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#065_ STORY INSPIRE: The Surprising Reason Women Are Attracted to Fathers · INSPIRE STORY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You've discovered something about the brain I think is quite surprising.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: So we found that in fathers, the brain is actually shrinking.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: And I'll explain why. But also there are studies that
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: find that both men and women who report having had
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: more kids have markers of a younger looking brain age.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: And then also typically men, when they do this, show
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: about a 25% drop in testosterone. The next studies of
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: single women have found that, you know, if you show
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: them a series of body types, dad bod is the
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: most popular.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: And that's proven by science. So if I go out
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: and get a dad bod, you're telling me that science
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: says I'm going to be more attractive.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, go for it.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Let's see what my fiance says. The other thing that's
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: worth talking about is the.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: * * * *.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Have you done any studies on that? Yes.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: That is one of the most robust findings in parenthood research.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: And my lab found actually that.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: So I've always been really interested in families and becoming
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: a parent is one of the biggest transformations that you
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: can experience. But I'm concerned about the declining birth rate.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: And I think that we've managed to market it as
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: an undesirable choice.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: According to the CDC and Pew Research data, the U.S.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: total fertility rate just hit an all-time recorded low.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the transition to parenthood can be really challenging.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: You are sacrificing yourself. It can be very isolating. You're
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: losing your sleep. But becoming a parent, you are benefiting
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: from this sense of connection and purpose. You will rediscover
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: your priorities in a way that will ultimately bring a
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: lot of value.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: So if all goes well, next year I will be
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: a dad. And I would like you to give me
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: some advice on becoming a father based on all the
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: research that you have.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: So great fathers are made not born. There's a lot
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: you can do.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I'm going to write it down.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Love it. So first.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: This is super interesting to me. My team gave me
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: this report to show me how many of you that
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: watch this show subscribe. And some of you have told us,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: according to this, that you are unsubscribed from the channel randomly.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: So favor to ask all of you, please could you
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: check right now if you've hit the subscribe button, if
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: you are a regular viewer of the show and you
• 1:54
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• 1:56
  Speaker 1: landmark on this show in terms of a subscriber number.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: So if there was one simple free thing that you
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: could do to help us, my team, everyone here, to
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: keep this show free, to keep it improving year over
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: year and week over week, it is just to hit
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: that subscribe button and to double check if you've hit it.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Only thing I'll ever ask of you, do we have
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: a deal? If you do it, I'll tell you what
• 2:14
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• 2:19
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• 2:22
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• 2:23
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• 2:25
  Speaker 1: let you down. Please help us. Really appreciate it. Let's
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: get on with the show. Dr. Darby Saxby, you've discovered
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: something about the brain that I think is quite surprising
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: to a lot of men and women as it relates
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: to what happens to a man's brain when they become
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: a father. And I've got the report here in front
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: of me, but I have a model brain over there.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Could you explain to me what exactly it is that
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: you discovered? Yes.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: So we found that In fathers, and this is similar
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: to what's been observed in mothers, the brain is actually
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: losing gray matter volume. So it is shrinking. So if
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: I had stronger hands, I could probably squish this brain
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: and make it look tinier. But the parts of the
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: brain that are shrinking the most are in what we
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: call the mentalizing network. And that's a part of the
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: brain that helps us understand other people's feelings and intentions.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Those areas are kind of concentrated around the midline of
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: the cortex, which is kind of what we're seeing here.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: And then you also see volume reduction in the visual areas,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: which is the back of the brain, which is really
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: important for understanding when you look at an infant's face,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: what kinds of emotions it's trying to tell you. And
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: so we see changes to those parts of the brain
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: in new dads. In moms, we see changes to these
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: same parts of the brain. We also see changes in
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: moms to what's called the subcortex, which is this part
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: of the brain That kind of controls our gut feelings
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: and our sense of reward and is really strongly linked
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: with our hormones. So moms are kind of changing all
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: across the brain. Dads are mostly changing in this top layer,
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: the cortex, which kind of controls our higher order thinking, reasoning,
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: and executive functioning. And that tells us something about fatherhood,
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: which is that fathers choose to engage in parenting. It's
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: a sort of cognitively mediated investment that dads are making.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: What does that mean?
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: So if you think about a mom who's been through
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: nine months of pregnancy, she is flooded with hormones when
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: her baby is born. And she has a really high
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: investment in the baby's survival. Just thinking about the number
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: of calories that it takes to sustain a pregnancy, it's thousands.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: And so there's a very high floor for maternal investment.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: And moms are undergoing plasticity all across the brain that
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: reflects that. In dads, there's a tremendous amount of cross-cultural variability.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: So there are cultures in which dads participate in child
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: care and are very hands-on with babies from the moment
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: of birth. There are cultures in which there are prohibitions
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: against men picking babies up.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: You don't pick babies up in the first year in
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: some cultures.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: You don't pick babies up because it's considered unmanly. So
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: there's a tremendous amount of variability. And dads calibrate their
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: investment according to what the culture says and what the
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: context looks like. If mom becomes unavailable, dad is often
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: needed to step in and provide more of the care.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: And so this sort of top layer of brain changes
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: reflects that, you know, dads are modulating their investment depending
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: on what they're learning from the environment, right? And the
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: word that biologists use for this is facultative. So a
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: facultative adaptation is an adaptation that is optional but extremely useful.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: You could think about an animal that walks on four
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: legs suddenly having something really important to grab and switching
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: to walk on two legs so that it can use
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: its hands. Hands are really useful for that animal. Fathers
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: are really useful for humanity.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: But are you saying they're optional?
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: But they vary depending on situation. And I don't want
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: to say that fathers aren't important. They're incredibly important. There
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: are dads who are primary caregivers and even sole caregivers
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: of children. But dads vary, and they vary depending on
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: what is needed for children to thrive in their specific
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: local context.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: And a woman's brain shrinks as well, but it shrinks
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: a little bit more.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, it covers more of the brain. And it also
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: shows a larger across the board volume reduction. And I
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: should explain volume reduction. We often think about deficit, mommy brain,
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: you're forgetting things. Volume reduction is not a bad thing.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: What it means is that the brain is actually working
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: more efficiently because it's building better connected pathways and better
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: channels for communicating information.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Is it accurate to say that the brain is focusing? Yes, exactly.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: So it's reshaping in a way that enables more efficient communication.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: It's learning. It's consolidating. So it's kind of like if
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: you think about the director's cut of a movie that
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: has lots of interesting extra scenes and characters, and then
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: you watch it in the theater and it's like this lean,
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: mean two-hour cut, right? Like many of us prefer the
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: theatrical release because it's easier to follow.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: And by getting rid of certain parts of the brain,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: that means more energy can be used in the other
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: parts of the brain. Is that broadly accurate?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So that we're better able to focus on what matters.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: And when we become parents, what matters is our children
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: and the inputs they're giving us.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: The interesting thing is the way that you described the
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: part of the brain that the man loses when they
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: become a father made it seem like they're losing empathy.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: No, they're actually improving in their empathy because they're becoming
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: more efficient processors of social information. So the fact that
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: where we see the biggest changes are in these what
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: we call mentalizing social cognition networks tells us that those
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: networks are really important for dads to use when they
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: become parents. And they're getting a lot of practice putting
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: those networks into use.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: I thought you said that section of the brain shrunk.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, because the brain is becoming more efficient. So it's
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: losing all the extra pathways and you're sort of building
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: a super highway for that specific social information.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Sounds a bit counterintuitive because I imagine that my brain
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: would grow when I get better at something.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: You would. But in this case, the brain is actually shrinking.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: And I know it sort of feels like a puzzle
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: to wrap your head around, but it actually does reflect
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: that the brain is working better.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: And is there a relationship between... how hands-on the father
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: is and the amount of shrinkage that happens in their brain.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and my lab found that relationship. So when dads
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: told us before birth that they felt more bonded to
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: their unborn baby, when they wanted to take more time
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: off after work, and when they told us three months
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: after birth that they enjoyed their babies more, they felt
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: more connected and bonded to them, and they were spending
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: more time taking care of their babies, they had more
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: profound brain shrinkage. All of this seems to support the
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: contention that the shrinkage is really adaptive and it's enabling
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: men's adjustment to parenthood.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Is there any other biological changes that take place when
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: someone becomes a father?
