#28 Greg Ellis- Fighting Pirates to FIghting for Fatherhood

0 (3s): The male imagination requires inspiration and our teachers need to work with not against the kinetic energy of boys, but we need to bring back recess. And we add the Savior's core is linked to, to just get out of that classroom and play sports or run around, or get beaten up or get all of the things that happens to boys. 1 (27s): Hello everybody, you're listening to Chatting with Candice I'm your host Candice Horbacz. Before we get started on this week's episode, if you want to support the podcast, you can go to Chatting with Candice dot com. And from there, you can sign up for our Patrion account where you get early access to episodes and shout outs, plus some cool merch, or you can click that little link that says, buy me coffee, both things help me out a ton. I'm just getting started. Every dollar makes a difference. I recently started using a murmur, a CBD, and I am blown away by the quality. So they actually deliver flowers CBD right to your door. And it is the only heat not burn device that honors the integrity of the flower. 1 (1m 7s): So what that means is that it doesn't get so hot. It's a lot more gentle on your lungs. You're not going to have a ton of crazy vapor coming out when you exhale. It's a much more enjoyable process with a really quality CBD. And what I love is that they include these little card stocks in the box that break down the exact chemical makeup of the CBD. And they even note like the tasting notes, which for someone like me and I love food and I love wine. I found to be a very fun and helpful. So if you want to save 15%, you can go to a murderer cbd.com. That's O M M U R a S C B d.com and use code Candice for 15% off again, that's a Mara cbd.com code Candice, and I will include the affiliate link and the coupon code in the show notes. 0 (2m 1s): Okay. 1 (2m 4s): A week I would like to give a shout out to Taylor Mims. Thank you so much for being a Patriot, but I really appreciate your 0 (2m 10s): Support now that we got 1 (2m 13s): All of those plugs out of the way, please help me welcome. Greg Ellis 0 (2m 18s): Yeah, I don't. 2 (2m 19s): Okay. And we might cause a stir, but I don't think that you mind given your Twitter account. I know I have been watching some of your YouTube videos, cause I like to try to like, be like, I know the person before, but especially because everything's, so it's a virtual now. Like we were in person, I feel like you could like RIF a lot more naturally, but you like don't have that connection. So I try to get it myself prior and M you have some pretty provocative titles for your YouTube. Like the one that I was just watching was abuse has no gender. And it had like a really powerful clip in the beginning. It was, you know, this, that was like a bird raiding. 2 (3m 0s): This man in public and people were a lot. Is that real like real footage, like by actors? Yeah. 3 (3m 5s): Well, w w there were only two actors, the man and the woman. Yeah. Everyone else was general public. So when I found out about that, I was, I've been talking with a mock Brooks who got an OBE for charity work, and he runs the mankind initiative in England, and he actually shared it with me. And I thought it was just a powerful, cold open to have, because on the abuse has no gender came from, I've been talking with Johnny Depp and his team in his attorney wrote to me, the truth has no gender. And then the DEP heads who are the supporters of Johnny Depp, changed it to abuse, has no gender. And I think it speaks to that. And we can talk about it as well. The expandability of man in our society and how, you know, men aren't important. 3 (3m 50s): Let's just smash the pet. Let's just smash father figures everywhere. The very idea of men is bad. 2 (3m 55s): So there are so much, there's so much. I urge everyone that's listening to watch this video. To me, the most powerful part, wasn't the actors. It was everyone reacting to the actors. Like you saw people laughing or just blatantly ignoring it. And the first thing I thought of is like, if this was reversed, this would be very different. Like if this man was berating, this woman, even half as hard as she was to him, like people would have intervened. They certainly wouldn't be laughing. And I feel like, so I come from a, like a pretty abused background. Like it was all in my family growing up, I'm on both ends like dad and mom, and, you know, white mom's boyfriends and all of this thing. And I mean, my mom in some cases gave it worse than she got. 2 (4m 38s): And that's not to like, you know, a victim blame and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I feel like he always have to do those disclosures, but I've firsthand seen women at their worst. And to say that like men don't deserve protection or they don't deserve the same. It's a little bit discouraging, especially as like a mom of a young boy. I'm like, I don't want him to grow up in this world. This is the statistic that you shared is 40% of men are actually victims of victims of abuse. And most people would laugh at that. And it's not like a laughable matter. So I, I love that you did that video. 3 (5m 12s): No, thank you. It was, you know, the, it's basically two for those who haven't seen it, it's basically two, a, a, a male and a female. And the first half of the video is the, is the man berating the woman and verbally assaulting her and then physically grabbing her, pushing up against the fence, near a park. And you can see the public reaction is understandably people step in particularly women. And they, they, they call on the man to stop and they call them out and as they should, and then the same scene is filmed, but with reverse with a woman attacking the man and the reactions, which will natural from, from the general public are just laughter. 3 (5m 55s): And the original light is pathetic. How pathetic is the, and so I think it's difficult sometimes to kind of pair that traditional chivalrous, stoic masculinity with this new kind of a modern masculinity of, we have to be more understanding and feeling and encourage as we should encourage women to go out and into the workplace and have a quality. And so it was, yeah, it was very interesting seeing just a natural reaction. I think that speaks to what, how our discourse, our public discourse. It is right now with regards to men and how it's been a few years in terms of smashing the patriarchy and all men bad and believable women. And I think we need men too in the conversation. 3 (6m 38s): And I think, you know, we need to start being a bit more positive and how we can talk to the, the, the greater characteristics of men. The more general characteristics is there are some that I think men move physically towards violence quicker than women do. And men are violent with their fists. Whereas girls and women scratched with their nails. And there is, there are fundamental differences, but there's also individual differences. So that's what interests me. 2 (7m 6s): So I was listening to one of your podcasts that you were a guest on. And the one of the hosts was saying how brave she thought you were. And like, she almost didn't want to say like, men's rights. And like, that's like a bad word. I'm like, okay, what do you mean though? So we were like, you mentioned, we're a completely and leaving out like 50% of the population because we just assume that you guys don't matter. And that has been an acceptable narrative, especially in like this post me too era. So do you want to kind of give the listeners your background of what got you inspired to kind of start using your platform, start using your voice for what people would say is very noble and very brave and very cancelable if that's even a word to speak out for men's rights. 3 (7m 53s): Yeah. I think much of what I've seen with, wow, I've recently learned the term MRA men's rights activists. I don't consider somebody's to see myself a men's rights activist, more of a agenda equity advocate for family Fatherhood in men to, and I think, you know, we as humans, we're, we're we're sense makers and meaning seekers. And I think we have a crisis of meaning right now in society. And having looked at this through multiple lenses, I think the biggest, the breakdown of the families is the single biggest civilizational catastrophe we're facing today. I think the gravest indicator at the, at the root of America is torn familial tapestry, his marriage and family breakdown, social ills, and public policies, STEM from the health and wellbeing of relationships and family formation that yet these days, our, a society seems to undervalue the importance of the family unit. 3 (8m 43s): I read David Brooks and the Atlantic, his article last year, or you said that the family unit was a mistake. I see movements like BLM on their website and they have, you know, they, they want to get rid of man in the family unit. And, and to talk about the significant role of father plays in the developing minds of particularly young boys, because I have two sons and the recent, such a negative messaging about masculinity and the patriarch in man in general being vilified. It's no wonder the boys, our younger generation of boys and younger man is suffering at school in a play. And I think with our current education system, failing our boys and having witnessed that firsthand and realizing just how a, for want of a better word toxic the atmosphere and the environment is to disperse. 