BraveMen S3E57: THE BOY CRISIS with Dr. Warren Farrell - Solving the World’s Largest Catastrophe

When I first got the book, The Boy Crisis, and began to read it, I thought, my goodness, this thing is stunning. It was packed with information, revelation about raising boys, what was done wrong in the United States in particular. And then he warned Pharaoh, the author, began to apply it to every developed country around the world. And so I want you to meet him. Dr. Warren Farrell is chosen by the Financial Times as one of the world's top 100 thought leaders. With me today, I'm Brave Men, this is our co-host for this season, Chris Shields. And Chris, we have over since that book came out, and we got a hold of him to do this. And now we did some video projects with him and talking about doing some other things. He's become a friend. He's an amazing guy. And he's amazing. He's one of the sweetest guys ever. Super nice. Yeah, what do you need? Yeah, I know. And he's been on over a thousand television programs. Yes. You know, he's been on stuff you've never heard of. Like Phil Donahue, you ever heard of him? Nope. Okay, there you go. That's why you're around because of the younger Larry King, you ever heard him? I have heard him. Because Jim Garland was on that. Okay, because Jim Garland was on that. And then Charlie Rose, Barbara Walters, Oprah, you heard of Oprah. I have. Okay, there you go. Too much. Good. Yeah, too much. But Warren Farrell has been on all those programs because he is considered. And in fact, I think it was GQ that said about him. Let me look at it here. It said he's the Martin Luther King and the Men's Movement. Wow. Yeah, it's pretty strong. Yes. And so now, here's what's fascinating about that. And this is always my filter with Warren is that he was also elected three times onto the board of the national organization for women. Okay. Back in the late 60s and 70s in New York, he was a pioneer in the women's movement. And in some ways rightly so. And we agreed on that. As we've talked, he was Bella Abzug. You guys would remember her, Bella Abzug's special assistant on politics and elections. Did a lot of those things. But did all this research? He began to discover. Wait a second. It's good that women have, you know, the freedom that they have and rights and respect. And opportunity, all of those things, we agree on. He said, but what was happening is it went to the side where they were in a meeting. You know, W never talking about when there's a divorce. Yeah. Only the woman should get the kids. Wow. Only the woman. And he says, wait a minute. My research shows and they basically told him over a couple of meetings, hey, stuff your research. Wow. We don't care. We don't care what the research says about how much healthier people are or boys or girls are with dads. You know, we're just about this. And in fact, he told me he said it cost him when he decided he was going to stick up for what does it mean to have a dad. Wow. And a father. So, you know, when we listen to this interview coming up, Chris, this is not just, you know, like you said, he's a great guy. He's easy to work with. He's extremely brilliant. So I always careful about asking questions. Yeah. He was really nice. So he never said, yeah, I wouldn't ask that question. He's really nailed it. But, you know, because I'm wanting to know more about this. And he said some things on some of our video projects that we're working on now that are just remarkable. Yeah. But I am thrilled today to have the author of the Boy Crisis. He's written a number of other books. He wrote, why Chris is the way he is. What? Yeah. No, it was actually called, why men are the way they are. Well. And which is a big time New York Times bestseller. But it makes me, everything that you've been touching on makes me think of a quote that you say. You know, when we reach a man for Christ, we touch the nation. And, you know, the biggest thing is we have to ask ourselves in the turmoil that we're in as a nation right now. Are we willing to dedicate ourselves to transforming the lives of men? Because if we transform the lives of men, like you said, we'll transform the nation. So it's like, I'm sitting here as a 26 year old millennial and I'm looking at backwards. Like, okay, who's coming after me? And what kind of world do I want to leave for them? And it takes the choices that we make now to determine what that is the life of for tomorrow. And even like when I walked into your house the other day and I saw your grandchildren, it's like, okay, who's going to lead them? You know, and it's the generation that's coming that is going to lead them. Yeah, that's why I'm so thankful for Warren Farrell. And I want you to hear this and is you're listening to this wherever you are jogging in your car, wherever you may be listening to this. If it's possible, re-listen to it, take some notes. Yeah. And then get the book, The Boy Crisis, Warren Farrell, two Rs and two Rs. Actually, he said Warren Farrell with two Rs. I said, actually, before Rs. That's the only time I was older than him because Warren has two Rs. It's the only time in the entire interview where I felt like, bam. Got that one. Got you. But the fact is, man, you know, the beauty of his, you know, we talk about his brilliance and all that. Yeah. But it is so tempered with compassion. Yeah. I think that's the thing that is striking about Warren Farrell. Yeah. And it's genuine because you can tell when somebody is, you know, faking compassion. It's like, I love you, bro. Yeah. Okay. I didn't feel anything when you said that. And then you can, like, no, what do you really need? You know, he cares about the next generation. Yeah. He's given his life to helping dads with better dads, helping children have fathers that stick and love them. Yeah. This is an incredible interview and I can't wait for you to meet Warren Farrell today on Brave Men. It's Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole, wisdom and courage for the journey. I'm talking about Dr. Warren Farrell, who has written a book that I believe is going to change people's lives for years to come. I really mean that, Dr. Farrell. It's not often you can say that about somebody's work. But Dr. Farrell has been an author. He wrote a book, Why Men Are the Way They Are. And I love your bio page on your website. It says, Why Warren is the way he is? That's right. The answer to that question. Yeah. Right. I thought that'd be maybe where your wife and kids and grandkids could fill it in. Yes. Exactly. But you wrote a book, the one I'm talking about. And I just want to tell people right now is F-A-R-R-E-L-L, Warren Farrell, the boy crisis. And you also did TED talks. They're on YouTube. So I'm just telling people right now, guys, you need to get ahold of the book. You need to grab it, read it, mark it up. Don't just get the electronic by the by the actual paper one. So you can mark it up and use it. What precipitated the boy crisis in your life? Where did that book come from, Warren? It really, I've been speaking on male female issues since the, let's see, you know, late 60s, 1960s. And the, I was on the board of directors in the national organization for women in New York City and spoke all around the world on women's issues from