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: So we also see changes to men's hormones. I talk
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: about this in the book. Men typically show a drop
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: in testosterone.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I've got a big thing here.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about testosterone. So typically men, when they're
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: hands-on as fathers, show about a 25% drop in testosterone.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: And some of the best studies of this have been
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: done longitudinally in the Philippines. Before we had longitudinal studies.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: people said, well, maybe lower testosterone men are just choosing
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: to become fathers. And so looking across time lets us
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: tease that out and see, is there something about fatherhood
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: that's actually changing testosterone? And so when you look across decades,
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: you find that testosterone is typically pretty high in before
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: pregnancy happens. And it's adaptive to have high testosterone. You know,
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: testosterone's been studied a lot in birds. It's also been
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: studied in rodents and in other mammals. You want high
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: testosterone at the start of breeding season, when it's time
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: to maximize your chances of producing offspring. You want to compete.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: You want to build status. You want to fight off
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: your rivals. High testosterone is your friend. Once you've accomplished
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: your reproductive goal, and you've caused a pregnancy, and you
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: want your offspring to survive, you want to be investing
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: and nurturing that new baby. And this is what we
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: saw in the men in the Philippines, that as they
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: were spending more time taking care of kids, they showed
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: a sharper drop. And then you typically see some rebound
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: when the baby is getting older. And again, this is
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: not unique to humans. We see it all over the
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: animal kingdom.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: So during the pregnancy, something, some chemical tells my body
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: that I need to make less testosterone, even though the
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: baby's not here yet. Yeah.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: It might just be your proximity to your pregnant partner.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Our lab found expectant dads and expectant moms had
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: correlated levels of testosterone during pregnancy. And the more strong
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: that relationship was, the more dads showed a drop in
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: testosterone after birth. But I want to caveat because I
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: think a lot of men are really concerned about the
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: idea that testosterone might drop. And I think we have
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: a really strong narrative right now that testosterone sort of
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: like equals successful masculinity. And masculinity is not about a
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: particular hormone. It is about a body that is responsive
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: to our goals and that sets us up to meet
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: the demands of our environment. And so having a biology class,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: that fluctuates across the lifespan as our reproductive strategy shifts
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: is really adaptive. We want to be flexible. And that
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: doesn't always mean maxed out testosterone. So high levels of
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: testosterone actually decrease our sperm count and they are bad
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: for our immune system.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: I think some men might be concerned that dropping testosterone
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: might make them worse in the gym or it might
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: make them less ambitious or less able to pursue their
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: goals in life. Is there any truth to that?
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: There's definitely a link between testosterone and men's muscle mass
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: and their motivation, their drives, but these are not one-to-one relationships.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: So the human hormone literature is messy, and a lot
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: of these are weak correlations. So testosterone doesn't necessarily equal
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: success at work, for example. And high testosterone can get
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: in men's way in multiple ways. So There are links
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: between men's testosterone levels and relationship satisfaction in the couple relationship.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: So my lab did a study where we found that
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: men who had relatively higher testosterone after their baby's birth
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: had partners who were more dissatisfied in the relationship and
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: reported more intimate partner aggression. So the dads themselves reported
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: more parenting stress. So there's a little bit of a
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: mixed bag of high testosterone. And what it looks like
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: you want is to hit a sweet spot. You don't
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: want testosterone levels that totally crash. My lab has also
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: found that when testosterone is really low after a birth,
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: men have higher postpartum depression symptoms. You don't necessarily want
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: testosterone levels that are sky high either because that can
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: cause problems in your intimate relationship and it can make
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: it hard for you to switch into nurturing and parenting mode.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: So the men who seem most successful in our study
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: are were men who had mid-range testosterone levels that could
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: be flexible and that could adapt to different life changes.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: And am I right in thinking that the more time
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: you spend hands-on as a father in those studies that
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: they did on men, the lower your testosterone will go? Yeah.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: So the longitudinal work in the Philippines found that when
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: men spent more time changing babies, doing hands-on care, sharing
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: a sleeping surface with babies, they had more of a
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: testosterone drop. So the testosterone, the hormones are responsive to
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: the context and to what we're doing. But testosterone does rebound,
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: you know, after birth. So it's not necessarily the case
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: that testosterone is going to bottom out and it's going
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: to stay low forever.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: You know, you said a second ago that men that
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: had crashes to their testosterone during the pregnancy and thereafter
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: had a high likelihood of experiencing postpartum depression themselves. Are
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: you implying that that means that there's an ideal amount
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: of time and hands-on-ness that a father can spend with
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: their child to make sure their testosterone hits that mid-range point?
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really good question. I mean, I don't
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: know that we know for sure if there's like a
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: dose of parenting involvement that sort of lends itself to
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: an ideal amount of testosterone, it's hard to optimize your
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: way out of these natural changes. I don't want to
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: discourage dads from being hands-on with their kids because they're
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: worried they're going to pay some kind of physiological tax.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: I think it's more like make sure you're protecting your sleep,
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: which we know is linked with overall health. Make sure
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: you're getting time to exercise and to socialize, you know,
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: to participate in activities that bring you joy. Like those
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: are ways to help mitigate your risk that I think
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: will be more successful than trying to hit a particular
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: hormone level.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: My brother is a year older than me and he
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: has three young kids under the age of seven now.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: They were actually just here. They just left. But I
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: noticed a remarkable difference in him when his wife, Julia,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: got pregnant.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Last What did you notice?
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Just a total shift in what he wanted out of life.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: And so before growing up, I remember one day seeing
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: him on the computer figuring out which job would pay
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: the most money. And he was very, very smart. He
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: is very, very smart. And he sort of orientated his
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: career towards the job that would make the most money.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: And then he was successful. He went to LSE, got
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: the job. And then shortly after graduating university, met someone
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: that got pregnant unexpectedly. Hmm. And I watched my brother
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: go from someone who was like really striving for material
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: goals to someone who suddenly placed the material goal immediately after.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: How do I retire and spend the maximum amount of
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: my time with my kids? Yeah. His kids are number
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: one above anything else and it's something I admire a
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: lot about him. But the most remarkable thing as someone
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: that's not gone through that transition because I've not had
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: kids yet is just watching how profound the change was
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: in him in terms of his stated goals and ambitions. Yeah.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: What is this?
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad you said that because that's something I
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: heard from so many of the fathers that I interviewed
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: for the book is that you experience this profound shift
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: in your values and your priorities. And a lot of men,
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: you know, if you survey parents, you say, what are
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: the most meaningful priorities in your life? Men are just
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: as likely as women to say, my kids. And I
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: think fathers increasingly are recognizing that the parenting role is
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: really central to their self-concept. And, you know, like we're
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: in a culture where I think it can be hard
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: for men to find a sense of meaning and purpose
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: and connection to other people. Being a parent can give
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: you that sense of meaning and purpose. And so, you know,
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: I think that's a really important framing around, you know,
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: your testosterone level might change or your brain might shrink,
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: like things that maybe sound a little scary and negative,
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: but they're in the service of this larger goal, which
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: is building a more meaningful life. And I think, you know,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: like a message to men and also to women, to
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: moms and to dads, is anything that's worth doing is hard.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Being a parent is really hard. You know, you are
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: sacrificing yourself. You're losing your sleep. You are getting extra wrinkles.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Ask me how I know. But you are benefiting from
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: this sense of connection and purpose that, you know, it
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: sounds like your brother has been totally transformed by. And
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: I think we're in a lot of ways, like selling
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: young men on this message that you should be optimizing
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: your bank account and your body fat percentage and you
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: should be out there hustling as much as possible. And
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: I think that can be a little bit of a
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: hollow message because what we keep learning again and again
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: from the longevity studies is that the quality of men's
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: relationships is the best predictor of their well-being in old age.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: So men with healthy marriages, men who have positive relationships
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: with their kids are Those are the men who age well,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: not necessarily the men who've maxed out on, you know,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: riches or the perfect body fat score.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: It's really a remarkable thing because as you look forward
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: into becoming a parent, you often see the sacrifices you'll
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: have to make. You hear about, okay, you're not going
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: to sleep as much as you used to. You'll hear
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: about the anxieties of being a parent and loving something
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: so much more than yourself and all these things. But
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: that sort of profound psychological, biological, hormonal shift, you kind
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: of just have to believe in it.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: People, like, tell you about it as if it's, like,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: a you know almost like a like almost like a
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: religion i say that because you have to have faith
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: that the profound upside will be um worth the very
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: obvious cost that you see parents you know the sacrifices
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: they have to make.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah i think that's exactly right because i think a
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: lot of the downsides are really visible yeah like we've
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: all been on a plane with a crying kid and
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: we've seen the frantic parent trying to calm them down
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: We've all seen a tantrum in the grocery store, right?
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: That stuff is right in your face. But the upsides
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: are sort of invisible, just like the joy of seeing
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: your child's face as they discover something new or getting
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: to snuggle late at night and feeling this sense of
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: closeness that you've never had, right? That love that's bigger
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: than yourself. And I think it's important to Speak about
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: the benefits as well as the downsides because we humans
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: crave connection and, you know, we crave care. And I
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: think becoming a parent is an opportunity to provide care
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: on a scale that's hard to find in other ways.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: I also want to hear from you about how the
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: mother's brain changes. through pregnancy and beyond yeah because julia
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: so my brother's wife she was here as well and
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: she's remarkably different now that she's had these three beautiful
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: children and i was asking her last night because she
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: was in a sort of corporate world before i was
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: saying you know when they grow up and they leave
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: home which again is probably the worst thing you could
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: probably say to a mother who has three young beautiful
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: children and who's already like anxious that someday they're gonna
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: fly the nest. I was like, what will then be
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: in the place of these three kids in your life?
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Would you want to go back to like the corporate world?
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Or do you want to do something else? And how
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: has it reordered your sense of meaning? But tell me,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: how does the mother's brain change?
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the mother's brain changes really profoundly as well. Moms
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: are losing about two and a half percent of their
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: brain volume from before pregnancy to after birth. Dads in
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: our studies, we found they lose about 1% of their
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: brain volume. So similar pattern in similar parts of the brain,
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: But the magnitude is different and there's more variability in
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: the dads.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: And how did you conduct these studies? What was the methodology?