3 (9m 37s): This. I looked out there and I saw the, of the few people that were discussing it were women and the odd man who was, was canceled pretty quickly for, you know, demonizing mothers and women. And I don't think demonizing masculinity is the solution. I think that's the problem. And so, you know, I decided that I would rather than just complaining to friends and talking about it in small groups and having conversations wherever and a golf course in a pub or at work to just form a project that that would be a, a, a kind of a multimedia, a conversation and a lens to which I could talk through and maybe create some, some entertaining media perhaps on what is a difficult subject and has many different topics within it. 2 (10m 29s): So when you see these articles that are being written, or these agendas that are in, that were on the website for BLM, which is to abolish a nuclear family and, you know, smash the patriarch, all of these like catchy phrases, do you think that people really want that? Or is it just like so radical that they want eyeballs 'cause to me, like that's wildly radical to assume that, you know, women can just raise kids on their own and it was going to be at the exact same as if they had a supportive partner. 3 (11m 0s): Yeah. I think many of us don't take the time to actually invest. Many of us don't have the time to investigate and get better educated. I know when I first heard of that particular movement, I decided rather than jumping on the bandwagon and, and of course the cause is a good, because of course, black lives matter now it's to suggest that they don't is, is ludicrous. And we need to call out people who don't believe that, but in movement sometimes can get hijacked along the way. And it would be a little ignorant of what are the main goals, the doctrine and the purpose of that movement are. So I think within me being an individual, it's up to me and incumbent upon me to explore and see what they're actually trying to change and what that is. 3 (11m 44s): And I just don't agree with that. I don't, I don't profess to be some kind of, you know, hardcore family values, a champion that is around with a poster saying your family values, family values. But I think when we look at society, there are certain bigger themes, macro themes that are affecting, and the trickle down effect of how we're behaving, how we're feeling our emotions and taking the time to investigate that and form on his own opinion based on what, which is very difficult these days. Because a lot that we use is, gosh, a lot of the news is so it's propaganda, you know, it's either far left, which is far right. 3 (12m 28s): And, and being more moderate means you're, you're not going to scream as loudly as everyone else and be heard the screeching pack. So I just encourage people like I do myself is to just try and get more educated on subjects. If someone's written an article, who is it? Why have they written? Or what are they trying to say? What's the nuance. Maybe leave a little room for doubt. So, yeah. 2 (12m 50s): So in that article that was in the Atlantic and they were talking about getting rid of the traditional family. Like what was, what was the argument for that? Like w what are the advantages that you we're going to gain from that? 3 (13m 1s): Okay. Well, I think it was talking about David Brooks, maybe the point he was making when he said it was a mistake, was to move more towards a more collective society where we can, and I get the, the idea behind that. We're actually not just, we're not just thinking about our nuclear family units and who is under our household. It's like, maybe we can think about the homeless guy that lives down the street. Then we see everything, what we want to do. So I think that was the theme of it, but it just came a time. And also, I didn't agree with what he said, and there's the other thing I can disagree with. David Brooks doesn't mean he is a terrible person, a writer, a way better than I could ever dream to be. 3 (13m 42s): But I think he, I think that that misses the point and it's too simplistic to say, you know, I think we can do both. I think we can value marriage and family and, and our relationships. And when to say the family, it's the familial as well. The interpersonal relationships we have is very important because we all, we all know that we all have breakdowns in our friendships and relationships and life is rupture and repair is push and pull and how we can be less reactive and more responsible and look itself rather than other, I think is important. I own responsibility and go, you know what? I accept the part that I played in this particular rupture, how can I repair it? 3 (14m 26s): How can I have done better tomorrow? I vow to make better mistakes, which mistake can I correct. And try and improve on that's 2 (14m 33s): One of the original quotes, right? 3 (14m 36s): Yeah. I did a I I wrote a, a, a little pocket Oracle, a philosophical quotes called no thing in between. And one of the quotes was tomorrow. I vow to make better mistakes. 2 (14m 47s): I love that one. I've heard you say it a couple times. And I'm like, that's like such a and attainable goal. Like everyone can try to do like 1% improvements every day. Right. And it's just like not saying, you're not going to make a mistake or that you're not going to fuck up. Like that's guaranteed. And that's, you know, you have to accept that, but it, hopefully it's not as bad as the one that you did yesterday. So I think that's really, really cool. 3 (15m 10s): Thank you. And if it's the same, you know, it's acknowledging as well, you know what? I'm going to keep making mistakes. I'm fluent. We do have thought we do. And sometimes we do, and we only know it and we go, Oh, I didn't even know you're upset. Yeah. 2 (15m 29s): Yeah. I think it's really interesting. Just everyone's like reaction is like, you used to be able to say you did something that hurt my feelings and have a conversation about it. Or you used to have opposing opinions and have a conversation about it. And now it's, if you offended me like we're mortal enemies, or if you don't align with me exactly down the line, we're mortal enemies. And then I feel like with everything happening with COVID and you mentioned the lack of purposely all of these kind of interlace together, it's like the less we have going on for ourselves, the more we focus on other people, like, especially in times of disparity. So we lost our jobs. 2 (16m 9s): Are we haven't seen loved ones rather than like, look introspectively and try and get yourself out of like this dark place. You start looking at everything wrong in the world and other people. Do you think that there is a correlation between that and I guess the decline of marriages, or like the thought that you need to partner? Cause I see like so many, especially women that are like, I'm a strong, independent woman and I don't need a man and I can do everything by myself. And I think some along that way, we're losing purpose and getting angrier. If that makes sense. I know that I kind of was drawn out on that, but what's your perspective on that? 3 (16m 51s): Yeah, I think, you know, I think the devaluation of, of men, of fathers, of boys, particularly boys, I mean, that's the area that I think is of, of real interest for me, the, that devaluation at the very idea of men is something that, you know, men have been boys and boys will become men. So how can we have this conversation and talk about these difficult subjects that do deal with things like you started out by talking about trauma and our, our, our family of origin and a dysfunctional family systems. And, you know, I think everyone deals with a certain level of trauma and trauma resides in the body and the body keeps the score. 3 (17m 37s): And the organism is carrying that weight of trauma around and life is remembered backwards and lived forward. So, you know, what is a definition of feeling and emotion and how can we make sense? We are sense because of that trauma that we carry in those situations in maybe rewrite the script that we tell ourselves are the predominant script, whether it's, you know, of our, of our childhoods or our past, if you will, there are many different versions of ourselves. So when I think about boys, I think about our education system, you know, our education system is massively Fighting, it's failing children in general, but I particularly think it's failing boys. And with that, an extra burden is placed on fathers, on man, on masculinity to pick up the Slack with much more immediate remedial interventions to help STEM our boy crisis. 3 (18m 28s): That that general lack of motivation being instilled in our younger generations of boys by an educational system, that's not paying much attention to what boys need is disturbing. And, you know, I look at the five factors driving this growing epidemic of unmotivated boys. And under-achieving young man, which is a video games, prescription drugs, environmental toxins, the develop, the devaluation of masculinity and teaching methods. And I mean, you look at teaching methods in our schools, boys need motivational curriculums. And when I look at it, the biggest proponent of why are they, the people that we're fighting the hardest to stop curriculums evolving or devolving curriculums to be less motivational for boys, it's, you know, frankly, radical, postmodern, a progressive feminists toxic, or someone say, I'm not the truth, equality feminists. 3 (19m 28s): I've had many of them, a feminists on my show. 