pretty much women's perspective. And yet I began to, as some of my books got translated in other languages and I was, as I was in Japan or some other place. I remember a Japanese teacher coming up to me and she said, you know, we, we're having more trouble with our boys in our class than we are with our girls. And then I go to Australia and different places around the world and they say a lot of the same thing. And so I'm thinking, what's this about? And so I started looking into this and seeing that in all 56 of the largest developed nations, boys were having significant problems that is they were falling behind girls on every academic subject. But especially on reading and writing, which of course are the two biggest predictors of success or failure. And so I was starting to, I started looking into what's that about. And I started to see that the developed nations have something in common being developed. They have a little bit more ability in the middle and upper middle class to be survival, being able to take care of survival to a greater degree that we have historically. And so once there was survival was taking care of the government and the societal permission was greater for being able to get divorces, which were basically be ostracized for that, you know, a few, you know, 50 years ago. And then the other permission that was granted was for children, well often children, women who to have children without being married. So, and then I started looking into those two groups of people and seeing that in among those who got divorced, a very high percentage of them were the father was not involved with the children to a great degree after divorce. And that particular demographic was having problems at first I saw on five or six different areas. But as I began to do the research for the boy crisis, I saw that there were the boys in particular were having problems in more than 50 areas of development, including depression, suicide, drugs, addiction to video games, addiction to porn. You know, death from opioid, every character development area, the girls were also having problems that is what I call the dad deprived. Dad deprived boys and girls were both having problems, the girls were also having problems in almost all of those 50 areas, but their problems were less intense, less likelihood of committing suicide, less likelihood of being addicted to drugs or alcohol, less likelihood of, you know, doing a mass shooting. So, they didn't act out the same out of the out of the pain or dysfunction. Yes, and they still did have a lot of the problems they were not nearly as likely to succeed. They were more likely to be depressed. They were more likely to commit suicide, but the suicide level, you know, boys and girls is very different in the early 20s. It's about five times for boys for each one time that it is for girls. And so I started to say, all right, you know, what two things happened for me, which was to say, why is dad so important? Many of the women, the women I knew were often used the word overwhelm. They were just working morning, noon at night to oftentimes produce money at a job and then produce money taking children care of children by themselves. And I realized here we have this women who are overwhelmed by not having the involvement of dad. Dads who felt they were without purpose and unneeded and were often depressed and sometimes suicidal as a result of not being connected to the family. And if they earned money, they didn't have the purpose of having that love connection with the children after they are in money. So they were suffering and the children were suffering. So no one won in this situation. The mothers didn't win. The dads didn't win and the children really lost. And so I started to question that and I had developed when I did the proposal, I submitted the proposal for the boy crisis to my publisher. I outlined 10 causes of the boy crisis. Now all of those causes are included in the boy crisis, but increasingly that the causes that were not dad deprivation were secondary causes. So for example, if a boy goes from mother only home to a female only teaching school, the chances of them doing very badly are really significant. But on the other hand, if he goes from a mother only, if he has mother and father at home and there's almost all female teachers at school, that doesn't have a huge impact on it. So one cause of the boy crisis is not having male teachers, but if there's a mother and father at home, that cause had very minimal impact. So fatherlessness or dad deprivation, as you said, Dr. Farrell, is a huge key in our societal functioning. Exactly. We have huge amount of resources put onto solving mental health problems. Mental health problems are very rarely likely to occur. And single and married families were both the mother and father are significantly involved with the children, even if the dad is experiencing what I call the father's catch 22, which is learning to love his family by being away from the love of his family, which is not satisfied. Even the children or to him and using the mother either, nevertheless, the stability and the guidance that he provides and the types of tensions that he creates positive tensions, end up leading to the children doing reasonably well, not as well as as children do when they have an active amount of father involvement. The boy crisis is what we're talking about and talking about Dr. Warren Farrell. It really is such a powerful work. And in the middle of the book, right smack in the middle, you hit this thing about grandfathers and biological dads and and how important that is. And if you know, essentially what all this research shows is that fathers are extremely important. And but I think that, you know, it seems to me, Dr. Farrell, that just my observation and work, it seems like we kind of minimize that and we, we somewhat were have been blind to the fact that there's a boy crisis. We really have and there's a reason for that. That historically speaking, what we cared about was boys, every generation had its war. And in each generation's war, we said to the boys, you will be our hero. If you will be willing to be to fight in this war and look at your uncle there on the on the on the on the mantle. And he fought as a Marine and World War II. We are really proud of him and he lost his life and you know, we pray for his memory and so on. And so the boy starts learning. He's experiencing what I call a social bribe, a social bribe to be to be disposable. And if he saves the country, if he saves protects the family, but he is being bribe to die. So others will live. Well, if you're, if you have a son and you're and you know that you will potentially go to war and potentially die, it's harder to attach to him emotionally. And it's just somebody that's going to let you know you're going to be having around longer. You have to sort of figure out a way of both being proud of him if he does survive the war, but also being being willing to let go of him if he doesn't. And so there's there's many, many. So if our survival is dependent upon the disposability of males, it's very much more challenging to think of males as being able to be someone we just want to cherish forever. In addition to which in order to