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: So we recruited a bunch of first-time parents. These were
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: all couples that we recruited during pregnancy. Our only rule
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: was that you had to be cohabiting and you had
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: to be planning to continue cohabiting after the birth because
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: we really wanted to capture the dads and get their experience,
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: you know, being in proximity to their babies. And so
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: we brought them into the lab. We asked them every
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: question we could think of. We sampled their blood, their saliva,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: their hair. We had them fight with each other on camera.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: We scanned the men's brains. And then about six months
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: after their baby was born, we brought them back into
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: the lab. Blood, saliva, hair. This time we got a
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: breast milk sample. We got a sample of baby poop.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: And we had them fight again. And we scanned the
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: dad's brains again.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: You had them fight again?
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: We had them fight again. We wanted to see How
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: do couples communicate with each other? And does that change
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: across the transition to parenthood? And also, what communication styles
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: are going to predict better couple-level adaptation to becoming parents?
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: How did you get them to fight? I need to
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: make sure I don't do that.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: So we gave them a whole list of different topics.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: We said, these are topics that couples commonly argue about.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Which are hot-button issues for you and your partner? And
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: so we had both the mom and the dad fill
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: these out independently. And then we went through and we
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: saw what are the issues that both people are endorsing.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: And we said, we want you to talk about this issue.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Don't hold back. We're going to give you 15 minutes
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: in this room. And we, you know, watch them talk
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: through it. They weren't, you know, like punching each other.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: But the conversations were often contentious because they were talking
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: about issues that were frequently objects of conflict.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Okay. And what did you discover?
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: So we discovered that when couples fought more negatively with
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: each other, they subsequently reported more difficult birth experiences. And
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: it's interesting because birth is a time in which moms
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: need a lot of support. And the partner is often
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: a primary person who's in the room providing that support.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: So when couples have, you know, sort of like a toxic,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: difficult relationship, that can really color mom's experience of the birth.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Are you saying that because the person that they fought
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: with and don't have a good conflict resolution strategy with,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: it was in the room they had a bad birth experience?
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Or did something actually happen in the birth experience? Did, like,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: the husband make a comment? Yeah.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: No, I mean, we didn't record their conversations during the birth.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: But we actually did get the charts from the hospital
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: or the birth center after the baby delivered. And we
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: looked at complications. We looked at how medically complex the
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: birth was. And we found that when couples fought more
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: negatively and less positively during pregnancy.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: During pregnancy.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: During pregnancy. So, you know, they're about six months into pregnancy.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: A few months later, when it's time to deliver the infant,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: they had more medically complex births. And they also appraised
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: the births as more stressful. So the conclusion is it's
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: thinking about the couple relationship is actually important when we
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: think about birth. There's been a huge sea change about
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: how we deliver babies. You know, like, it used to
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: be that men were never in the birthing room. So
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: babies were typically delivered with the assistance of a female
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: midwife and female relatives. And it really wasn't until birth
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: moved into hospitals in, you know, the late 19th century,
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: suddenly you had a male physician who's presiding over the birth.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: And then really it wasn't until the 60s and 70s
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: that dads started to advocate for their inclusion in the
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: birth room. They said, you know, we don't want to
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: miss this. We want to be present. But because historically
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: dads have really not been part of the birth experience,
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: we haven't necessarily thought about the couple relationship as a
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: place to intervene. If we want to make birth go
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: more smoothly, we actually want to be thinking about dad's
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: mental health, and we want to be thinking about couples'
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: relationship functioning. Because those things might actually affect mom's psychological
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: experience at birth.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: So you're saying don't fight during pregnancy?
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, or just find more effective ways to fight. You
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: want to figure out ways to calm each other down,
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: validate each other, not necessarily, you know, imp each other
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: up and get into these really negative spirals.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: I guess I want to push on a point of
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: nuance here because I'm concerned that expectant parents might be
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: looking at each other right now As they listen to
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: this episode, I imagine we've got a lot of expectant
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: parents listening and they're thinking, fuck, we had a fight
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: last week. And we've got the birth coming up in
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: a couple of months.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. There's nothing wrong with fighting. In fact, I'm a
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: big believer that it's good to air out your concerns
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: and grievances. What we were looking at specifically were negative
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: conflict behaviors. Things like criticizing, showing contempt, stonewalling. So like
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: refusing to listen to see the other person's perspective. Actually,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: one of my really smart grad students is working on
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: a project right now where he's looking at what is
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: kind of like a magic ingredient that helps couples shift
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: from being negative with each other to being positive with
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: each other during these conflict tasks. He's like literally looking
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: at the same task and he's finding the ingredient is validation.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: So just conveying to your partner, I understand what you're saying.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: I see where you're coming from. I'm right here with you.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: I get it. Like those kinds of behaviors make a
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: huge difference because they sort of take like a lot
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: of the tension and frustration out of the conversation. As
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: soon as you feel really heard by your partner, you know,
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: the wind is a little bit out of your sails
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: for being furious.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: I sometimes worry that a lot of people are waiting
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: for perfection before they step into the next season of
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: parenthood maybe i'm guilty of this myself a little bit
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: to some degree i think me and my partner talk
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: about this sometimes me and my fiance about like it
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: doesn't feel like there's ever going to be a perfect
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: time to have kids yeah when you look at the
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: nature of my life in her life you go look
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: crazy crazy schedules um there really is no time right
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: now um but i reflect and go well everything that
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: i do now including this podcast at the time that
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: i did the first episode there was no time But
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: I made the time. And I sometimes worry that as
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: young people, we are in a culture that is waiting
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: for more perfection than is coming in terms of our
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: romantic partner or our circumstances. And of course, there is
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: a fundamental sort of basis of security that everybody needs
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: to be able to bring a life into the world.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: And often people don't have that. But I'm wondering what
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: your thoughts are on that. Yeah.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, I had this conversation with my grad school advisor.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: I said, I would love to have kids. What do
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: you recommend? When is the right time? And she laughed
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: and she said, there is no right time. You just
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: have to do it. You just have to make it work.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: Because once the baby shows up, you'll figure it out.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: And that was tremendously good advice and, you know, led
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: me to start having kids within the next few years
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: after that conversation.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I was like, okay, I guess I'm just going
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: to go for it. I'm going to make it work.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: And it was hard. But we did, in fact, figure
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: it out. And I think, you know, when you optimize
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: everything and you feel like you need the perfect conditions,
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: I need to own a house that has to be
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: this many bedrooms, I need, you know, this level of stability. Yes,
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: all those things are terrific. But historically, you know, people
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: had kids young and, you know, often, you they found
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: that having kids gave them a really strong impetus to
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: get those things together. We used to think about having
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: kids as like a cornerstone of a life. It's like
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: a foundation. You know, you do that and then you
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: sort of build your career and everything else. Now we
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: kind of think of it as like a capstone. It's
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: like your crowning achievement. You've got everything perfectly set, and
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: now it's time to have kids. And I think the
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: problem with that is, first of all, our biology doesn't
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: always agree. You know, we can sort of lose our
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: best window in which to have kids. And I also think, like,
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: having kids isn't just an individual responsibility. We need to
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: be thinking about it as it's a collective responsibility. It's societal.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: We are an alloparenting species. So what that means, we're
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: cooperative breeders. We raise our kids in community. That's how
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: we evolved. That's if you look at hunter-gatherers, that's how
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: they raised their kids. We are not designed to do
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: this in isolation. And I think, you know, when you
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: think about, like, what does a healthy society provide for
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: parents to reduce stress, right? Like, generous maternity and paternity leaves,
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: you know, job protections, childcare. Like, I'm a big believer
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: in having strong policies that make it easier to have kids.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: Because I think in the absence of those policies— You
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: feel like it's your job to get everything completely lined up.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: And that time might never come, especially not in a,
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: you know, tempestuous economy.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: And I think we're seeing some of the symptoms of
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: exactly what you've described there. A landmark 2024 study published
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: in The Lancet projects that by the year 2100, 97%
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: of all countries and territories will have fertility rates too
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: low to sustain their populations. The global fertility rate has
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: plummeted from an average of five children per woman in
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: 1950 to just 2.2 today. According to the CDC and
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Pew Research data, the U.S. total fertility rate just hit
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: an all-time recorded low of 1.6. This is far below
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: the replacement rate of 2.1 children per couple, I guess,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: required to keep the population stable without immigration. CDC data
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: shows total US birth rates dropped yet again by 1%
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: in 2025, falling to roughly 3.6 million babies, continuing a
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: nearly two-decade downfall slide since the Great Recession. And lastly,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: because the fertility rate is crashing in high-income nations but
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: remaining comparatively high in specific low-income regions, it is predicted
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: a massive shift in human demographics will take place, and
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: by 2100, one in every two children born on the
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: planet will be born in sub-Saharan Africa. It's all quite
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: shocking to hear, isn't it, I think?
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: It's inconceivable.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: I thought growing up everyone was talking about too many
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: people being on the planet.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: Right, there was this narrative of the population bomb, which
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: was this really popular theory in the 60s that we
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: had too many children and we needed to adopt contraception
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: and we needed to prevent too many children from being born.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: We all took that too literally and maybe over-corrected Because
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: now you have this population drop. And it's concerning because
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: what you don't want is a society with what's called
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: an inverse age curve, which means that you have many
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: more old people than young people. Because then you don't
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: have enough caregivers for the older people. You don't have
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: enough people to sustain the economy. You don't have innovators.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: You don't have, you know, the folks who are sort
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: of building your future. You've depopulated that and you have
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: a very aging population and that can create a lot
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: of instability. So I think we need to be thinking about,
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: you know, how do we make parenting easier and more
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: desirable for young people? Because I think that we've managed
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: to market it as an undesirable choice.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: How do we make it easier and more desirable for
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: young people?