'em, you know, so there are some amazing woman who'd been fighting for equal rights for women for decades and Christina Hoff summers. I think she is called the factual feminist Camille Paglia, or there's so many of them, but it's the, it's the rapid strain of misinterpreted feminists. I think that really don't want a boy's to do well. And I think our younger generations of young men of failing, because we are not mentoring, shepherding, guiding teaching, and better educating our boys to become more responsible. 2 (20m 6s): So as a parent of two boys, because I have a one-year-old, so I'm S we're not even in the education system yet. And that's some territory that I'm very scared to navigate and very ignorant as well at this point, just because of lack of exposure, like, what do you look for to make sure that they have a positive experience in school and that they are not falling behind because you do see that now in the universities, right? Like women that are far surpassing and outperforming men, as far as like attaining degrees. And it was almost like we wanted to get women to a place where we could go to school. Right. And we could go to university and that was awesome. 2 (20m 46s): But then there was like almost overcorrection that happened. And I feel like we do that in a lot of areas and we tend to see something that went wrong and then we over-correct, and then we need a kind of like steering a boat. Like you have to kind of take it easy to find like a nice, steady way PA like forward instead of like these hard terms that we're doing. So if you have a young boy, like how do you make sure that he succeeds? Like, what do you look for in the education system? 3 (21m 11s): Yeah. That's a really good question. A really good analogy to, you know, gentling the moves rather than the quick a stormy turns. Gosh, what do you look for? I don't know. Every, I remember what I looked for for my boys was a more structured school, I guess, more like the British school that I didn't have. And I regret doing that. And, you know, I think, I think boys, I remember my six, my, my youngest, when he was maybe six, he came home from school. And I, I was checking in with my boys after school and I said to him, you know, how was your day? He said, I just feel like a bird trapped in a cage. I said, what do you mean son? 3 (21m 52s): We wanna be out playing. He's got all this This kinetic energy. And he's been told to sit down and shut up behave, or when I was five or six and I didn't know how to behave, you know, someone just telling me to behave. And I think the bigger themes as well of, of with, with, at schools, I, I hear a lot of w w I was telling children what to think rather than teaching them how to think my eldest did a English lit class, and he was given a book and he read the book in his interpretation of the book with different to his female teacher. And, but she graded him down. Like it would be a terrible grade. And it was a, it was a great book report. It was really interesting interpretation of how we saw the story. 3 (22m 35s): And he went to speak to that, always empowered them to have a voice and to speak up so that he went to speak to the teacher and he was just kind of chastised and made to feel devalued and that he got it wrong. And, and it's that rigid way of teaching that I think is that is, is difficult, but it's not to say that the teachers don't have a hard time, but I think about books and the importance of reading. I mean, that's one thing I say to friends of mine who have little kids keep the kids off devices as long as possible device dependency, a chemical imbalances because of the dopamine heads. It's, it's difficult because of peer pressure, but to really try and focus is a parent on what is best. 3 (23m 17s): What is the best school for your kid rather than the best school for you, or what's the fanciest or greatest schools. There is some real gems out of there that may be on riot at the top and just go to the library and they have a library of what books are in the classroom. You'll be a real, a quick education on what the school is all about. And I think that the school of life says reading is a form of therapy in a way of processing our own thoughts through the medium of others or the other's words and books make sense of our experience. And through simplification and empathy, they bring clarity to situations in States of mind that we ourselves are familiar with yet, but perhaps those five lakh the means to analyze or make sense of in the best of them, we find ourselves made comprehensible for the first time and they speak not only to their own age, but to all ages. 3 (24m 13s): So I think boys, boys, aren't being given boys centric books at school, full stop. Boys will read if there are given materials that interest them, the male imagination requires inspiration, and our teachers need to work with not a gamer, the kinetic energy of boys. And we needed to bring back recess. The savior at school is like to just get out of that classroom and play sports or run around, or get beaten up, or, you know, what are the things that happens to boys years? We've lost 50% of boys on structured playtime. 2 (24m 47s): I heard that. I can't remember where I was listening to this, but I heard that the re one of the main reasons they got rid of recess was because they were scared of abductions. Have you heard that? I haven't had that now. Yeah. It was like some dated, like back when it was like, it's, it's 7:00 PM. Do you know where your kids are? Did you ever see those commercials? I didn't know. 3 (25m 12s): I mean, I grew up in England in the, in the seventies and eighties, and, and it was when, you know, our street, all of the parents knew each other, but we will plan his kid's out on the street. And when it started to get dark, whatever that time was, it was, you know, times to go home. But I also, I remember when I was, I think I was maybe seven years old playing with the kids in the daytime, and This this guy drove up in a car and he wanted directions and I was just young and naive, and I wanted to be helpful in our islands. Oh, it's down the street and you go turn right on the cannon with road and it's a whole, can you help me? Can you show me, I'll drop you back off and I'm sure. And before I thought about, and I'd gotten in the car with him, Oh my God. Two minutes, because he was clearly not a good person when he put his hand on my knee and I'd asked him to get out of the car and I felt trapped. 3 (26m 3s): And I looked in the mirror and I'm driving away. My friends are just standing there that, so that is a worry, you know, it, it really is a genuine worry, but that's not a reason why we should stop. Boys are having recess and play time. And I'm sure if you, if you live in an area and that school is in an area where it's more prone to where the faculty think that there might be some abductions, fair enough to get some extra security, but I don't know if we want to be reducing recess and playtime for boys because we're afraid of abductions. Yeah. 2 (26m 37s): And it's all fenced here too, for them. Like, I have never seen a school that didn't have a gate around it. So it had the proper administrators, like watching the children, like your supposed to be doing, and it shouldn't be a problem. And I think there's also probably a little bit of fear around like kids getting hurt. And they're like, well, what if someone rough houses, which is like, it's a normal kid behavior. And I think we tend to, it goes back to like overreacting and over-correcting, so it's like maybe they get into a little scuffle and then one parent wants the other one's expelled. And we kind of have to allow for just like human behavior. It's kind of, it's going to be like a bad analogy, but like, you know, at the dog parks, when you take your dog there and they have to like all the ones that are already there run up to the new dog and they're all sniffing and puffing up and barking and they just have to like, kind of like sort it out themselves and then they can go play. 2 (27m 25s): I feel like it's kind of the same some that are like the recess court, right? Like the kids kind of have to like, feel each other out and see where I belong in this herd. And that's totally okay. That's different than like bullying. Right. It's a very different, but we have like the sense of just being so fragile and we can't allow anything to happen. Like you can't have the snowball fight, you can't have a play Dodge ball anymore. All of these things are banned. And I don't know, I feel like we're making like a bunch of just more fragile, less realistic adults when they grow up. Right. That was the, world's not easy. 3 (28m 1s): We talk about rough housing, rough housing experiences for boys and dads helping navigate This. So the child's learns healthy boundaries. That's one of the main gateways to learning healthy boundaries. Rough housing in gender is a sense of empathy to self and other. And me used the boys is much more likely to have friends and less likely to become depressed and withdrawn. You know, where the limit to that boundary is when your rough housing and someone gets hurt. It's a rare boy. He is. And then it goes in for the kill. 2 (28m 36s): Right. Then you might want to read it. You might want to look into that. 3 (28m 40s): It's not as, it's not as common as one might think. I don't know. You know, and that style of parenting as well. I mean, I, you know, I hear a lot about a single parent families in deadbeat dads and a, we have a legal system right now that is encouraging the, the breakdown of the family. And, you know, I had Heather McDonald who I think Jeff sessions, the attorney general at the U S couple of years ago called the greatest criminal thinking mind alive in America today. And I told her before she came on the show, she asked, what are we going to talk about? Is a family law, family law, family, law, family law. And then I asked the first few questions I asked. It was a, well, that's not my area of expertise. And I asked, I said, do you are aware that there isn't a presumption of innocence in family law that either family law is not answerable to the Supreme court. 