be just be willing to be disposable for the boy to prepare himself that way to be disposable, he's got a disconnect from his feelings. He's got if he's a boot camp and he's let's say he's Jewish and and somebody is making anti-Semitic comments and he says, well, that's very anti-Semitic. He's going to be told to do 50 new push-ups. He's going to be told that he's he's going to be laughed at by the other guys. And what he learns to do is to disconnect from who he is as a human being and connect only to what he can do. In other words, to focus on becoming a human doing, becoming a sergeant or a colonel or some other position where he can do more. So these are things that have led us to caring about men when they take responsibility for saving our lives, but not caring about men as human beings. So we've been much more conscious of protecting and caring for and nurturing our daughters in the last half century than we have our sons. So is that a deficit in purpose? Well, that's very good. What happens here now is you may be even listening to this and saying, well, not as many men are needed for a war now as they used to be. You know, you'd be 100% right. And the good news is that fewer men are dying in war and fewer men are dying in workplace deaths than they used to, although the workplace deaths are still very significant. But the challenge there is the good news is their boys and men are surviving. The bad news is that boys, this used to be boys and men sense of purpose. And with your men having the sense of purpose, boys are experiencing a purpose void. And here is where dads come in to be so important. When boys are being brought up by moms alone, moms are usually very good at nurturing the boys saying, oh, sweetie, you know, you're really good at singing. You know, you could be a real singer. You could, you know, you remember those lines so well and you act so well or you're, you know, you're good at basketball, you're good at this or that. And encouraging noticing the boys dreams mom to go that and also encouraging the boys dreams. The problem is that the that when the boy pursues his or her dreams, moms tend not to be as focused on boundary enforcement. And therefore they don't require the boy or the girl to have the postpone gratification that creates the discipline, excuse me, to be able to fulfill their dreams. And so when a boy tries his dreams over and over again and continues to fail because he doesn't have the discipline to succeed, because he doesn't have a data around saying with more of a tough love orientation and saying, I'm sorry, you know, if you don't complete this, you won't get that. And then and then following through in that, the boy tends to fail to skirt be discouraged about pursuing dreams in the future. You know, it, you know, I'm talking with Dr. Warren Farrell financial times called you one of the 100 top thought leaders in the world, I've got a mentor who actually lives out there in that area in Santa Rosa. Dr. Dennis and he his mantra for us is ideas have consequences. And I again, the boy crisis is the name of the book, but you didn't start by writing things like the boy crisis and about purpose of men. And in fact, coming out of UCLA and NYU, you got very involved in women's equality. You ended up in the board of national organization for women, is that right? Yes, my, yes, my background was for a number of years in the late 60s, early 70s, I was deeply interested in the women's movement and by focus on that and was on the board of directors of the national organization for women in New York City. And then I used to speak all around the world on behalf of women's issues. And I still care a great deal about exactly the best part of the women's movement, the best part of the women's movement was opening up options for our daughters. And I think we all, you know, recognize that the bright young women among us, we want them to have options to be whoever they want to be. And the fact that they were restricted from that is something that didn't maximize what God intended for our daughters or for ourselves. And so there was an enormous potential out there that wasn't being fulfilled. Conversely, there was also an enormous potential for boys to be nurturing, loving boys. And that potential is greater now than there ever has been in the past. But we have not expanded the possibility of a boy that is more oriented toward family and toward fathers. We have not honored him by being saying that well, you can be a full-time father or you can be significantly more involved with your children than you are. Or do you know that once you get to about $70,000 a year depending on where in the country you live, the amount of money you make after that is not nearly as significant for your child's development and happiness as the amount of time you spend with your child that basically is more important than dad's time. Wow, that's so strong. Now, your bio says, talked about this period in your life and it says not your bio, but it's what Wikipedia whoever did that for you says it says during your feminist period. As if that was a season. I remember it seems to me it was right at the turn of the century, right around a year 2000 Camille Paglia wrote a New York Times op-ed. It was essentially titled, where are all the men? It seemed to me like the feminist or season or movement, it's kind of like the unions, you know, around the 1900s did so many good things for workers, safety and so forth. It seems like the feminist movement somewhat went beyond perhaps what the initial ideas were. And it became a women's movement to the deprivation of men. And then she wrote this article, hey, where are all the men go? Well, when I first, the first book I wrote that was really questioning this and that was part of my transition was the book of why men are the way they are. But you know, we've focused for at that point in time that was 1986, you know, we've focused a great deal on the women's movement. And then I and Betty for Dan Betty for Dan wrote a book called The Second Stage, which almost no one knows about. And the second stage was Betty's for Dan's accurate vision, I believe, saying that the women's movement is only going to be so successful. It's going to be plateaued and limited in its success. If we don't only just encourage women to share men's roles when they want to, but also encourage young men to become fathers and share in the mother's role. So not everyone is intended for many, many men are sort of very traditional type of men. And they should be honored for doing things that are traditional and many women are traditional type of women. And they should be honored that way. But we, anyone that's been up, any of us that have been a parent know that every child in a short period of time, you see some core dimension of their personality. And it's, you know, in the old days, we couldn't, we couldn't afford to nurture that uniqueness of in personality. My father, when I he turned out when I was in high school, I started writing my first book. And my father said, you, you be aware, Warren, I see that you're a good writer. You know, only about one and a hundred writers find a publisher. And if you can't find a publisher, you'll never find a wife. And we, and so I started