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: So I think part of it is the conversation we're
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: having right now. We're talking about the meaning, the purpose,
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: the benefits that you can get from your relationships with others.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: I think that we need a cultural reframe around care
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: to raise the value of care. One of the reasons
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: I'm interested in fatherhood is because I think seeing men
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: as talented caregivers kind of unlocks this appreciation we have
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: for the importance of care. Mm-hmm. the shift you described
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: your brother undergoing where he went from transactional, how can
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: I make the most money to my kids matter? How
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: can I spend the most time with them? I think
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: is a really valuable shift in purpose that at scale
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: would make societies healthier and more empathetic.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: So there's like two things I think are worth saying
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: here from my perspective. The first is I think it's
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: important that we express the fact that a, not everybody
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: can have kids because of, you know, reasons beyond their control.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: I think the second thing is not everybody wants or should,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: should want to have kids, you know, depending on their circumstance. Um,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: and the third thing is that I do feel in
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: my personal circumstances, um, when I think about what I
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: want from my life, again, this is about me. I
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: do feel tremendously positively jealous of his life, um, And
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: that's a, it's a strange thing because, you know, he
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: has a couple more gray hairs than me, even though
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: he's only a year older. So, you know, everything in
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: life is a trade-off, but the like deep sense of
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: meaning and purpose that even I experienced when those kids
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: are here, like they were at my house for the
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: last couple of weeks. And it's, it's, everything seems incomparable
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: in terms of like meaning to these beautiful children. Yeah.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: They're just endlessly curious and fascinating and, And, you know,
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: there's very little you can get from scrolling on a
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: screen that, you know, that to me is as fulfilling
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: as what you can get from watching a baby learn something.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: It used to be that working for yourself was a massive,
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  Speaker 1: the last couple of years, and this is something that's
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  Speaker 1: true in business and content, but also with everything in life,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: is that consistency is the thing that really, really compounds.
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  Speaker 1: The same is true in sales. When your team is small,
• 36:53
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  Speaker 1: this starts to break down and deals start to slip.
• 37:02
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• 37:07
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• 37:09
  Speaker 1: a systems problem. The businesses that I've watched scale well
• 37:12
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• 37:16
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  Speaker 1: Head to pipedrive.com slash CEO. Am I right in thinking
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: that parents have different brains as it relates to the
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: brain being protected?
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So there's this really interesting emerging body of research
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: suggesting that being a parent is neuroprotective in late life.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: So there are studies, the UK Biobank is the biggest,
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: big repository of brain scans from people in their 50s
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: and 60s. And they find that both men and women
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: who report having had more kids have markers of a
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: younger looking brain age. So if you do a machine
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: learning algorithm and adjust for your chronological age and then,
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: you know, takes what the scans looks like and uses
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: that to estimate what they think your brain age is,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: you look relatively younger when you report having had more kids.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: It seems like the greatest benefit is at two or
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: three kids. After that, it kind of levels off. You
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: don't necessarily get a big benefit from having had six
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: kids compared to having had two, but it suggests that
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: there is something about the practice that That you get
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: to your social brain and to your empathetic brain that
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: is really beneficial to your, you know, brain plasticity and
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: functioning later in life.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: That's quite surprising because you think, you know, parents go
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: through a lot of stress having lots of kids. So
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: you'd assume that they'd be sleeping less. You'd assume that
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: would be bad for the brain. But you're telling me
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: there's evidence that it's actually protective to be a parent
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: of two or three kids.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's healthy to think about the short-term
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: cost and then the long-term benefit. So, you know, like
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: there are plenty of studies that have found that moment
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: to moment, parents of young kids say that they're less happy.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: They're more tired. They're more stressed. They have more going on.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: We've talked about the, you know, brain changes, hormone changes.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: But then, you know, if you look longer in later life,
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: people will report more fulfillment. So it's like you're doing
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: something that's not very fun. It's taxing. It can be
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: very isolating. And yet you're kind of reaping this longer
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: term benefit in terms of the power of those relationships
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: and that sense of connection with other people. That social
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: integration and that practice trying to understand others that is
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: really beneficial. Like it's a glue for creating good relationships.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: What is it exactly about being a parent that's going
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: to make my brain more protected when I get older?
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: You know, one of the theories I had was that because,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: you know, when those three kids were here, they had
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: me playing all kinds of bloody games. They wanted to
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: play hide and seek for seven hours. And it is somewhat,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: you know, actually picking them up all the bloody time
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: because there's three of them. And one of them's eight.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: I can't really pick her up easily.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: The other two, I can get them up. And then
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: she starts complaining that I've not picked her up. So
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: I have to pick her up. And I'm like, wow,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: what a workout. Yeah. It is both a cognitive and
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: a physical workout when they're around. Yeah. Is it that
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: like I'm building up brain reserve because they're challenging me
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: and having tantrums and they're wanting to play and they're
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: engaging me all the time? Is that why it's protective?
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: I think it's like Sudoku for your social cognition, right?
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: It's like you're doing crossword puzzles, but instead of like,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: you know, the sort of practice that you're getting for
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: putting words together, you're getting practice understanding people's minds and
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: intentions and communicating and responding to them and being sensitive
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: to them. And all of that is putting you through
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: a workout and it's also a full body workout. Because
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: kids are really embodied. And there's actually interesting research that
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: dads especially play in these physically demanding kind of vigorous
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: ways with young kids.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: That's exactly it. That was my job. My job was
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: to pick them up and throw them as high as
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I possibly can. Yeah.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: And kids love that. Yeah.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: And then, me now. And then I like, I threw
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: that and then it's like, me now. And then I just,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: I was like, I'm going to lose weeks throwing these
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: kids in the air, but also I'm going to break something. Yeah.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think my husband never had to see
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: the chiropractor until, you know, he became a dad and
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden you're throwing them up in the
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: air all the time. But that kind of play is
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: really good for kids because it's testing their limits. It's
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: challenging them and it's actually helping them build their risk tolerance.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: So like think about like the moment of fear that
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: you have when you're thrown up in the air and
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: then the relief when you're caught. Like you're basically practicing
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: your emotion regulation skills on a small scale and So
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: that when you're thrown into a scary situation at school,
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: you have a stronger sense of confidence.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: My other theory around why having children would be neuroprotective
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: for the brain was around oxytocin. And I say that
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: because I sat with Robert Waldinger, who's done that long
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Harvard study on human happiness. And the conclusion is that
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: one of the single biggest predictors of longevity is whether
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: you have strong relationships. And again, I had another scientist
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: say to me that oxytocin, the bonding chemical, is is neuroprotective.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: So I imagine having three children is going to equal
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: a lot of oxytocin, which is going to equal some neuroprotectiveness.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, we are social animals. We are designed to
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: bond with each other. We pair bond. We bond with
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: our kids. That's really healthy. I love Waldinger studies. I
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: cite those in the book when I talk about, you know,
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: if you really want to think about what creates longevity
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: and well-being late in life, look at your relationships. And,
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: you know, I feel like he shows that really well
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: with this 80-year study that he's been doing. There are
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: all these, like, brain changes and hormone changes that are
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: designed to facility to help us build those bonds. And
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: that's a lot of what is sort of going off
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: in early parenthood is, like, we are sort of reorganizing
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: to become more sensitive, more attentive caregivers. It's not like,
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: you know, some people are just destined to be great
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: parents and some people aren't. It's like as we put
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: in the experience, as we get the practice, we put
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: in the reps, we're building that brain and body that
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: helps make us really great sensitive caregivers. And then that,
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: I think, can transfer over to our other relationships too.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: If you've learned how to calm a kid down from
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: a tantrum, you are probably going to be a very
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: effective manager at work. If you have negotiated with three
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: kids who all want to pick you up at different times,
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: you know, you're probably going to be a better problem
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: solver in your couple relationship. Like those are just skills
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: that you're building that can cross domains.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: I was just looking at some of the research on
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: this and it says that research shows that oxytocin actively
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: down-regulates harmful pro-inflammatory cytokines in the brain. It acts on
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: the brain's immune cells, making toxic inflammatory responses lower. And
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: studies on aging mice demonstrated that long-term oxytocin treatment concurrently
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: enhanced the brain's plasticity, which directly improved learning and made
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: them better with memory as they aged. And in terms
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: of Alzheimer's, in animal models of Alzheimer's, oxytocin has been
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: shown to reduce the toxicity of amyloid beta plaques, the
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: toxic protein clumps that are the hallmark of Alzheimer's disease,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: which is fascinating. And that's the chemical that is produced
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: from bonding.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a pair bonding chemical. It's an affiliative neuropeptide.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: So it sort of helps us shore up our social bonds.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Touch is really important, isn't it? Yeah. You know, it's
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: such an important thing. Yeah.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: My lab found actually that when dads engaged in more
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: physical touch, there's a type of touch that's called proprioceptive touch,
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: which is exactly what you were just describing, like picking
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: babies up, moving them around, playing with them like in space.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: It's that sort of like vigorous touch that we often
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: associate with fathers. When dads did more of that, they
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: subsequently had higher oxytocin levels when we did a blood
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: draw in our lab. And that's been found in some
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: other labs as well.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Do you know Erika Commissar? She's been on my show.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: One of the things she says, which has been a
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: little bit controversial, is that she's argued that placing children
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: under the age of three in daycare causes profound separation
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: trauma and elevates cortisol to dangerous levels. So she's quite