3 (29m 25s): We have a draconian law, a judicial branch of the law that basically is there is no presumption of innocence. So if a quote and quote, the greatest criminal thinking mind a live in America today is an aware, and isn't prepared to talk about why there isn't a presumption of innocence and family law. That's for both parents, men, and women, mothers, and fathers, and why that is the case might be because of the $60 billion a year industry that wants to continue in is incentivized to, to break down the family unit. But anyway, getting back to for a moment, rough housing, yes, dad style parenting guiding boys through disciplined experience is a necessary component in balancing This balancing the psyche of young males and instills a learned sense of agency that helps the child self integrate a more healthy value system. 3 (30m 21s): So I believe is as a society, we really need to ask ourselves some difficult questions about the evidence finishing valuation we're placing on Fatherhood and family. This isn't a one side against the other. It's not a zero sum game. It can be a win-win and mothers and fathers and brothers and daughters and sons and sisters. And on top of the, we're all invested in that. Aren't we? 1 (30m 45s): No, you articulated that the best that I've heard when it comes to like rough and tumble play, because I've always known that it's important, especially for boys, but I never really understood how that translates. And like, you, you really hit that on the head. One of my favorite stories, but my husband's told me about like, when he was growing up with his dad. So like, they would always like have wrestling matches at night. Like, it was just like part of their post to dinner routine. And one of the times they were wrestling. He was like, he was, must have been like five. I think he said he was a really young and he decided to bite his dad during the wrestling match. So he just bit down really hard. His dad just screamed. 1 (31m 25s): And all of a sudden he like said he looked back and he had this like utter look of fear on his face. Like, what have I done in his dad was like, we do not bite. So it was like that hard boundary, right. It was like, this is, this is where I draw the line as far as like interaction. And you learn a lot from each other in that moment. And obviously it imprinted on him. 'cause now even in his late thirties, he's still remembering this moment. And as a fond one, like it's a really funny story. Every time he like tells it. But yeah, I love that. I think it's so important. And I, and I'm not going to do that. I mean, my baby's like one and I'm already like getting tired when I'm, you know, throwing them around and everything is like, not my emo. 1 (32m 8s): So yeah. I've never heard it put that way, but I think that was great. 3 (32m 12s): No, I mean, I, it makes me chuckle thinking about is that we know that, that, that Yelp, that, I mean, he learned there's a limit teachable moment, right. A teachable moment. That was the limit. That's the boundary. And also, I think when we're roughhousing and where we need to, I think with boys, my sons, it was about the spokesman gratification as well. We have tasks to complete. How do we through the tasks? 4 (32m 41s): Yes, I get it. I was bored at school. I didn't like school, the work to have so many more teachers that didn't inspire me, that didn't inspire me, but we have to kind of be responsible to our tasking. And then when it's, when we're done with it or whatever, the time is, one of the goal is all the tasks are, then we can really enjoy ourselves. Well, then we go to a free time rather than here in the way around, which is procrastinate. And I'll have some fun, we'll get to it later, which is kind of why did, when I was going to be excited to have someone around and teach me all of that, I had to learn all of that. Self-taught, you know, as an autodidact. 1 (33m 16s): Okay. So we see the numbers and like the impact that it has to not have a father in the picture. Right. And I don't understand when you see the impact negatively on mental health with these boys that turn into men and the rate of their dropout dropping out of school and drug use homelessness, all of these things go through the roof. If there is one like adjust to I'm a mother in the house, and then you have this industry that is feeding off of this. So it's its purpose is to make sure that this happens. Like, how do you even begin to tackle that? 1 (33m 56s): Like you have quite the undertaking, what you're doing, right? Like, 4 (33m 59s): Yeah, it is. And it isn't undertaken. We, we, we talk about boys, we talk about fathers. We talk about family. So boys, you know, when to, when the testosterone in boys is not a channel, well, they become This it's on present. And the family home to instruct, or is destruct. Testosterone is not channeled. Well, boys, be it. Testosterone is channeled. Well, boys become constructed. They are not that we do. We keep, we are at least in families and men and fathers and families in general and mothers, a better chance at keeping the family unit together world. That's a huge question. I don't know the answer to that. And I probably could put it in some suggestions, but given the time that we have, I, I looked at it and I thought, where is where, where are we going wrong? 4 (34m 45s): And, and I think family law is where we were going wrong. And should the legal system basically is saying that institutionalized as well. Not aside from the, the lack of presumption of it is if, if criminals or the presumption of innocence and more rights than the, when our children get, because it's not just about fathers and mothers and families, but there is no presumption of innocence and there's no shared equal parenting time, et cetera, et cetera. It's our children's basic human rights are being violated, propagating, assistant that breaks up in the family. So I think there's many there's many aspects. And as to this one, I took recently about the great awakening of the 2000 tens. 4 (35m 30s): Oh, she did an age up on reason. An era of cancel culture where victimhood became the new currency in is the economy is booming. I think we also live in a culture where people stand for it. They hate what is it that against what they love and stand for. And I love and stand for family. Fatherhood family units, a man to mothers, brothers, sisters, wide, all of that. I'm not as, like I said, I'm not a men's rights activist. We have a gender equity advocate for family Fatherhood. We meant to, and children and their kids matter. Our children are vital. They don't have rights. They can't defend themselves to protect themselves if they don't have advocates speaking for them and on their behalf. 4 (36m 12s): And the answer is not to smash or the matriarchy or a virtue signal, toxic masculinity. I think it's empowering messages as a ton of masculinity, positive masculinity, not all the men, some men band in some way, vice versa, advocating Fatherhood. It's not about diminishing all of it, but the statistics on man, just, just to share a few with you. When I found these out, I was just blown away because it speaks to how expendable men and fathers in our collective conversation in society, 80% of the day, 3 (36m 45s): A homeless man, a 93% of workplace deaths of men, men kill themselves for a hundred percent more than women. 98% of war for a second fatalities, a man today, one and three American kids live without the biological father in the home. Divorced men killed themselves eight times more than women every day in America and a divorced man killed themselves. And that's not to even talk about the man who were trapped and fathers who are trapped and kids who are women and mothers who are trapped in the, in the purgatory of family law were, there is no escape because of really one main lobbying group. 3 (37m 26s): And that's the attorneys. These are the, these attorneys in family law, who right, the laws and the playbook for family law. And they run the state bar associations. And as I said, it's nearly a $60 billion a year industry. So they are getting rich off over the deaths of, and it's not an overstatement to say they are encouraging. The state in the legal system is kidnapping our children and murdering our families and, and stealing our liberties and our freedoms. And I think that there were a, probably a few root causes that I looked to and that's divorces warm it's suicide is another, and social isolation is another. 