reading to disprove my father, of course. And so I started looking at Zelda Fitzgerald, who said exactly that to her. So X got Fitzgerald, you know, I love you. I love you passionately. But I will not marry you until you have your first bestseller. And so this, and then when I started writing on psychology and so on, my father would say, you know, psychology teaches people to do what they want to do. People have to learn to do what they need to do with the obligations and responsibilities. That's the core to, to being a successful parent, not, not what do I want to do. So I dad had a lot of, a lot of wisdom, even though he didn't realize, as I said to my dad, that your, your great generation has freed us to be able to make more flexible decisions than anyone in history has ever been free to do before. The challenge is making those decisions responsibly and not just focusing on our own freedom. So when I first began to discover what I was in the board of now, that the, I started seeing in the mid 70s that there were increasing numbers of divorces. And when I started to study those divorces and the children of those divorces, I said something that changed my life, which is I said to the board members of now. I said, I am noticing that the children of divorce who do not have a lot of father involvement are having a lot more problems than those that do. And I met, I was met with total silence and I'll never forget this moment. And finally someone spoke up and said, you know, Warren, are you suggesting that we shouldn't be allowing moms to be able to make the decision as to whether they want the father involved or not. And are you suggesting that we shouldn't be just very open about encouraging women to be single mothers if they don't want to be tied down to marrying a particular man that they don't love that much. And I said, we, a woman, I will always support a woman's free choice. But when a woman makes a free choice to raise a child, it's like me making a free choice to take a job. When I take that job, I commit myself to certain lack of freedoms in exchange for what that job brings. And when you have a child, you commit yourself to not freedom to just make every decision you want, but to putting everything through the funnel of your children's self interest. Exactly. There was such tension at that moment on the board. And because a lot of women agreed with that, but they also felt that politically speaking, they would lose now members, and they had a lot of fights, political fights to deal with. And so not just custody issues. And so I was basically told, well, you admitted to us more and that your research is only in its first stages. It hasn't been longitudinal because divorces haven't been around in huge numbers for a long period of time. So why don't you go out and see what else you find as years pass. And so I did that. But I knew that as I found more and more that you need their dads and discovered why discovering what dads do that is different from what moms do. That's when I started going from 50 speaking engagements a year sponsored by the feminist community down to zero. A very big impact on my income, let us say. You know, but here's the thing, this is exactly, we're talking about the book, the boy crisis, you've written a number of other books, why man the way they are the myth of male power and so forth, but you know, the boy crisis for me, the summation, you know, just to me, the bottom line is boys need dads. What you did is rather than my background being more of a church background, some of a pastor, it would kind of be a man and a pulpit stands up and makes this declaration. You know, Jesus told us to pray our father, which, which I think is highly significant because we don't think in words we think in images. So God gave us an image of the way we were to pray that portrayed him as someone who gives us identity or center discipline security, the things of father provides. But, but what you did is you did eight, how many years did it take to do the research, let me just read one thing and you can answer that this is because I've got so many black American friends. And I know this is being listened to all over the world, I think it's the same thing, but one of the things you wrote or reported on in your research was in a majority black community, the main predictor of growing up poor was not race, but being born to parents who are not married. And over the predictor of growing up in poverty, in other words, fatherlessness is a leading indicator of poverty in every culture of the world. And what you said was that the greatest indicator was not growing up in a bad space, it was growing up in a bad environment in terms of not having a dad, not having a marriage around it. You're absolutely right. And I want to make sure that I'm not credited with this, but this was the original finding on this was Patrick Moynihan studying and report called the Moynihan report in 1965, but here's the amazing information. So in 1965, Patrick Moynihan, who was a sociologist at a US Senator and Department of Labor Chair under both Republican and Democratic administrations, he finds that you know, and people are afraid that when he investigates the inner cities and why there's so much crime there that he's going to come out with this, you know, this racist, you know, this phenomenon that would be blaming the African American community. But he sees that yes, it's true that in the African American community is more crimes, but it's only in that 25% of the African American community, where there's a, where there's dad deprivation, where the father, children don't know their father, they have minimal contact with their father. And the other 75% is a much different perspective on that. However, today, it is now more than set about 74 75% of the African American community are the children grow up in Fathola's homes in the Caucasian community. It is now 35% that is higher than it used to be in the African American community of 25% it used to be when when a handed a study, it was only 3% a little bit over 3% of children of Caucasian homes grew up in Fathola's homes or minimal amount of father involvement. So, you know, the amount of increase of father involvement has been a 12 fold increase of dad deprivation, I said father involvement, but I should have said the amount of increase of dad deprived children in the Caucasian community is 12 of 12 times higher than it used to be in the, in the African American community, it's three times higher. And what I discovered was that was where our children were having the problems academically, socially, empathy wise, and you know, it's really weird to think of empathy as something that is increases the degree to which father involvement increases because you usually think of empathy is being connected to a mom and empathy often is connected to a mom. But it's connected to children that have a lot of focus on their feelings are often children that learn to focus on their feelings and not anybody else's feelings but theirs and therefore they don't tend to be as empathetic ironically. And so I that began my studies of what do dads and moms do differently that leads to children that have both dads and moms being so much more happy, successful and and