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: against daycare.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: So I politely disagree. Both my kids went to daycare
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: where they thrived. And I am a big believer in
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: this idea of alloparenting, which is this idea that we
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: collectively raise kids. We are designed to help each other
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: out and share care. And so the model of single parent,
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: single child isolated in a suburban home is a very
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: weird model in the context of human history. And so
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: I think this idea that, you know, we can't participate
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: in shared care, that kids can't do well in group
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: care settings, to me is a little exaggerated. I do
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: think it's very true that it's about timing and when
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: is the right window to, you know, put kids in
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: group care settings. it's, you know, ideally when kids can
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: benefit from some social interaction, which is usually a little
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: older in toddlerhood. So, you know, 18 months and beyond.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: Very young babies often do better when they have a
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: single caregiver. They have a more stable attachment figure that
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: they can bond with. But babies can form really strong
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: attachments with their dads, with a caregiver. It doesn't necessarily
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: have to be the case that mom is the only
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: person needs to be present for every moment of an
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: infant's life, because I think that model is not terribly
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: sustainable for parents. And parenting stress is really bad for kids.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: You know, and this goes back to the birth rate conversation.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: I think we need to be thinking about parenting in
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: ways that are sustainable, that allow us to get help.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: And we also, you know, if we really think that
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: we don't want kids in a lot of early child care,
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: we need to support that with universal paid parental leave
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: which is not available for most parents in the united
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: states so a lot of moms are coming up against
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: a reality that doesn't fit with what some of the
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: parenting gurus are telling them is the only way to
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: raise their kids and i think that creates a lot
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: of anxiety if.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: You think about the early phases of a child coming
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: into the world like year one year two year three
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: is there any differences in when either parent plays a
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: different type of role.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: There's a little bit of difference and it sort of
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: depends on, you know, what the parent styles are and
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: what the kid's situation is. But there's a chapter in
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: my book where I talked with Richard Reeves, who's done
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: a lot of great work on masculinity and manhood. And
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: he says he thinks dads should be able to get
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: paternity leave up to their kid's 18th birthday. Because a
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: lot of the time dads find that their sort of
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: best relationship with their kid is happens later in childhood,
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: even in adolescence. You know, he talked about taking his
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: kids on trips, teaching his sons how to drive. And
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: so I think, like, dads can kind of come in
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: at different points along a kid's development and provide a
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: lot of value. I think early in infancy, if mom
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: is breastfeeding, it's important for the baby to get that
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: sort of regular access to milk. You know, of course,
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: moms can pump, dads can do feeding. But it is
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: often a source of challenge for couples when a baby's
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: first born and dads feel like mom has a really
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: big biological head start. You know, she has had the pregnancy.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: She's been able to build a bond with the child.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: Breastfeeding is like this magical formula that she can give
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: the baby to help soothe. And so I think a
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: lot of dads struggle to find their place in early
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: parenthood in the first year or two, because they're like,
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: what am I supposed to do? It takes a little
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: while for dads to kind of come online as parents.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: you know dads need I think some space and opportunity
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: to figure things out and you often get into this
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: dynamic where mom is kind of the default parent in
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: the early years and dads are waiting for their instructions
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: when you've.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: Gone out in the book train you've spoken to both
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: fathers and mothers what is the like central point of
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: contention that you discover.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: It's funny. I was just at a friend's book club meeting,
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: and it was a mix of couples. It was moms
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: and dads. And the thing that they all got into
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: was this concept of maternal gatekeeping and sort of male malingering,
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: which is this like double-edged kind of sword. And so
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: maternal gatekeeping, it's a somewhat controversial term, but it just
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: refers to any time a mom consciously or unconsciously sort
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: of puts up a roadblock to dads fully participating in parenting.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: And it could be as simple as the baby's fussy
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: and crying and mom says, hand him to me. You know,
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: I know what to do. But over time, that kind
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: of spiral into a pattern of mom becomes the authority figure.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: Dad is seen as like the bumbling, hapless kind of appendage.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: And dads ultimately feel like their contributions aren't valued or,
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: you know, mom doesn't really want them to have a
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: lot of independent time. Maybe it's because mom doesn't trust
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: the dad, right? which is an area where I think
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: having communication and making sure there's trust before the birth
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: is really important. But, you know, the flip side of
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: maternal gatekeeping is what's called weaponized incompetence or husbandly malingering,
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: which is when, you know, dad, who's a totally competent,
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: let's say, project manager at work who can handle lots
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: of different spreadsheets and a whole workflow, suddenly doesn't know
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: what to put in the diaper bag. Or, you know,
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: when we were at the book club meeting, one of
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: the moms was saying their baby was a couple days old.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: There was a giant diaper blowout. And she had gone
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: out for a 10-minute walk. And her husband called to
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: be like, what do I do? She's like, I've been
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: a parent for exactly two days. That's exactly as long
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: as you. I have no idea. You got to figure
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: it out. He's like, but the poop's on the wall.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: She's like, I'm sorry. You can use the wipes. You know,
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: that same husband, she told me later, was in charge
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: of packing lunches. And at a certain point, he said,
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: do you give the kids anything but chicken nuggets? She said, well,
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: there's fruit. You can cut up some avocado, you know,
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: like throw stuff in. So I think that is sort
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: of like when dads act like they just have no
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: idea and it's mom's job to solve the problem. And
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: so I think a lot of moms are sort of
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: frustrated with what they see as that dynamic happening. At
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: the same time, I've talked to a lot of dads
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: who said, I would love to have done more, but
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: my wife insisted on organizing everything, scheduling everything, telling me
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: what to do. I never felt like I got an
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: opportunity to fully step up. So I think that's an
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: area where couples really need to iron some of this
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: out even before the baby comes. Who's going to do
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: what and how are we going to balance it in
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: a way that we both get some ownership, we both
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: have some opportunity, and we can trust each other.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: Talking about that parents often report is that post-pregnancy, there
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: is a change in their relationship and intimacy. Have you
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: done any studies on that?
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: Yes. And that is one of the most robust findings
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: in transition to parenthood research is that there is a
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: drop in couple relationship satisfaction often around the birth of
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: a new baby. And it's not surprising. You take two
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: people who are having fun together, you sleep deprive them
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: you give them a lot of extra responsibility. And then
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: a baby who's crying and demanding that, you know, they
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: get out of bed at multiple times during the night.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: So you often get a lot of conflict around who's
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: going to do what, you know, who's more connected to
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: the baby. And, you know, I think it's one of
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: those things where forewarned is forearmed. If couples know that
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: this is going to be a risky time for their relationship,
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: they can do more to shore up their communication before
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: a baby's born.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: Have you ever quantified how different the relationship is on
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: the other side of giving birth?
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: We have definitely given lots of different couple relationship questionnaires
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: and we've measured them and we've looked at that dip
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: and we've seen that there is in fact a statistically
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: significant drop in relationship quality.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: And sex life.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: And sex life. Yeah, I mean, because of course, right?
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: Like you've got an extra person in your bed a
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: lot of the time or near your bed And if
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: you have delivered the baby vaginally, there's also a lot
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: of stuff that's sore and might need to get stitched
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: up and even more so if it was a C-section birth.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: And does that at some point go back to pre-birth
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: levels in terms of relationship satisfaction?
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So there is a lot of variability in couples'
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: relationship trajectories. So there are some couples for whom relationship
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: quality continues to dip and often the relationship dissolves. There
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: are also couples who report they have a better quality
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: relationship after having parented together. You know, there's a richer relationship. Like,
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: I feel that with my husband. Like, I appreciate him
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: so much because I've seen him negotiate with terrorists in
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: the form of our young children. So, you know, I think, like,
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: how well couples fare is going to diverge sort of
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: depending on how well they can kind of muscle through
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: some of those early years together.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Earlier on, you said that men experience postpartum depression after
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: the birth of their child sometimes. And that's quite a
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: unconventional thing to hear. When we think about postpartum depression,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: typically it's in the context of what the woman is experiencing.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: So it's quite interesting to hear that that is a
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: big issue for men as well.
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: So technically, postpartum depression just means depression that occurs after
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: the birth of a baby. That's what postpartum means. So
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: that term, postpartum doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, it's
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: the person that's delivered the baby. It just means this
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: is the time period after birth. And there's some evidence
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: that dads' prevalence rate for depression, so in new dads,
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: it's about twice that of the general population. So if
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: you look at non-fathering men, they have about half the
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: risk of depression as new dads. So there's a big
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: uptick in depression risk. That doesn't mean that every new
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: dad is depressed. And New dads have lower depression rates
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: than new moms, just to be clear. But it's also
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: not a competition. It's not a zero-sum game. And I
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: think there can be a lot of consternation, understandably, from
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: moms who feel like we have fought for the term
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: postpartum depression to be widely recognized by the medical community.
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: We've advocated for this. Now that we've succeeded, men are
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: sort of trying to take it over. And I'm sympathetic
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: to that argument. And a lot of moms have said,
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: why don't we call it perinatal depression? Fine. I think
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: that's totally okay. Perinatal just means around the birth of
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: a baby. And that's legitimate too. But if you think
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: about what are the risk factors for depression, either in
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: moms or in dads, like in, you know, the period
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: following a baby's birth, it's a combination of factors. It's multi-determined.