3 (38m 8s): So I talk about suicide. Skyrocketing 800,000 people die by suicide every year, 130 sites to suicides every day. That's one person, every 40 seconds. And with the disparity of statistics, if more men that is not to say I devalue, or it's less important that the women are taking their own lives as well. But with those statistics in mind, male, mental health is a real concern and nothing to tell 5 (38m 36s): Is the story of what fathers are facing more starkly than suicides is statistics. And with the social isolation of COVID-19 and damaging really damaging public health messages, corroding our collective wellbeing with social distancing being encouraged, which is, it should be discouraged. It should be encouraging social connectedness and talking about physical distancing. I think families need lifelines and many fathers and children and mothers as well are on life support. So how we talk about that, very those very difficult topics is vital. 2 (39m 15s): So when I first got interested in the space, I saw this like viral video, I'm sure. You know, like Marilyn York, have you heard of that? 5 (39m 25s): Now the link came on the respondent. I think she's episode nine of the response. 2 (39m 28s): Oh, I'll have to check that out. Yeah. I love her. I'm actually trying to get her on the podcast too. And her Ted talk was like shattering, like the, which is what she was talking about. Like how men are treated. I'm the COO like, even down to the line of questioning and the court's Lakeville ask, you know, who is the teacher, all of these things that, you know, the, the mom or the stay at home mom would know, but they're not asking like these deeper questions that are like, well, what's your kid's favorite superhero, right. Things that actually show that you do know and give a shit about your kid. Like the questions that they ask are almost designed to make the dad look like he's absenteeism or a loop or two interested in work. 2 (40m 9s): So that's why they're obviously better with the mom. And then the kids obviously don't get to say, right? Like when my parents were going through a divorce, like no one asked me what arrangement would suit me. I can tell you right now, it's not every other weekend or just the summers like that. Wasn't beneficial for me growing up. Yeah. I just, the whole thing kinda needs to be overturned. And the, you are talking about like a certain law that was like, dad's can get a felony for kidnapping, kidnapping, their kid. And then a mom does it. It's not a felony, but the mom does it. 5 (40m 43s): Okay. Well, first of all, yeah, forgive me. Yeah. Marilyn York was, I reached out to her because when I read about her and find out, found out that she was a, she owns a family law practice in Nevada, which is a wonderful Ted's. And so I think is that a couple of million views. And she switched her a law firm to the employees. It's a female only employed. And she only represents men because she saw the bias in family law. And she saw how men were being treated and fathers were being treated. And I think the one you were referring to was paternal paternity laws. Our ambivalence to the importance of Fatherhood is probably best exemplified by the instruments. Society has put in place to prevent men from taking on their rightful role and participating in Fatherhood in the first place. 5 (41m 32s): And this is a paternity Louis. When you consider the fact that currently it's an accepted fixture of modern Western society in perfectly legal in just about every region in the Western world for a mother to conceal from a biological father, that he is a father, a tool a mother can give birth without even communicating the thing about it. It goes even further I'm a mother can knowingly or mistakenly drop another man's name onto the birth certificate. And even after I, if after a few years of a bit, a paternity test, scientifically overturns and the mistake of a lie, the biological father can't reverse this manufactured reality and gain his rightful status as the true father. 5 (42m 12s): He has no right to see a photo of his child ever. And a child grows up not knowing our biological father. That to me, when I found that out, when Marilyn and I talked about that was it, it just threw me. It's like, it's basically that's kidnapping. If we we're pushing for a quality and we want true equality and I'm about equity or equality of opportunity, equity or equality of outcome. And there is a difference we have to, we have to be consistent. And, and of course there are exceptions to this, but you know, this, this reality of have of how the legal system favors babies, the matriarch over the patriarch, even in paternity laws is, is astonishing. 5 (43m 7s): And for me, it's vital that we at least begin to have this conversation and talk more about it. And, you know, sometimes in some sense, you talked about your situation, but no one asked you, well, sometimes, sometimes we, we do need to talk to our children. DePaul's, aren't equipped to really, to really extract a very cold. And the court's the course of that is to basically rule on law. And I think we have to find ways to keep parents out of court, out of the system of law, particularly given that it's a system that doesn't have a presumption of innocence or how we do that when the mediation, you know, the mediation industry in family law is corrupt as well. 5 (43m 53s): They're all the attorneys and judges and retired judges, and it's just a cash cow. And we're putting money over the kids and that's despicable and deplorable. And, you know, we really need to call it out. We need to call out when people are making great decisions, but we also need to call out when we call out the system that puts money over families wellbeing, and particularly children's basic human rights to have access to both parents. But sometimes kids don't know the young cause sometimes kids don't know what's best for them. That frankly, it's the parents who should know what's special, not one parent. 5 (44m 36s): And then we disregard the other, both parts and how we find ways and models to help parents stay out of courts, stay out of corrupt, a mediation, a win. It is corrupt for as much of it as, and it's a money-making and find more cost-effective ways to, to attend to people's interpersonal relating skills when it gets to crisis point and, and maybe offer ways that that can either help people tend so that we stay together or break up to a less, less a catastrophic plea, keep the money and keep the money in the estate of the family. What little, or what large amount there is to put it into the hands of the attorneys who, who are really, frankly, just propagating the system incentivized to make money out of the kids and, and people's tragedy and crisis and trauma. 2 (45m 31s): So in California, if you, if you seek, seek out a divorce, can you just get like, what's the process? Can you just get divorced? 5 (45m 41s): Well, I think that if two people want to check out people of color, I had to go, let's get divorced, let's get divorced. Yeah, sure. You can, you can decide to end your union, but ultimately you're, you CA here's the thing that was the paradoxical legally. You can't go to one law firm and you have to have a separate attorney. Ooh. I wonder why that is because there's a zero sum game involved and immediately right away, you have to legal buffers and two retainers and they're pitting people against each other. So yeah, I think that anyone can, anyone can end a union and find a way to stay out of the legal system, but at some point that it has to be a legal, a paper that says your divorce. 5 (46m 26s): So you are going to have to speak to someone who is skilled in divorce and disillusionment of divorce. And in California, it's just, it's, it's such a, it's such a cash cow industry. Okay. 2 (46m 41s): Yeah. That's where my parents got their divorce. And I feel like it was pretty fast that I was so young, I don't know, in North Carolina, which is where I'm at. Now, once you file for separation, you have to wait 12 months before you can actually be divorced. And I think, and I could be wrong, but I think the reason is because they are trying to fix the marriage. They want you to put in the effort before you're like, we're just done. Like they want it to be a little bit more difficult, which I think can be a very good thing, assuming that there's no like violence or anything crazy like that happening. But I was curious if it was a lot faster in other more like liberal States. Cause I feel like it is. 5 (47m 23s): Yeah, but maybe it is in my experience. It isn't. And I admire the fact that, you know, lets have a cooling off period, but ultimately what about people who just want to be done and get on with our lives? You can bifurcate your possessions and you can do the legal, the legal documents later. But I think we have to come up with better solutions in terms of how, what models are we using and how are we going to help people in the intermediate M to keep them out of core, to keep them out of arbitration and mediation and in the system of corruption, that's just a money-making machine and say, look, you know, there's people like Stan posturing as to how has the beyond win-win model of mediation that he, I think he was a mediator who was in the system. 5 (48m 4s): And so that it was all just to, you know, retired attorneys or a retired judges. And he was that kind of a retirement fund is money off keeping Chatting people with a mediation and sharing people within the legal system and throwing them back in one to one compartment to the next. So there are people out there who have been working at this and I'm, I'm trying to bring together a kind of coalition and the movement of people with a view to eventually getting policy change. And we really, for me, the biggest, the biggest, there is so many issues to tackle, you know, parental alienation, 50, 50 shared parenting, which we can talk about why that hasn't been pushed through is astonishing. 