adjusted in life. You also mentioned something we with our ministry Christian men's network we call it the Viagra syndrome and that is this you said grandfathers can be a big part of the world. We have great value and the reason we call it the Viagra syndrome is it came from a friend of mine who passers new Jerusalem church, the largest black American church in Mississippi, Dwayne Pickett and he said, you know, it used to be years ago there were there were grandpa's on the front porch and there were grandpa's that would. You know, while the dads were off working they would say, hey, come here son, let me teach you some things and you said the grandpa's aren't there anymore what is what pastor Dwayne said he said they still think they're players. And I said Dwayne that's because of the Viagra syndrome chemicals and but you said something page 217 in the printed version of the boy crisis you said when the biological father is missing can God the father help. That was a fascinating thing I just jumped out of me because of my orientation, St Paul Community Baptist Church in Bedford, sti, which is somewhat near where you grew up, is that right. Yes, correct, I grew up in New York, New Jersey area. Yeah, and you talked about guys that didn't have any time with with her dads and so forth, but you talked about how the priests and how him leading them into faith actually helped them find a place of center. Yes, so what happened at the Bedford style church is when I was finished talking to the congregation, the pastor was brought me to a back room and there were 32 boys there and they had been in about four different boys groups groups of boys that talked with each other. And I went around the group and I said, you know, what's your background and so on and of those 32 boys 28 of them had been in prison and and almost every one of them had very minimal or no contact with their dads. And so and then I talked with them more in depth and I said, now let's go around the room and let me ask you for for who in this group was your belief in God and your your attendance of church and your involvement in the church, the faith base, this faith base community for whom was that important. And I didn't just get me, me, me, I got if it wasn't for this for our involvement in this church, I would be doing all the same things that got me into jail to begin with because the great majority of them had been in prison and they had, you know, stolen things or done drugs or, you know, held some held up a grocery store or whatever. And they all sort of that that was the way they lived their life and and and they said that, you know, their belief in God and their attendance of church, they're finding an alternative, they didn't put it as alternative community, but they would say sort of more like, you know, getting to know Jimmy over here and seeing that he had the same problems that I had made me realize I wasn't all alone. And I could talk to Jimmy about that and the fact that our group is confidential and I saw other boys had the same problems that I had. And I had, you know, we had this very wonderful minister who was getting us engaged in outdoor activities and and it was like a community was built up that, you know, that led me to feeling I had, you know, I didn't have a father at home, but I had God the father. And I could see and feel not just a theory of the importance of the father, but that, you know, for about 27, 28 of those boys under the 32 that God the father and the involvement with that community really was created a much richer and hopeful life and an improved character among all those boys. And what we all want as parents is an improved and an enhanced character in our children. Yeah, we seem to be a culture, Dr. Farrell, we seem to be a culture that over the last, I wouldn't know maybe a decade, two decades, we seem to be more concerned about the calorie content of our children's lunches than the character content of our children's hearts. Yeah, absolutely. And of course, you know, the not the calorie content, but what you're eating for lunch is very, very helpful part. And so, you know, for boys sometimes, you know, what you have for lunch and, you know, is sort of can be a male thing of, you know, like I've had pizza and stuff like that as opposed to, you know, don't focus on the fact that vegetables might be better for you than pizza. That's sort of like, you know, very type of stuff. And, you know, we have to recognize that that we have to bring to our children both, you know, an understanding of nutrition and an understanding of the exercise. And then also understanding of the updates. The stat I just read, Dr. Farrell was 22 million of our children in the United States are nutritionally deficient. And Harvard, I think it was a few years ago, just came out with that study on the thinning of the cortex, as they call it. And that that it didn't have any that it had to do with, you know, our food deserts and that sort of thing, but it had to do with nutrition. And, and believes in our work and believes one of the teachers said to me something that correlated that and actually put it in words that for me was better understandable. It's thinning of the cortex, short-term memory, all that, what she said to me one day was, you know, a hungry kid can't learn. Yes, yes, absolutely. And in the United States of America, and in the most western of the 52 countries you mentioned, that shouldn't, that shouldn't be the case. It shouldn't be the case. So some of our young men that we all of a sudden were putting them, we just put them in jail. You know what, bam, you don't measure up, you're going to jail. When in fact, the issue really part of it is our issue, because we allow them to live in a food desert, we allow them to live them nutritionally deprived, etc, etc, etc. And I understand the government isn't the solution of everything, but I am saying churches, family, people, we can't be blind to the issue that really creates some of these things. You said something in your in your speeches, really, really, the one that did TEDx that you did in Iran, when you said, if I'm not mistaken, you said we had created 18 new prisons in California where you live, we created 18 new prisons in one new university. Yes, yes, same period of time. Absolutely, we've had a 700% increase in the number of prisons in the United States since 1970, which is, you know, we are now more than any other developed country in the world, our per capita prison population is greater. But let me let me do something here that that what I have found to be very helpful for many moms and dads, first of all, before I share this. Let me honor the single mom, the single mom works morning, noon night usually is usually overwhelmed usually is feels that she is, she can't be as good as she wants to be and raising the children she can't be as good as she wants to be in her work. And this is, and oftentimes as the children get older, the children are disrespectful, they're talking back, they're not productive in school, and this is, and she has devoted her heart, her life, her energy into raising the children the best she can. And, and just feels like she's, you know, sort of not succeeded in the way that her dreams and her and her hard