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: It's hormone changes. It's sleep changes. It's identity changes. It's
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: relationship changes, like relationship conflict. Changes to, you know, how
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: you show up at work to your extended family. It
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: can reawaken childhood traumas that were unresolved about how you
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: yourself were parented. So all of those things are coming
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: to the fore. And you're preoccupied by what can be
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: very isolating and repetitive care for a young baby. And
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: it creates kind of a perfect storm of mental health risk.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: Yvonne, you've studied. cortisol changes in couples, right? Yeah. And
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: how their cortisol interacts with each other. Is there a
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: biological divorce predictor in terms of a specific way a
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: couple's cortisol syncs up or clashes in that sort of
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: first year of parenting that tells you if their marriage
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: is going to fail before they realize it themselves?
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I have low cortisol interconnection in my lab
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: between couples. So how cortisol levels become correlated over time
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: I found that when couples had really strongly linked levels
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: of cortisol, they reported lower marital satisfaction. And you'd think like, okay,
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: they've got more similar hormones. That's probably a good thing.
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: We found the opposite in our lab. And I think
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: it's because you don't actually want to be contagious to
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: other people's stress. When one person is really stressed, it's
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: helpful to have a partner who can modulate that, who
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: can calm you down. So You don't necessarily want to
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: be exacerbating, like amplifying the stress state.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: Interesting. This is fascinating.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: There are some other labs that have found that, especially
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: in a transition to parenthood context, more synchrony in cortisol
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: can actually be a good thing if you're looking from
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: prenatal to postpartum.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: But outside of childbirth? Yes. So this is interesting for
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: me because I was having a conversation with someone the
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: other day And she was telling me that she emotionally
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: is a little bit more variant than her partner. Yeah.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: And I was expressing a similar sentiment saying that I
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: think actually the reason why my relationship works with my
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: fiance Melanie is because Mel is a little bit emotionally
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: variant and I'm kind of the like prefrontal cortex sounding board.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: That kind of brings us back down. Yeah. Yeah. So.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: her emotional variance is super useful because she's almost like
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: a threat detector. Right. In every regard. So if our
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: relationship is drifting a little bit or if we're disconnected,
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: she'll know first. Whereas I take a little bit more
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: time to like, to sort of have empathy to these
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: kinds of like shifts in our relationship. She's like very,
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: in in tune it's like a sixth sense she has
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: yeah however sometimes that can mean some things are harder
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: to deal with and maybe she's more prone to worry
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: sometimes And I've often felt, actually because she's expressed this
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: to me, she's expressed the gratitude of me being able
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: to like bring her back to a place of calm.
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: I've often felt that that's kind of like my job.
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: And I've often thought that our relationship works because you
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: do have two different types of people.
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: And actually, this is not a plug, but I'm an
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: investor in a company called Whoop. Yeah. And on there
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: they have the stress measure. Again, it's not a perfect
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: measure and nothing is a perfect measure. But, I was
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: looking at our differences in the stress response according to
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: on the devices.
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: And mine is very stable and hers is much more unstable. Right.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: But I imagine that opposite's attracted in this regard. Yeah.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's interesting because you could think if you
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: were paired with somebody who was super stable, life might
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: feel boring. If she was paired with somebody who was
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: really volatile, life might feel too chaotic. So we frequently
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: are drawn to people who complement us. something about ourselves
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: and who are sort of different enough that it can
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: sort of expand our worldview. And I worked with a
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: couples therapist. This is sort of his theory that it's
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: often the differences that drive us together that can ultimately
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: polarize us when things go awry. So you can imagine
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: a future where she's always the emotional one and you're
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: always the calm one and nobody gets a chance to
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: break out of that. And that becomes really entrenched in
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: a way that like pulls you apart but you could
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: also imagine a future where you meet in the middle
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: yeah like you become more emotionally attuned yeah and she
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: becomes calmer and more stable yeah and that's sort of
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: the ideal right that's what you want is you want
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: to you want to be joining around those differences.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: I would say that's definitely what's happened.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah so that's good that's a good sign for your
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: relationship yeah time to have a kid.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: I think so yeah I'm trying. He froze our embryos.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: Excellent.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: So we've got them in a freezer.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: Fantastic.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: Which is a really interesting process. I think this is
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: probably worth spending some time on because I think I
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: was living under the assumption that like in my early thirties,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: I could just sort of decide when to have a
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: kid and I could just, you know, have sex during
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: that little window. They talk about where she's ovulating and
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: the kids would appear. It's not necessarily how it works,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: turns out.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: No, it's actually a little trickier.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: It's trickier than I expected.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: There's actually a chapter in the book where I talk
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: about paternity uncertainty. One of the things that's really unique
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: and interesting about humans is we conceal our ovulation. So
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: that makes us different from a lot of other animals
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: where when a female is fertile, you know, because she
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: changes color, she starts dancing in a certain way, she
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: smells different, right? Like there are all these really obvious cues.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: And as a result, males sort of know exactly what
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: window to jump in on. And because we conceal our
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: ovulation as humans, it's always a little bit murky.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: Why do we do that?
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: For one thing, it encourages pair bonding. Because you can't just,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: as a man, just show up the one day that
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: it's time to cause a pregnancy and then take off.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: So you have to court a woman. You need a
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: lot of repeated opportunities. So if a man actually wants
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: to cause pregnancy, he's much better off sticking with one
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: woman and really investing in that relationship than he is
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: like going out every night to find a different lady.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: We form stable monogamous relationships because that's actually adaptive for
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: spreading our genetic material. And it also reduces aggression. So
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: there's one theory that it reduces rivalry between women. If
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: you know that one of the ladies in your group
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: is fertile and you have it out for her, You
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: want to take her out during her fertile period, right?
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: So concealing ovulation actually reduces that rivalry, that aggression. It
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: also makes everybody a little bit more invested in babies
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: because no man knows exactly who's caused which pregnancies. And
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: as a result, everybody has a little bit of an
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: altruistic stake in the future of our children.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure if this is an area of research
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: you've covered, and maybe I'm asking for a friend here.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: Do you know what increases the probability of conceiving a child?
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: Because I think about this a lot in terms of
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: stress and feeling comfortable and all these kinds of things.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: I'm often thinking about, don't argue with her, keep her safe,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: make her feel really secure. Yeah.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think those are all good instincts.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: Is there research on this?
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: There is research on reducing stress for sure, right? We
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: know that stress makes it harder to conceive. Of course,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: the last thing you want to tell someone who's struggling
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: to conceive is reduce stress because that's so invalidating because
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: you're like, I'm stressed about how hard it is to conceive.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: Telling somebody be less stressed is frequently not that helpful.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: But I think your intuition is right that you probably
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: want to make the environment calmer and safer. And you
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: can optimize nutrition. There's a lot you can do, but
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: there's also a lot that is not up to you.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: And sometimes more intervention is needed.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: What advice would you have for new fathers?
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: This is kind of like one of the themes of
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: my book. Great fathers are made not born. You might
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: feel like you don't have the qualities to become an
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: amazing dad, but it's really about your time, your investment,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: the practice that you get and the extent that you
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: care that is going to shape you. It's going to
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: build a brain and it's going to build a body
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: that will make you a tuned in parent. You know,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: give yourself grace. Like the transition to parenthood can be
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: really challenging, but you can become an expert in your
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: own child. And there is a reward there. You will
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: find enrichment. You will find meaning. You will rediscover your
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: priorities in a way that will ultimately bring a lot
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: of value.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: When I talk to new founders, they all carry the
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: same belief that the biggest threat to their small business
• 1:05:16
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• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: they face is hiring the wrong person for their small
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: team because bad hires put the handbrake on growth and
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: rapidly infect company culture. And I get it. When you're
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: starting out, you need A players to grow your company,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: but you don't have 40 spare hours to spend sifting
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: through interviews. So you hire fast to fill the seat,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: but this ends up costing you even more in the
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: long term. What any small business actually needs is a
• 1:05:39
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• 1:05:42
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• 1:06:11
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• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: if it says subscribe, you're already subscribed. If it says subscriber,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: that means you're not yet. And if you're not subscribed,
• 1:06:20
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• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: It helps the show more than you know. And according
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: to the algorithm, you're someone that watches our show, but
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: you haven't yet hit that button. Thank you so much. Well,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: you've done so many studies.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, probably too many.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: What are the studies that we haven't talked about that
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: are most formative or surprising for you?
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: We did a study where we looked at couples' plans
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: for how they wanted to divide up baby care. So
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: we gave them this questionnaire that we called a who
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: does what, where they were given 10 common baby care
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: tasks like changing diapers, feeding a bottle. And they indicated
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: on a slider how much mom was going to do
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: and how much dad was going to do. And then
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: we brought them back into the lab about six months
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: after birth. We had them do the same scale. And
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: it was really interesting because couples weren't actually great predictors
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: of how much dad was going to do. So every
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: single couple expected dad would do more before birth than
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: dad was actually doing after birth. And there are a
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: lot of reasons for that. That doesn't mean that anybody's
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: a villain. It just means maybe mom got more time
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: off from work. Maybe she was breastfeeding. And so the baby...