5 (48m 47s): But ultimately the top tier is the presumption of innocence. We don't have a presumption of innocence in family. Law is, is stunning to me. And the equal shared parenting. You know, there was this being moved for the last 20, 20 plus years. I've found out to get a default shared parenting that says it starts from, it's a starting point that says 50 50. So if there's any disagreement, there is no mudslinging, which is just, it's 50 50, and that's honoring the basics and the children's human rights. And if one parent wants to have more parenting time, the mayor will feel like the other parent doesn't deserve as much as them. 5 (49m 28s): They have to make the argument in court. A judge will listen and you know, there'll be afforded more parenting time, but we all have that. 2 (49m 37s): Okay. So why is that? Why is that not the standard? Like how did we get to a place where, because I know initially it was, the mom always gets the kid, like that was just expected and decided. So like where did that come from and how can we have it evolved to more modern times where both parents need to be present? 5 (49m 56s): Yeah, I think in, in 90, what was in 19, 1960 8% of children lived in a home with only that biological mother. And now today more than 20 of them were the only that bothers him now more than only 20, that more than 23% we do. So the, the no fault divorce laws that came in in the seventies that has a lot to do with it, but it was well-intentioned. But as is usually the case, the legal system needs, we have formation or it needs a little bit of tending to, and it needs to evolve and be improved. And, and there are, there are aspects to this system that are just so corrupt. 5 (50m 42s): I mean, my book, which has coming out later this year, the respondent, I, you know, I expose the cartel of family law. I call it the family law war because it is a war of families, family law, and the family system. When, when people get divorced, the kids, you know, it's true families from the mother and father who came together. And if there is disillusion on an alienation or a ratio of a parent, then that parents, entire family of origin can be alienated to what is oftentimes, you know, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and that is extremely painful and which is compounding the trauma. But when I looked at the default shared parenting, I'm the 50, 50% a presumption of baseline for shared parenting. 5 (51m 30s): It's been tried in multiple States. And M the only state that I am aware of that it's passed in is Kentucky. And that was passed that because it's apparently illegal for divorce, lawyer lobby, or a lobby groups have family law attorneys to lobby a state legislators. So they weren't able to buy off keeping the status quo as it is. And the, the horrific situations going on for families everywhere else. I mean, Arizona, they pass something that I think a couple of years ago in their legislature, but that said, I think the wording was maximum so in time, and it didn't take long before the attorneys worked their way around how to get round the, what does the maximum even mean? 5 (52m 18s): The maximum could mean a second. If we're dealing in milliseconds or it could mean 10 years of we're dealing with a decade. So how are we, how we bring this to the, the subjects delight and the media, but also how the laws are worded, how the bills are worded and the specific legal ease that she is so vital. 'cause we can face this. We can, now we can come together. I don't, I think this is a universal issue. I haven't heard someone put in an argument yet, but I go, Oh my God. Yes, you're right. This, that's why we shouldn't do this every conceivable way. I was speaking with someone who's been working in this field for the last 30 years, the other day, and talking about philanthropy and giving to good causes. 5 (53m 2s): And he said, forget about children's hospitals, forget about cancer charities, forget about breast cancer, to get all of our, all of that. Everything has to go in to fixing family law, because if we fix that, then the residual effect of psychological and physical wellbeing will be just exponentially improved on so many and financially the healthcare system, the insurance, I mean, it just goes on. So 2 (53m 31s): I don't think that's a crazy statement. So you mentioned, and you've mentioned this in other podcasts, the body keeps score, which I've read a while ago. And I'm like, I thought it was really cool that you love that book, but for people that haven't read it essentially it's like these stressors and these traumas can actually show up as like physical health ailments. Right. And even, I can't remember if it was that book or another one, but even like through your lineage. Right. So like through epigenetics, so traumas that your mother has gone through also have an impact on you and your physical being. And I know some people have said that, I think that this sounds woo. There's a lot of like serious science behind it. 2 (54m 11s): So I think it makes a lot of sense. We will like mysticism or like, I like to spiritual or magical. Yeah. Like not, not scientific-based, but there are actually is a lot of science going behind this. So if you alleviate this massive stressor of these parents, essentially, like you said, going to war, that's going to have a huge ripple effect even down the line. So I think that's really cool. I don't know if anyone's ever made that connection. 5 (54m 40s): Okay. Well, you just did that. And I appreciate that because the woo or the right brain is I call it the mistake is that, like, I remember seeing serene, McGilchrist gave this talk about the left brain hemisphere and the right brain hemisphere on that impacted me having, having done some work specifically in areas of learning about shame and vulnerability and intimacy and dependency and love and interpersonal relating and all of those. And in psychology and neuroscience and aspect theory and his speech, his talk really resonated with me because he talks about in a way, how an Esther Parell as well talks about the left and right brain. 5 (55m 26s): He talks about the left brain being quickly closes down to a certainty. So the left brain is not routinizing part of our mind that it's the knowing, thinking mind, the cognitive space that wants consistency and continually, and consistently closing down to two sentences. And then we talked about in the right brain, all the body brain is like all it and the right brain hemisphere, which he's, he's kind of one of those rebel Maverick. I'm a scientist who studied this for years and was kind of cast out from the psychological community because his ideas were seem to be crazy and nuts and against the norm. And I love people like that. And he talks about how the right brain opens up to possibilities and it's analogous and it wants adventure and desire. 5 (56m 13s): And I think that speaks to how the right brain, the body brain tends to the entire organism. And it's not the thinking brain because too many times we think we are trying to, we try and, Oh, I have a, of situations and problems and, and we can close down to certainties continually, but how do we keep this body brain that tends to the organism? How do we pay attention to what the body's trying to tell us with the felt sense is in Selma significance and moving meditation, all of those things that I, you know, the woo woo stuff, a dual and love and are so important, arguably not just as important, more important, because that will help us self-regulate wellbeing internally. 5 (57m 1s): And we have tools that are out at our disposal that don't require them, is spending money to help regulate our wellness or our mind wellness. We talk about mindfulness. Sometimes I don't, I don't align with that feeling the mind is with what, what are we feeling the mind with the mind want to be well in the mind? So, yeah, I mean, I, I haven't talked much about the woo it through my work, but, but that's certainly just as important, if not more important is understanding one's own body, one's own behavior patterns on his own character traits, how one moves through the world and better extends presence. 5 (57m 43s): Cause that's really what we're all trying to do is follow the extent of our presence. 2 (57m 47s): Yeah. And I think if you spend a lot of time in that area, it's going to be a lot more difficult to get. So like vindictive and maniacal, when you're in these transactions, like if you're in the middle of a divorce, if you've put in that work to yourself and you find yourself, like, whether it's like spiritually or you just have a meditation practice, you just like have this sense of like being that's more than it's going to be a lot harder to reside in that place of like anger. So I think that's where a lot of it goes wrong, right? It's like someone did something wrong and now it's like me versus him. And there's only one Viktor in this. And no one is thinking about the kids. 2 (58m 28s): It's just like the two parents going at it. And then you have the people in the crowd, like the stands, which are your attorney's that are just like egging both parties on. So it's like, you have to kind of be predispositioned to not react. So like with your emotions in a negative way so that you can just kind of accept what is near new situation and AMEC, lib amical Billy divorce, if that's even possible. I know some people have had good divorces, but more often than not, you hear these horror stories. So it's like, how do you, how do you get to a place where your sound enough that if this does happen? 