work has led. And so, you know, the, the issue here is here, and here is what is often happening. We were talking about food a minute ago, so I'll give my first example of food. There's moms do everything I was just talking about, and there's, there are solutions to moms about the importance of of dads, and one of those is the importance of boundary enforcement. And so, for example, both sexes set boundaries pretty much the same way moms and dads, they'll both say, sweetie, you can't have your ice cream until you finish your piece of your nutrition. And the children challenge the boundaries in the same way, they want to have as few pieces possible in front of them to get the ice cream. No, it's what's new. And then, but the difference between moms and dads, not all the time, but most frequently, is that the children will sort of say to mom, something like, you know, I was bullied at school today, or I, you know, I'm really filling down, or I don't have any energy. You know, or sort of, I really don't want to have all those peas, and mom thinks to herself, you know, I don't really want to get into a huge argument about a few peas. So, what I'm going to do is just say, I'll tell you what, sweetie, have this many more peas, and then you can have your ice cream, and the boy goes, okay, and then he learns that he's kind of, with mom, he can negotiate a better deal. So, what he should focus on is discovering with mom where that better, you know, what he can say, or do, or cry, to get that better deal to operationalize. Whereas with dads, the dad is more likely to say, excuse me, we had a deal here. The deal was, you couldn't have your ice cream until you've finished your peas. Oh, dad, you're so mean, you know, mom doesn't, isn't like that. And, you know, I'm sorry, I make certain rules, mom makes certain rules when you're with me, you're in my roles. But, you know, if you, if you keep wanting and crying, there will be any ice cream tomorrow night either. Uh-oh. So, the boy learns with dad, more likely, again, this is sometimes reversed, the boy learns with dad that he has to finish his peas, that is he has to focus his attention on what he needs to do, that is, have the vegetables before he gets what he wants to have the ice cream. Therefore, he's beginning to learn postponed gratification. Yeah. It's the marshmallow experiment. It's the marshmallow experience exactly. And so what, and the postponed gratification, as, as we know from that marshmallow test, is the single biggest predictor of success or failure. And so, a mom is, but a mom may look at this and say, you know, you're, you're forcing Jimmy to finish the peas. That's so, that shows such a lack of empathy. And if, and if, particularly if it's a stepfather, they often feel like, oh, he doesn't love Jimmy or Jane as much as, as I do. Therefore, the reason he's stricter is because he doesn't have that empathy coming from it, not being his own children. There's not communication. There's, there's friction there. Absolutely. I will tell you, based on, you know, just going back to that, you know, to us and the Christian is now working global fatherhood initiative single moms are our heroes. You know, the Bible teaches that the church needs to, one of the first things Paul said about the church in community. He said, take responsibility for widows and orphans, single moms. That was one of the first, like, here's what we need to do. Yes. In order to be a healthy community of faith. Yes. It was as important to him as it was going out and telling people about Jesus. It was, in fact, let me put it this way. It was the, it was the mark that you actually have faith. That you would do that. Yes. And so a great, you know, as powerful, powerful word that we're talking about the boy crisis, the book that I recommend and Dr. Farrell, you've written a number of books. But this one, I, you know, and I know it took you, you spent over a decade in research, working. Did you say 18 years? 18 years directly on the book, but of course, I've been working on male female issues and trying to get access to understand each other since the late 1960s for. We're getting women understand each other. Women and men to understand each other. Yeah, this is like, you know, who could be engaged in a more hopeless activity than. Yeah, started in the garden of Eden. Yeah. Every man who reads that still blames Eve. But if you read the text, it's really Adam's fault. The way I look at male female relationships is it's very much like a tango. You know, if you're going to change either sex, you really need to change both sex as days. And you know, in that, in that dynamic that I was just talking about the, with the ice cream and the peas. You know, the things that emerges from that is ADHD. We all see that our boys have significantly more ADHD that our girls do. But what we don't know is that the children raised predominantly by dads, only 15% have ADHD. Children raised predominantly by moms, 30% have ADHD. And if you look at the example that I gave, the children's, the father's response to you have to focus on finishing your peas is that you're being rewarded for your attention being focused on doing what you need to do finishing your peas. Whereas with mom, the attention is focused on how to manipulate a better deal with mom and take advantage of mom's empathy in order to get that better deal. And therefore not be focused on what you need, you need to do. And so one of the values of having both the dad and mom and the family is what I call the, is it works the best when you have checks and balance parenting when you have both the mom and the dad explaining what the purpose of the child finishing the peas is. And at the same time, the mom saying, you know, when that purpose of finishing the peas is going too far and where empathy needs to rule the day. And so when you have mom and dad sort of going back and forth in that, many moms and dads that will lead to an argument and the argument will make the mom and dad feel that they are not really meant for each other. In fact, you are very much meant for each other. You're meant to have this positive tension between you so that the best of both the child can have the best of both of you. Yeah, you know, it's basically like a guitar, a guitar. You know, we don't want tension or stress, but a guitar doesn't make good music unless there's a right amount of stress. Indeed. Well said, nice. I never thought of that analogy. So piano sort of thing. So the thing is, you know, let's go back to boys and girls and men and women. They don't want to finish with one question on something you mentioned, but dads keep score women don't in general. You know, it's a, we joke about it, but it's true. You know, a dad, a dad will go, we'll talk about we win this game or lose this game because of his makeup. And it's kind of like my, my grandkids have got two of them are close the same age. And if you put some little toy, you know, figures in front of in front of my granddaughter Audrey, she lines them up and she begins to teach them or she gets them in rows or something like that. But if you give those same figurines to my grandson Gray, he has caught, he has like galactic contests where they run into each other and bam, bam. And there's