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: you know, she was with the baby more, right? Like
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: there are a lot of reasons why that is the case.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: But we found that when dads were doing more, they
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: reported that they were happier in their couple relationship. But
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: one thing we looked at actually was how moms and
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: dads talked about how they wanted to divvy up baby care.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: We measured how many times did they say the pronoun
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: we compared to when you use the pronoun I where
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: you're talking about yourself. When you're using we, you're talking
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: about you know, you and your partner, the more we-ness
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: the dads were showing, the more happy they were in
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: their relationship after birth. So their investment, their willingness to
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: chip in, even if they didn't totally realize all their plans,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: was still linked with their satisfaction. And that was controlling
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: for how they felt about their partner before birth. And
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: it's a little counterintuitive because you might think, you know,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: if you get to sit back and relax and your
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: partner is doing more that's a winning strategy. But it
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: was actually the dads that did more who told us
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: they were happier.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: If all goes well, next year I will be a dad.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: I hope so.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: I hope so too.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: So I've written on this sort of slide in front
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: of me here, advice for Stephen. And I would like
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: you to give me some advice, some actionable advice on,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: you know, becoming a father, what I need to do pre, post,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: during pregnancy.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: Based on all the research that you have.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: Love it.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: I'm going to write it down.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: Okay. So first, take advantage of the window before birth.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: to work on your communication with your partner. Think about
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: how you want to divide up baby care. You know,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: a lot of the time people say, well, just wing
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: it once the baby comes. And that can be a
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: recipe for frustration because moms feel like they're doing everything.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: Dads feel like they're shut out from care. So, you know,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: have those conversations sooner.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: So before the baby comes, have a conversation about how
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: we're going to divvy up responsibilities and make sure both
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: people are clear. Exactly.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: And think about, too, like, what are we going to
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: do about our extended families? What religion do we want
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: to raise our kids in? What do we think about education? Like,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: if you haven't had those conversations about values, have them now.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: Before.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: Because then I think you're going to ward off conflict
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: that is going to crop up later on. The other
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: thing is, and I would do this before birth, too,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: build up your social support network. A lot of men's
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: primary confidant, their primary intimate relationship is with their partner.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: After the baby comes, mom is really preoccupied and dads
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: are like, what about me? So, you know, we know
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: when we look at depression research that having a strong
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: social support network is one of the best buffers. So
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: you want to be thinking, what are my friendships that
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: I can count on and who can help me? We
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: really need community support. So think about how can my
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: mom help? How can my friends help? And maybe like,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: you know, your brother's got his own kids, he's too
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: busy to take yours, but he can help in some
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: other way, right? Like, how do you plug the people
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: into your life into what your social support needs might be?
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people would cite this as
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: being one of the reasons why they haven't had kids yet.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: Now more so than ever, we don't live in communities. Yes.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: Now more so than ever, we are lonely, isolated, living
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: in four small white walls in a city where we
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: can barely pay our rent and we're struggling enough to
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: take care of ourselves. Our parents often live far away
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: now because we're living in such a globalized world. So
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: feeling like you don't have the support around you to
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: give birth when you're like scraping through in a job,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: it doesn't make a lot of logical sense as to
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: why people won't choose to have children.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a huge problem. And I think a lot
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: of parents really struggle with feeling lonely and isolated. And
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: so when I say, you know, like take the time
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: before birth to build up your social support network, that
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: doesn't just mean with your existing parents. friendships and family, right?
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: Like sometimes we end up far away from those people.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: It also means build community with other expectant parents, with
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: your neighbors, right? Like we thrive when we build community.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: One nice thing about becoming a parent is there are
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: a lot of mechanisms for doing that. There are many
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: more for moms than there are for dads. So When
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: I became a mom, I could go to breastfeeding support group.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: I could go to baby wearing support group. I could
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: go like walk around the park with the Silver Lake
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: Moms Club. Like I had all these things to plug into.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: Dads did not have as many of those organic kind
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: of community building structures available. So, you know, take advantage
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: of the ones that are there. I just talked to
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: these guys that founded the Daddy Stroller Social Club. They've
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: got chapters all over the country. they just meet up
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: and they go for stroller walks with their kids. And
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: it's like an amazing way for dads to connect with
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: each other. So build that as much as you can.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: So what did we say? So build your friends, work
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: on your couple relationship, think about how you want to
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: balance things out. When the baby does come, first of all,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: protect your sleep. That's really hard. Everyone says sleep when
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: the baby sleeps. Your sleep is going to be totally scrambled.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: But when you have healthy routines and good sleep hygiene
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: even before birth, you're going to fare better after birth.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: I can hear parents screaming through the cameras saying, easier
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: said than done.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not trying to gaslight anyone. But I think
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: when you have a good foundation of healthy sleep hygiene,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: you're probably going to... So things like, really obvious things like,
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: don't be on devices right before it's time to go
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: to bed. Dim the lights. Make sure your room is
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: the right temperature. Try to dial in your sleeping environment
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: because the sleep is going to be the hardest thing,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: the first thing to go.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: Bit of a paradox here that when you're I guess,
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: stressed or sleep deprived, we often reach for things that
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: are dopamogenic, I think the term is, which is like
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: foods that maybe are a little bit higher in, you know,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: not the good stuff.
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: And there's almost a paradox there.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a total vicious cycle for sure. And I
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: would say, like, think about becoming a parent like you're
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: preparing to run a marathon. You know, not to the
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: point that you become totally neurotic about it, but think
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: about being healthy, having things that are going to prepare
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: your body for this big shakeup that you're going to undergo.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: And then once the baby comes, like, take any opportunity
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: to bond. Like, I think a lot of men feel
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: like I'm going to avoid as many diapers as possible.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: Changing diapers seems gross, but it's also a chance to
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: make eye contact with your baby and, like, really get
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: to know them in a different way. So, you know,
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: jump into those baby care opportunities. Like, find your own
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: style and, you know, make sure, like, the more windows
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: you have to bond... the better you're going to feel
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: like you know your baby and the more confident you're
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: going to be. And then I would say give yourself grace.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: Like know that this is hard. Know that it's temporary.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: And know that you are, you know, you're sacrificing in
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 2: the short term for a lot of long-term benefit.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: One of the things that might be a little bit
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: absent from this list is an effort towards holding my
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: relationship together with my fiancé.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: Also important. I mean, that's part of what you want
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: to do before the baby's born, right? You want to
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: be shoring up the communication and having those hard conversations.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: Like the date night thing. Yeah, yeah. Date night's probably
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: going to be the first thing out the window.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a thing that goes out the window.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 2: But you know what? One nice thing about newborns is
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: they'll sleep pretty much anywhere. So, you know, when our
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: babies were little, my husband and I would just like
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: put the baby in a car seat and go eat
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: in a nice restaurant. You know, it was like the
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: last time we got to do that for a few
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: years because once they start walking around, they're much less portable.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: So like take advantage of some of the early baby
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: stuff that you can do to travel and to make
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: sure that you get out.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: That advice was all advice for me. Yeah. For Stephen. Yeah.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: Would there be any different advice if my fiance was
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: sat here and you were advising her?
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, that would be fun. Yeah.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, I would say that sort of giving yourself
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: grace thing would go double, right? It's like, know that
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: Stephen is going through a lot and then you need
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: to know that she's going through a lot. Like her
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: whole sense of self is going to be an upheaval.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: Because like we go through this thing, it's called matrescence.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: There's also patrescence, which is just the idea that becoming
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: a parent kind of, you know, changes your priorities. It
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: changes your sense of who you are. So she's going
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: to go through a lot of transformation, as you will.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: And so sort of like hanging in with each other
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: during that period of transformation is really fundamentally, sometimes couples
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: can grow apart or dads are jealous that the baby's
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: getting all the attention. He feels left out. Moms are
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: frustrated that dad isn't doing more to help. Like all
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: of those things can lead to conflict. And you can
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: know that those are going to be hotspots for conflict
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: and try to talk your way through them even ahead
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: of birth.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: Darby, what's the most important thing we haven't talked about
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: that we should have talked about as it relates to
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: your work for all the people that are listening now
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: that have gotten this far in the conversation?
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's see. We didn't talk about Dad bod.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: Dad bod?
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: That's a fun topic.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: Something we frequently joke about. We think about like Homer Simpson.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: But it's been found across both animal and human studies
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: that males tend to gain weight when they become fathers.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: Is that just the cortisol and the lack of sleep?
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: So it's a mix of all the hormones. It's prolactin
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: is a hormone we haven't talked much about, but that
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: is rising. Sleep deprivation, changes in physical activity. changes in
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: our diet, right, because of stress and some of the
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: dietary choices that we're making. Like, I joke in the book, like,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: my husband and I basically ate peanut butter pretzels from
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: Trader Joe's, like, every day that our kids were babies. So,
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: you know, a lot of stuff is happening all at once.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: It's kind of a perfect storm. And yet, you know,
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: there's evidence even from animal models that you see weight
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: changes around the transition to fatherhood.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: These ones here.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. These are the tamarin monkeys. So there was
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: a study— that looked at tamarind monkeys that were expecting offspring.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 2: And it fed them a standardized diet and it compared
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: them to tamarind monkeys who didn't have partners that were
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: expecting offspring. And they found that the expectant dads actually
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: gained more weight, even though they were eating the same diet,
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: as the comparison monkeys who weren't about to have a baby.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: And so there were these like body changes that happened
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: even before birth in the male monkeys.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: Why would that be?