2 (59m 12s): Cause right now I think the divorce rate is like 50%, right? It's pretty high. 5 (59m 16s): That side of that. Yeah. And the astonishing, and I think it is possible to do and amicably, but it's rare. And it's exceedingly rare. I would say impossible to do within the system, but at least costing have a lot of money. His, one of the areas that I've been looking at as false allegations of domestic violence, and I think it's upwards of 82% of allegation of domestic abuse and domestic violence allegations are false. Wow. Think about that. If you actually sit and think about that, and then you think about the device that our society has to actually immediately tend to that if law enforcement is detached, I'm sorry, dispatched to a situation, a call of domestic violence. 5 (1h 0m 5s): One does want to have those police officers do in that particular situation. They can't arrest anyone unless they have evidence of a crime. You know, this is the presumption of innocence so they can detain someone. Usually it's the, the father, the role of a man who's detained and removed from the family home. Then what I call the silver bullet of family law is used, which is the restraining or the TRO or the DVRO or the EPO, the temporary restraining order, emergency protection order, and a P upwards of 80% have this is based on a false allegation. So we have weaponized, we have a weaponized women to be able to completely ruin man, in those particular situations, using the word enforcement, using the system, that's now psychologically conditioned in many regards to believe that all men are bad and fathers, a bad dad, beat dads rather than dead broke that. 5 (1h 1m 3s): So that's a whole of the subject. And of course, we're not going to talk about it. Even me saying it now with you, I can just hear people say, you know, women in danger need to be protected. It is wrong, but the people, the women and the people and men sometimes, but we might be mainly women. The mother is a women who are, who are calling in false allegations of domestic violence are on a front to the real victims of domestic violence. And that's a parent it's disgusting. And I don't, I don't know any other way to put it. I don't like to be kind of a hyperbolic with my restaurant, but it's despicable that the people that, that amount of people and you see when, when, when we then find that we look at the two main lobbying groups who don't want any of the laws to change the family in order, of course we don't understand that the divorce lobby, a divorce lawyer, industry lobbying is, is one. 5 (1h 2m 2s): And we get why, because it's a huge money making industry, but the other one is domestic violence support groups for women. 6 (1h 2m 9s): But you get a major amounts of funding, millions and millions of dollars. 5 (1h 2m 14s): I have dollars for ramping up the statistics that all men of violence, and they focus on the worst case scenario as, and there are a violent men out that there are some horrible are horrific situations, but they want the status quo rather than the low to change, to afford a more equitable playing field to allow our children, boys, and girls, to have fathers in our lives. And that's a really tragic that we have people like that. Fine back to the point that we talked about originally, I think that was This rabid strain of not true equality feminism, but radical third or fourth wave feminists. Maybe we want to call it that who really just hype men and don't don't want women to be mothers, maybe take on a value. 5 (1h 3m 3s): I'm the matriarch. Maybe they see all women going out into the workspace and being successful in credentialing. And, and I think there is a tremendous value and there are some amazing women I know who are mothers who work tirelessly at home at making sense of homes and making them run like clockwork. And we need to value that a little bit more. I think, 2 (1h 3m 28s): I think so too. It's almost nowadays, it's almost shameful. Shameful. If you say that you're a stay at home mom, they are like, Oh, well you just gave up on yourself. And you're like, it couldn't be further from the truth. I mean, I work from home. So I wouldn't say I'm a stay at home mom because I have other businesses, but I had the luxury of being able to do most of my stuff like in the house. And it's hard. Like we S we have helped, we have helped most of the week and it's still really difficult. So to kind of like write these women off and say that they took an easy way out, I think is very misguided. And I think those women that are the radical feminists, and it seems that their agenda is to get more women to say that they're not going to be a mom, or they're not going to get married. 2 (1h 4m 14s): And you know, they're going to live this very ambitious career life. I think there's a lot of fear there, something inside of them, because you wouldn't be so aggressive with it. And you wouldn't be pushing that ideology on to other people. If there is something, if there wasn't something unchecked within yourself, right. Because if you're at peace with your decision, you don't react that way. Like you react that way. If there's something like an undiscovered, if you will, I don't know how to, if I'm wording it. Right. But yeah, I think there's a lot of fear when you see like those very angry feminists. And I think when you tell women that they can't be, or shouldn't be moms and that they shouldn't be wives, this is going to probably get me into trouble. 2 (1h 5m 0s): But I think you are taking away purpose and that you're taking away purpose for women. And like we are biologically wired to, and this is for men, men, and women to want to be married, to want to have like a committed relationship, right? Like, that's, I want like security firm that saber tooth tiger. And this man wants to be able to procreate. Like, it's, it's a mutually beneficial write. And we, as women are nurturing, like we are predispositioned to be the caregivers. And when you start taking these things that for like hundreds of thousands of years, we have been wired to do and saying, not anymore, you lose purpose. 2 (1h 5m 41s): And I think that's why you see so many women that are depressed and, and not happy in these careers that they thought they wanted. Right? Like you see a, who was it? I wanted to say it was a creator of sex in the city. And she threw herself into her work. And she's obviously wildly successful, but she did an article. And I think she is 60. Now seeing that she regrets not having a family. She has all of this wealth, all of this fame. And the one thing that she was told she didn't need is the thing that she now can't have. You can't go back in time, right? Like, we're not that far with science, you can't get pregnant at 60 or at least successfully really. So again, I think is going to piss some people off. 2 (1h 6m 23s): But I do think when you tell people that being a mom is an important, or being a wife, isn't important, you lose purpose. 5 (1h 6m 30s): Yeah. And, and I think, you know, good points, I think, you know, everyone's individual situation is different and yes, there is that kind of archetype or drive and the stereotypical man woman hunter-gatherer, but there are schools that, that do make sense. The, the, the, ah, we do carry with it. And if a woman is, if an individual, a woman wants to work in, dedicate herself to a career and go for it. And if an individual man wants to stay at home and be a stay at home, dad, Greg go for it. What I'm saying is let's not vilify, or let's not forget that. We'll let that one of the greatest, I would say one of the greatest jobs on earth is to be a parent and that's a full-time job. 5 (1h 7m 16s): And when I say that, I mean, even at work, you're not going to not think about the wellbeing with your PA. You have kids. If there's an issue with school, there were a cool comes in. It's going to interrupt the meeting. And the, the Homer, I think of a year in America is called a homemaker, a homemaker wa I mean, that's a bad, that's a meaningful role. If you will, even if you would not allow to call it a job by the speech police these days. And, and, and let's champion the more of that. And if it weren't for those, I mean, when I was, when I was married, my wife, I would say I wanted her to stay at home. I'm honest. 5 (1h 7m 56s): I wanted her to have more quality time with the kids. She wanted to go out and work. And although I didn't want it to grow at work, I supported her in that decision. We have a conversation and I said, you know what? I'm behind you. That's what you want to do. But I wanted to bring each day. I think that family dinner, a family meal time is important as much as possible. She didn't, she wasn't interested in than that. She didn't like coming together for family, or like, I'm like, well, the breaking bread to coming together, at least once a day, we can't do it a breakfast or lunch because of the time commitments his schedule. Let's try it out to dinner. And in England, we have a tradition of Sunday roast and the weather on a Sunday, and we'll have a nice bang up Sunday roast dinner, which is yummy. 