quote at least one Queen song.
	It's late, but not too late, but it's urgent.
	Like, if you want...
	A life with a husband and two children, you must act now.
	Not next week, not next month, like tomorrow.
	You get online, you find a therapist, and you go.
	And it will be the best investment.
	I'm not saying you have to spend that much.
	But the $20,000 that I spent on therapy was by far the best investment I've ever made in my life.
	And if it can help you get all that you want, then it will be essential.
	But you're cruising into a time of life, Gloria, where sex appeal, I mean, it always kind of was your enemy in terms of where it led you and what kind of guys it led to you.
	But sex appeal ain't going to work for you for much longer.
	And I'm not trying to say that women can't be sexually appealing when they're in their 30s or 40s or 50s or 60s.
	I'm not saying that at all.
	But we all get older.
	I'm not as hot now as I was when I'm 20.
	I mean, it's just the way it works, right?
	And so you substitute connection for mere physical beauty, right?
	Yeah.
	And that makes the sex life better, it makes the other person sexier, it makes it all greater.
	But you really have to start aiming at that personal authenticity, honesty, openness, connection, and do not, as much as you can, go through life disowning yourself for the convenience of shallow people.
	It only works in the short run I really think it destroys people in the long run.
	And I, you know, from my vantage point of almost twice your age, I sort of see that has happened a lot more in life than I would like to have seen.
	But if you can get to therapy, redefine what it means to have a relationship.
	And don't be used.
	Right?
	Because you were used.
	I'm not trying to make you resentful.
	Yeah.
	Maybe you use people too.
	But when men lie to you and say, I've changed, right?
	Yeah.
	And then have sex with you and then wander off, you've been used.
	But you've also been used by your parents because they don't want you to talk about things that are uncomfortable.
	So it's their needs over yours, their needs at your expense, which is a pattern that continues with these dipshit men, right?
	Yeah.
	So that would be my suggestion.
	What do you think?
	I think that makes a lot of sense.
	I think that I've always avoided therapy, probably because my parents don't like it, which you know the reason for that.
	And I do let their preferences weigh on me extraordinarily heavily.
	And so I'm Yeah, I'm going to seek therapy.
	I need to.
	I've needed to for a while now.
	Well, I hope this propels you in that direction.
	Will you let us know how it goes?
	Yeah, I would.
	Thank you.
	Always dying to hear what happens after.
	And...
	Good job in the conversation.
	You got what it takes, baby.
	You got what it takes.
	You got what it takes, right?
	You just got to learn to let it out more.
	And so, yeah, I'm sure it's going to work out.
	But, you know, act now and you get what you want.
	But delay?
	Mother Nature's a cold bitch to the eggless, right?
	Yeah.
	All right.
	Well, thanks very much.
	I appreciate that.
	And, of course, we hope for the follow-up.
	Thank you, everybody, again, for your openness and your honesty and your curiosity in this, what I consider the greatest conversation to ever hit mankind in the 2x4s.
	So, have yourselves a wonderful week, everyone, if you love the show, if you like the show, or if I can just make you feel guilty in some way.
	FDRURL.com slash donate to help out the show.
	This, my friends, is how we grow.
	We grow based upon your generosity and not a whole lot else other than, I guess, the quality of the show, which is my job.
	So thanks again, FDRURL.com slash donate to help out the show.
	Have yourselves a great week.

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