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: It's probably adaptive. Like if you think about increasing your
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: body size to be more imposing and to better ward
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: off attacks from rivals, and you also want to buffer
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: in case there's scarcity, right? Like you want extra fat.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: It looks less adaptive in a kind of modern context
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 2: when we have a very obesogenic environment. And you can
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 2: start to see more cardiometabolic risk. But one thing I
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: talk about in the book is Women actually like a
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: dad bod. Studies of single women have found that, you know,
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 2: if you show them a series of body types, the
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: dad bod is the most popular. You know, sort of
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: like a mildly, you know, kind of like a lightly
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: marbled male torso.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: Lightly marbled male torso.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember like the Olly Mears,
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: the British singer who like did a big tone up
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: at the gym and posted selfies. You know, he had
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: like a 12 pack or something. And all these women
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 2: online were saying like we liked the before picture. So,
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 2: you know, there's something to be said for the reproductive
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: signal of a dad bod. But part of it is
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 2: if you show women torsos of different kinds of male
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: body types, the sort of dad bod is one that
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: women say he is more likely to be a hands-on father.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 2: He's probably going to be more attentive. He's going to
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 2: be more caring. And those are things that are really
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: attractive to women.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: And that's proven by science. So if I go out
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: and get a dad bod, you're telling me the science
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: says I'm going to be more attractive.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, go for it. Yeah.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Worth a shot.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: See what my fiance says.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: How much of your work has been influenced by this?
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, this is my dad. So much of my work.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: My parents got divorced when I was nine and my
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: dad became a solo parent to me and my brothers.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: My parents ultimately worked out a joint custody schedule. So
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: we were One week with my dad, one week with
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 2: my mom. We switched off every week as I was
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: growing up. And he became a really great dad. Like
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: he had a major learning curve. He wasn't a hands-on dad.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: He was like an 80s dad who, you know, showed
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: up for the big stuff. But when he was alone
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: with the four of us, he suddenly had to be
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: the guy making our meals, the guy helping us with
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 2: our homework, the guy driving us to sports practice. He
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: really rose to the occasion, and I'm still really close
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: with him.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: How do you think that's influenced your overarching mission and
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: your focus on, you know, dads and parenting?
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I've always been really interested in families. And,
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 2: you know, they say like psychologists are always trying to
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: fix the thing that went wrong in their lives. So
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: I'm probably like as someone who's interested in couples and
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: families wanting to reverse like my own parents' divorce. But
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: I also like seeing my dad be a great caregiver
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: and then realizing how much parenting research is solely focused
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: on mom's. Makes me realize there's like a real gap
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: in the literature. Like, you know, men play a really
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 2: important role in parenting and I think deserve a lot
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: of recognition and respect for that.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: It's interesting that I'd never heard before that there was
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: really any changes that took place in a man's brain
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: when a man becomes a father.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's not something that gets talked
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 2: about a lot, which is why I wanted to write
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: about it. But, you know, we are dynamic. We're plastic.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: We humans adapt. And becoming a parent is one of
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: the biggest transformations that you can experience.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: Have you ever done any research on the impact that
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: divorce has on children?
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: Not a lot. No. Which is ironic because I am
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: a child of divorce. But there is some research about
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 2: it and there's definitely some evidence that it can create
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: some challenges for kids.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: And Have you ever done any research on or do
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: you have a view on whether humans are supposed to
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: be monogamous?
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: Well, OK, so the best way to describe humans is
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 2: we're sort of monogamous with benefits. And, you know, you
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: can see that if you look at the difference in
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: our body size. So like male humans are a little
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: bit bigger than female humans, but they're not like twice
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: as big. So like gorillas, male gorillas are way bigger
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: than female gorillas. There's like a huge size differential. And,
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: you know, that says that, you know, like the male
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: gorilla model is one of like harem dominance, right? Fully
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: monogamous animals are exactly the same size. Like prairie vole
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: males and females are almost exactly the same size as
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: each other. They have like no size differential. So that's
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: like real pair bonding. So we're sort of like somewhere
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: in between. There are a lot of societies with different models.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: You have polygamy, which is one man with lots of women.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: You have polyandry, which is more rare. That's one woman
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 2: with lots of men. Only a few societies that have
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: that model. But monogamy is actually the most common across
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: lots of different cultures and societies. And I think because
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 2: it brings us some benefits, in part because of the
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: concealed ovulation piece that helps motivate men to be more
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: invested in a single partner. But also because it generally
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: is good for kids.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: What are you concerned about?
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, our future as a planet.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: Which part of our future as a planet?
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: So I definitely am concerned about what we've been talking about,
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: the declining birth rate. I'm concerned not just because it
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: portends problems, you know, in our future societies, but because
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: of what it signals, I think, about young people's hopefulness
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 2: for the future.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: I think when you look at the world and you say,
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: I don't want to reproduce, I don't want to bring
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 2: children into this world. It to me suggests like a
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: nihilism and a darkness that concerns me. Like marriage rates
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 2: are dropping. Like young men and young women seem to
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: be on different paths. Part of that is like we're
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: in these algorithmic echo chambers where the kind of content
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: that we're absorbing is really different. So you see increasing
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: political polarization, not just in the U.S., but in other
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: countries too. It's like there's more adversarial kind of interaction there.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: And I don't think that's good. You know, going back
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 2: to the idea that having a healthy late life is
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: about building strong relationships and that that's a good predictor
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: of our longevity. I want us to be in a
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: world where we see ourselves as being on the same
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: team as each other.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: Are you hopeful?
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm super hopeful. I'm a very optimistic person.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: What would have to happen for that to be the case?
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 2: I'm hopeful I have teenagers. You know, I'm hopeful for them.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: I think they're going to take over. And hopefully they'll
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: be wiser than my generation has been. That's them with
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: my husband. That's from a few years ago.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, your boy's a bit older now, right?
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's 14 now.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: 14, okay.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: Dr. Darby Saxby, PhD.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 2: Yep, that's me.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: knowing who they're leaving it for.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 2: Who?
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: Question left for you is, people are increasingly distrustful and lonely.
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: If you could flip a switch and make one systemic
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: change to turn the tide, what would it be?
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 2: To make people more socially connected. Well, I think building
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 2: a better policy environment around parenting. So I'm a big
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 2: advocate for parental leave to protect time and space to bond.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 2: I think that would be a really positive change for
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: a lot of parents in the U.S. who don't get
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 2: access to leave.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: Why? As a Brit, you know, I've moved over here
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: and we, you know, we're hiring a big workforce here
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, New York and around the United States.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: But hearing about the parental leave policies here is like
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: mind blowing. What is the current parental leave policy in
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: the United States?
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So we are a huge outlier compared to the
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: rest of the world.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: So like we do not have a universal paid leave
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 2: policy for parents that's at the federal level. There are
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: some different policies at the state level, so every state
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: has slightly different policies. But frequently, what's most available to
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 2: parents is unpaid disability leave that's provided by the state.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 2: It's not available to every parent. If you're a shift worker,
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 2: if you're a gig worker, if you're at Walmart, you
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 2: probably don't have access to that paid leave. And as
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: a result, a lot of new moms in the U.S.
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: are back to work within a couple of weeks of birth,
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 2: which I think is totally bonkers. When you think about
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 2: what does it take to build a healthy society?
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: The baseline federal protection is the Family Medical Leave Act.
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: It guarantees up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave. Your
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: employer must also maintain your group health insurance during this time.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: So they don't pay you. Yeah.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's a big problem because it's expensive.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: Really expensive.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 2: To raise kids.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: It's so surprising that they haven't passed a law yet.
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: In this direction, because it's not a partisan dispute.
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: No, that's what's so surprising is that it's one of
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: the best polling issues. It's bipartisan, right? Both Republicans and
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: Democrats say they support leave. I think it's something like
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 2: 80% of Americans are in favor of it. Yet we
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: haven't found the political will to make it happen.
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: Well, maybe we need a woman in office.
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 2: Well said.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: Or just a man.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: Or just an empathetic man. Let's get hands-on dads to
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 2: rise to power. And moms.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for writing this book because you're
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: shining a light on so many issues that have been
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: mystified through, I guess, pop culture in a way. But
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: you're bringing to light the reality that men are both
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: important in the raising of children. But also you're doing
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: it through a lens of storytelling, through adjacencies and different
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: animals and issues. through science in such a rigorous way
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: and i think it starts a conversation about the upsides
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: of being a parent and those are as we said
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: they're less obvious than the pain of being a parent
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: yeah and i think the more we can sort of
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: rebalance that equation the more likely we are to have
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: to raise a healthy generation of kids and again i
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: do pause a lot because i realize i've got friends
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: close to me that both either don't want to have
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: kids for whatever reasons or just can't have kids yeah
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: so there's often the the sort of stigma can go
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: both ways in some regard um But I'm someone that
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: wants to have kids. And it was fascinating learning about
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: your work. And it helped me to prepare for what
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: I hope will be the most fulfilling journey of my life. So, Dr.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: Darby Saxby, thank you so much for your work. If
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: everyone wants to go get your book, I have two
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: versions here. I have the UK version and I have
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: the US version. I'm going to hold both of them
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: up here. And I'll link it below for anyone that
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: wants to have a read. Absolutely fascinating. And the great
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: thing about your work is you do the sort of
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: first-party research yourself. Mm-hmm. And you're at the very forefront
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: of what we know about what it is to have
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: a dad brain, but also more broadly about couples, how
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: they interact and where they can sometimes go wrong. Thank you.
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. This was a delight.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: It's been a pleasure. YouTube have this new crazy algorithm
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: where they know exactly what video you would like to
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: watch next based on AI and all of your viewing behavior.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: And the algorithm says that this video is the perfect
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: video for you. It's different for everybody looking right now.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: Check this video out. I bet you, you might love it.