5 (1h 8m 41s): And I can still smell my mom's gravy and crispy Rose potatoes right now. But however someone wants to live their life and how the union has made it. A few people decided to move forward. I think it has to be a little flexibility, but you can look back and go, Oh gosh, what was all I remember a study about? They interviewed many very wealthy people at the end of their life. And, you know, to your point about a lady who was a show runner, a creative sex, and this is money. People thought the same. I wish I'd spent more time with my kids. I wish I'd been with my family more. I wish I'd met with my relationships with them, my family and my friends, and really found a way to enjoy well. 5 (1h 9m 24s): I have a, rather than making more of the money and wealth and growing all the rest of that, the portfolio of assets, the something that we all have, we all have an equal value. And that it's the ability to connect a positive and share a little bit of laugh and intimacy. I'm adding a new talk recently about intimacy knowing and being known. How can I be more known by another? And how can I know myself small? And only if I know myself, I think Socrates said, know, thyself, can I stayed by myself to get better known by myself? Can I really be known by another one that speaks to love? 5 (1h 10m 5s): You know, we can be with someone for decades and decades and F and physically close to them. And so emotional, distant, we can feel to that. It can be excruciating the pain for a psychologically speaking. And I'm on a particular when people are carrying trauma. And particularly when our younger generations of kids, you know, and I came on as a bean kids and we still have our kid versions of ourselves, but we remember at times, and you, you, I think a wonderful journey that you're on with a one-year-old to start our amazing journey of being part of the power of one of the hardest parts of probably the primary task of being a parent is to nurture because those kids are dependent on them for their needs, you know, housing, clothing, food, but how we separate and it's as much the separation eventually with our children, how that they can be self fully self-actualized, fully self-reliant individuals who have their own agency and M the bond that one has with our kids will never be broken. 5 (1h 11m 21s): A, the bond with a parent can never be broken. It can be torn somewhat. And I think it begins and ends with how we repair that tack up, up here in the brain of that trauma from my youth. 2 (1h 11m 36s): Oh, man. That was so beautiful. Yeah, that was really great. I think, I think you, you showed the importance when you brought up like your, like, you still can taste your mom's like sweet potato or a crispy potatoes and gravy, like mealtime is so important. And these tiny moments that you dedicate to your family together so important, and you don't know which ones are gonna stick forever as we grow older, right? Like these little parenting moments. And I mean, they're, I still have some with my dad, even though I've spoken to him and, you know, well, over a decade, the divorce thing ended up kind of rippling down to the kids. 2 (1h 12m 21s): And the kids were the ones that have suffered the consequence of that, which I think is, you know, that's pretty normal, unfortunately, but you don't realize how important these little moments are. So I think it's really important to try to strive for balance. I think it's like a stoic quota. That's like you can't balance is always striving for a balance. It's never actually attaining balance. So I think it's important that you don't underestimate the little moments that you have, and that for everyone listening, that you are constantly doing the, the work internally. So when these like big volatile moments do happen in some area of your life, that you can act in a respectful way, in a respectable way and not look back and be like, Ooh, I wish I didn't do that. 2 (1h 13m 10s): I wish that I had handled that with more grace so that we can start treating each other with more love and respect, even when we disagree, even when we're ending a relationship and being able to take the negativity out of it. 5 (1h 13m 30s): Yeah. I think that there's one there's, this is something I like to say, no one is to blame. No one is at fault. I don't want that. Those two words follow the plan. And no one is no one is the fault is everyone's responsibility. And to your point about the gravy and the sense to memory and those, those small pockets of memories are a member of reading, I think, is a play around that. She is a professor of professional mine's is that I think that the university of West and North Dakota, but he talks about an nostalgic sailing and being, being as a human being of undisputed origin, how are nostalgic memories created? So we can sit a sailing is one process involved in Genesis of nostalgia and our remembering, whereas nostalgia refers to an emotional reflection upon past experiences. 5 (1h 14m 19s): Savoring is a process in which individuals deeply attend to and consciously capture a present experience for subsequent reflection, thus having save it and experienced. We may increase the likelihood that it will lay to be reflected upon the stylistically and positively nostalgically. And that fascinates me in terms of when I look at feelings and emotions and memories, I often say no emotions are feelings with memories attached. And by that, I mean, feelings don't come up in the present emotions come up in the present based on feelings outside of conscience consciousness that have emotional, a residue that catches up to us with, with memories from the past. 5 (1h 15m 8s): So moments, scripts, that situation you remembered mine with the gravy, I can think about unwrapping a Christmas gift one year on the sound at the crackling wrapping paper and the excitement and the smell of the guest and in the box. And it immediately transports me back to that time. And that can be incredibly positive and powerful. And it can also be extremely negative if I'm yelled at when I'm eight years old for not time, but knowing how to tie my shoelaces and we're going to be late, we're going to be late. We're going to bed. And then 40, 30, 20 years later, my boss is yelling at me because I haven't got the paperwork in quickly enough and that stuff. 5 (1h 15m 49s): So that feeling with the memory attached to them that seven year old, eight year old time from come up when I'm 38 and the emotions come up in the present based on the feelings attached to the memory from the past. So I'm fascinated by all what you would call and I love the word we will. So I'm just going to get all of that, which is the Mo the mystery of my story, his story, her story, our story, and how we can maybe rewrite some of those worst memories and experiences into, into a positive ones that maybe we can write the less traumatic, less dramatic and less horrific so that we can become better sense makers and a little bit more enlightened as to our personal stories. 5 (1h 16m 42s): Yeah. 2 (1h 16m 43s): Well, I love the work that you're doing. I can't wait for your book to come out. Do you wanna tell the listeners anything that you're working on, how they can follow you, how they can support you in any ventures that are, that are on their way? 5 (1h 16m 56s): Yeah, sure. Thank you. Well, right now, the show, the respondent is a video podcast series, a multimedia conversation of modern masculinity, and that resides on YouTube. And I do a live stream, which go out on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, a real Greg Ellis dot com. It's the colon website where so much of the content. Most of the content is stored. The book we'll be out later this year, probably be in the now we're about to set the exact date, but I'm thinking it's going to be in about four months time, but stay tuned. You can sign up for the notifications about the book on my website, real Greg Ellis dot com, the respondent.com, which is named after the shower and the book that will be going live and two to three weeks time. 5 (1h 17m 45s): And that will be the main repository for all of the information to do with a video podcast to do with the book, the people that are involved in the book of which there are some really amazing people, which I'm super excited about to announce. And yeah, just that will be a place as well. I think a hub for people to come and learn and get more information and get involved in the conversation and discussion. And we, we kind of have a growing movement of people right now. There are people coming on board that have been trying to change this, this policy, this law for a long time. And they've been reaching out as well as of the supporters. So if people want to get involved, they can reach out as well. 5 (1h 18m 29s): The email is hello at monkey toes dot mean, let us know what, what you're particularly interested in helping with and what your skill set might be. And we are very welcome that we would love to hear from people. So, yeah, that's really, it really just ramping up to get the book out, to get more shows out and keep connecting with marvelous people like yourself. Canvas. 2 (1h 18m 55s): Awesome. Thank you so much. Good luck with everything. We have some exciting stuff on the way. 5 (1h 19m 0s): Thank you very much. I wish them all the best as well. It's been a pleasure talking with you and being on your show. 2 (1h 19m 8s): That's it for this week's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. If you have the time, please rate and review, and you can always hit subscribe to stay up to date with our latest episodes. I hope to have you back.