something in us like that. And I think it is that balance and that tension, right? Certainly is. And you see this in so many ways. So I'll give an example that was seem a little bit superficial until we get into it a little bit more in depth. It's a very typical difference in the section of the boy crisis book that deals with the differences between mom style parenting and dad style parenting and what each contributes to the children doing better. And one of the differences is is the differences in rough housing and children and dad will oftentimes do things like, OK, we have three kids, OK, the three of you are going to toss the three of you onto the couch and your job kids is a three of you have to jump on my back and pin me down before I pin the three of you down. Oh, boy, that's great. And mom's looking on and thinking, oh, my God, I feel I have here just like one more child to monitor in the dead. And but yet I don't want to I don't want to be controlling and I don't the kids seem to be having fun. So I'm not going to fear, but I just feel in my gut that sooner or later somebody's going to end up getting hurt. That's what my wife would yell upstairs to our game room. Yes, yes, she would yell, somebody's going to get hurt. Yeah, and back up normal. That's the point. That's the five. I wouldn't go quite that far, but let's take a look at the value of what you just said, which is that the that sure enough not mom is only about 99 and a half percent likely to be right. And so later somebody starts crying and you know to get into the moms and she's thinking, oh, my God, as I knew that this was going to happen. Now she's beginning to feel guilty. She didn't interfere sooner because it was her responsibility to protect the kids and she what she was seduced into there having fun. And so she's now blaming herself. But now what happens is the dad goes, OK, Jimmy, you stuck your elbow in Christ's face. You can't do that. That's what made Christ a cry. You do that one more time or anything like that one more time. That's the end of the rough housing. OK, mom goes, wait a minute. You're saying you're going to continue the rough housing after you just so that the children cried and she ran up dad does does that. And sure enough, the child, maybe this time doesn't stick the elbow in his sister's eye, but pushes his younger brother to to to roughly. And dad goes, that was too rough. Well, I didn't put my elbow in my and in Christ's eye. No, but that was too rough a push. And you sort of know that that was too rough a push. If you do that again, there'll be no more rough housing until tomorrow night. And so now the children and then the children start rough housing again. And now we're experiencing what psychologists call emotional intelligence under fire. The children are committed to not doing those things that make their brother a sister cry. But the excitement of winning overcomes the the commitment. And so sooner or later they do something like come to aggressive again. And dad then stops the rough housing and says, now there'll be no more rough housing until tomorrow night. And mom goes, haven't you learned twice in a row the same outcome came and now you're still promising a rough house the next night. And dad doesn't explain effectively that the next night is when all the goodies come. That is the children do when they when they now when they're told not to be too aggressive or too assert and or to not sick and elbow and the sisters or brothers face. Now they know they're going to lose what they want to have the rough housing. If they don't do what their immediate gratification is. And so they they start learning postpone gratification. They also start learning the difference between being assertive and aggressive. And they also start learning empathy. Now this is all scientifically proven the dads that rough house children children rough who house with their dads. They learn as a result of this dynamic that they have to think of somebody else's feelings or sisters or brothers feelings in order to get what they want to have that rough housing. And so no one explains this to mom. I've you know and moms can't hear what dads don't say it's not dads fault either because the reason I wrote this these descriptions and the the boy crisis book is because I couldn't find them in any parenting magazine or any other parenting book. And so therefore dads can't explain what they themselves don't know. And so there's a communication gap and the mom just thinks the dad is a child as opposed to understanding that the mom has that the dad has an intuitive way of doing things that has historically served a purpose that no one is able to explain anymore. And the power of this is that the child with postpone gratification that knows the difference between being assertive and aggressive and that is empathetic. That child is far more lucky to have friends in school because friends want somebody that thinks of somebody besides themselves that knows the difference between being assertive and aggressive. And when they know when they have postpone gratification, they're honored by their teachers, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, girls are honored them. Girls don't go out with losers. They go out with winners and when boys can finish things and do things. Girls are interested in them. So therefore the boys don't have to withdraw into porn because porn is basically access to a variety of attractive women without fear of rejection at a price he can afford. And so he starts getting addicted to porn if he doesn't have this type of social skills and postpone gratification because of the loser winner syndrome and dating it. He starts feeling down on himself gets depressed withdraws into video games and video game addiction because his friends are not in real life nearly as much as they are in that video game. And so there or he has he has a surrogate heroes that he worships as opposed to thinking of his own self confidence and wow. And so these and so when the boys are that way, the boys withdraw they get more likely to be depressed suicidal. They're more likely to drink, get into drugs, then they're more likely to act out. So of our school shooters in the 21st century, the ones that have committed 10 or more shootings, every single one of them is a dad deprived boy. Wow of ISIS recruits 90% of ISIS recruits are dad deprived both the boys and the girls and the prisoners 93% of our prisoners are males doesn't surprise too many people. But of the what does surprise people is that that of those 93% who are male in prison about 85 to 90% are dead deprived. And so this so the rough housing example is a little bit of just one of about a dozen examples of what dads bring to the family table that is so important to be integrated with the hard work, the beauty and the devotion and the caring and the nurturing that moms bring to the family table. You know, I we're going to we're going to close talking with Dr. Warren Farrell who wrote the boy crisis. You've written a number of other books and you can find that on Amazon and you know on your Warren Farrell two ours two else. Oh, actually four hours Warren Farrell. You know on Warren Farrell.com you can find his materials there. I just want to recommend that every single man listening to me right now dad single man anybody and kind of leadership. Pastor a priest a rabbi whoever it is the boy crisis Warren Farrell along with your friend John Gray and it is you know the things we could keep talking for a long time. I want to just say this thank you for taking the having the foresight the ability to withstand the pain of what it takes to do this. So everything you had to do to do this. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Warren Farrell and your wife who had to put up with you late nights writing or whenever it is that you write. And all of that in order to create something that I believe is going to set a lot of people free and I just thank you for it. Thank you. Thank you. Let's do some work together. Let's integrate these are our respective skill sets and and life devotions and make it happen at a broader level. I'd like to do that. God bless brother. Thank you. It's just a pleasure. You're just a good question asker and you listen so well and you care so much and it's must be wonderful for the people that you that you help. This is this is our life and this is what it's about through the world you change. You know we say you change the heart of the dad you've touched a soul of the nation. Yes indeed. There you go. God bless you bro. I'll talk to you again soon. Thank you. Paul it's always amazing when we have a solution to a crisis and I think that Dr. Warren Farrell has such a blueprint to how we can change the dynamic of not just men but our nation. You know solutions you're exactly right they're practical or things we can do and so let me mention again the boy crisis. I mentioned it during the interview and it started the boy crisis by Warren Farrell. You know his co-authors guy named John Gray not not the John Gray. It's the speaker that's you know in Carolina. Yeah in Carolina but but John Gray the author of Mitter from Mars woman from Venus and well known author and he co-wrote it but man this thing really rocks and I want guys to get it and apply it then and what Warren has said a number of times now to me he said you know really if the Christian church is the way he said if the Christian church would take this and run with it. He said he said change the future because it would have not only you know practical application but but faith involved which keeps people connected to each other connected to a center point and keeps them more if you will anchored into a place where where their morality doesn't shifting all over based on what's floating in the atmosphere. Well and I think the biggest thing that he's touching on with that is the definition of a home and I think that we've missed the true definition of a home and I just want to share an acronym that I have for the word home helping others meet eternity. That's what a true home is because when you see the reality of a mom that is a loving person loving their kids and you see a father a man a true man in the house loving their kids and loving the wife that is the perfect reality of what we're walking into in heaven. Well what was amazing is Warren I because I tried to come at it from a couple different angles to let him you know say well it's it's there's a number of different ways you can have a family can be all this you know the way people talk. Yeah well anybody you know you can have this and you can have that and he's real specific he goes the best thing for a boy is a dad and a mom exactly and he's talking gender specific he's not messing around on this no and we can't we can we have to stop that narrative it is a house with a perfect foundation of a mom and a dad in the home that is exemplifying and I love the teaching that Jim Garlo gives on marriage when he breaks us down which I'm not going to go into because we ain't got time for that but when he talks about the reality of what is the what is the perfect image of a man and a woman coming together is the image of God on the earth on earth as it isn't heaven and that is our job so we need homes to be restored and that's why us knowing the definition of home is helping others meet eternity. Yeah I love that man that's that's perfect you know we have tools as a as a father as a dad that you can use I took my my boys who were 9 and 10 at the time every Saturday morning at 9 a.m. which apparently was too too early for a 9 and 10 year old on Saturday but they did it anyway because that's what dad said. And at 9 a.m. I took strong men and tough times now that you would look at that as a book was for older guys no that's for a dad. Yeah begin to to pour into the life of his son. You know here's or or a daughter with different tools we have and all those are C. M. Dot men and so don't think you've got a weight in fact if you wait till your son is 15 or 16 hey I'll really talk to him then you're too late. Well I mean I'm speaking as a testimony of that if my dad waited to talk to me about what he instilled in me when I was still in the room then I wouldn't be the person I am today but the fact that he took the time with all his kids to read the Bible to them. Look at all his kids now we've never been in jail we've never even been in handcuffs you know we've never been in trouble with the law I think the worst trouble we've ever been is with a ticket. Yeah come try and take it. So what kind of testimony is that man. That's a big how you're going to be a rapper if you haven't ever been arrested. I guess I have to be a Christian. Now the thing is what a great testimony that that is the better the greater testimony is the is the testimony of God's holding grace his loving mercy that he that you didn't go through some of those things that a lot of your friends have. Yeah and so Warren Farrell man this stuff this is what it's about raising fathers. So Christian is network is committed to building strong churches and we do that by helping churches build strong men strong families and then strong churches and strong churches of the future of the nation. Amen whatever nation you're in. I don't know if it's beliefs or bots one or wherever you're listening to it today. Hey thanks for being with us today. I'm brave then it really is a blessing you take the time to be involved with us to listen and hit that subscribe button. Yes some other stuff like share. You want to share it you want to hit subscribe and you also want to write a review. Yes and then tell somebody. Yes just part of the sharing thing and it's a part of writing the review. Okay bam yeah but if it's a bad review we can't take it off. We ain't got time for that. Actually we can. Okay okay good. We can't. Now man if somebody if somebody puts something on there says hey you know you need to have you know this guy on or that guy. Yeah we listen to that. Yes we do. And now you can write to us at Paul at cm and dot man Paul at cm and dot men. And hey it's great being with you today Chris and it's great being with you as you listen to this. And our prayers that God would keep you deep within the grip of his grace and give you great favor in your life God bless you bro. You just experience brave man with Paul Lewis Cole. Paul is president of the Christian men's network connect with Paul at cm and dot man or write to him at Paul at cm and dot man.