Dr. Warren Farrell on The Boy Crisis
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Welcome to another episode of Broken Potholes with your hosts, Chuck Warren and Sam Stone.

A fantastic guest that I know Chuck and I are both really looking forward to talk to. And gosh, the timing couldn't be more perfect for my personal situation, but also in light of a bit of a tragedy we had last night.

Here in Phoenix, I would like to introduce first Dr. Warren Farrell. Dr. Farrell has been chosen by the Financial Times as one of the world's top 100 thought leaders. His books are published in over 50 countries and 19 languages, including the New York Times bestseller, Why Men Are the Way They Are, plus the international bestseller, The Myth of Male Power.

His most recent book, and folks, I highly, highly recommend. Go on Amazon. Go to your local bookstore. Get this. Read it because it's a really thought-provoking work. The Boy Crisis, which he co-authored with John Gray and was chosen as a finalist for the Forward Indies Award, the Independent Publishers Award. It is really an important read, I think, for a lot of folks. Yeah.

Dr. Farrell, thanks for joining us today. I want to play a clip here from Modern Family about Father's Day. This is Jay, the patriarch of the family. Don't know if you've ever seen the show, but go ahead, Jeremy. Hi, Jay. I was going to cook the sausage. Hey, I don't mind. He's taking over because we screwed up the last few Father's Days. Don't be silly. I got this. When I think of the last few Father's Days, I quake with rage. Hey, maybe put a little thought into it. Maybe we don't order the pizza.

And if we do, maybe we get enough crazy bread for everybody. I'm sorry, but who made Father's Day the dirty stepchild of holidays? Dr. Farrell, I don't know if you heard that or not. Were you able to hear that clip? Yes. So why, when did it start happening that the role of father started taking a really a second and third tier place in the raising of children? It seems to something that I've seen in my lifetime. Um,

and want to know when you started seeing it it's personal it's definitely true that we've sort of gone from father knows best to father knows less and that started basically in the

I'd say in the late 1960s with troublemakers like me who got involved with the National Organization for Women and we assumed we sort of took a false premise we went from the the Civil Rights Movement where there was oppressors and oppressed to the some of the early feminists were quite Marxist in orientation where there was an oppressor group in an oppressed group

And because men were making more money than women, we translated that into men as oppressors and women as oppressed.

and suggested that the world was dominated by a patriarchy in which men made the rules to benefit men at the expense of women. But in fact, as I got older and a little bit more experienced and really started studying this more carefully, I realized this was not true, that the world was not dominated by a patriarchy making rules to benefit men at the expense of women. It was dominated by the need to survive. And to survive, both sexes

needed to be able to do the things that they were obligated to do that were necessary. Women were told raise children, men were told raise money. Neither sex had power, neither sex had, they both had responsibilities. We didn't hear our grandparents talking about rights.

They were talking about responsibilities and obligations. And when you grew up to be a man, you had the responsibility of taking care of the family and so on. So what we as the early feminists did

and I fault myself for this misinterpretation as well, is we basically had an attitude toward men and that women were the oppressed and men were the oppressors. And women wanted freedom. So when we had children, when a woman was pregnant,

We would sit around the table and the women would say, you know, what should I do? Should I be fully involved with the children? Should I be fully involved with the workplace? Should I do some combination of both?

And the men were sitting around saying, well, you know, if I have three options to, you know, option one is I can work full time. Option two is I can work full time. Option three is I can work full time. But when we worked full time by being automatically working full time, we earned more money. So the myth went around that men earned more money. Therefore, they had the power.

as opposed to understanding that men and women basically earn, especially today, very similar amounts of money. Never married women who have never had children out-earn never married men who have never had children by 17%. So it's when children, the pay gap is not about men versus women. The pay gap is about dads versus moms.

And when moms become moms, they tend to be more involved with the family and therefore they cut back on their work or they, if they work full time, they work full time but fewer hours closer to home, jobs where they can be responsive to their children's needs. They don't work less overall, but they work less in the workplace.

The man, if he's, let's say he wants to be a musician or a writer or an actor or an elementary school teacher, he realizes that as an actor or a musician, he doesn't make responsible, dependable income at a high enough level to be able to support his wife cutting back or having no job at all outside the home that earns money.

and to be able to support his children, to be able to move into a new neighborhood with better schools where the children can go to the optimal school. And his job is to make sure he earns enough so his children and his wife have opportunities that he never had in his lifetime. And so that leads to the man earning more money, but it also leads to usually him giving up the glint in his eye.

the opportunity to sort of like do what he really loves to do because fulfilling jobs tend to pay less, which is why we call artists starving artists and writers the same type of thing. My father warned me never to be a writer because I could probably never get a publisher. If I can't get a publisher, I'll never get a wife. And so...

So that's a little bit of the sense of, so fathers were sort of, the men were seen as negative and as oppressors and fathers went along with that. Families broke up.

And then the women fought to stay with the children and get child support or alimony. And so the fathers, as the families broke up, when divorces were more permitted in the societies that produced more money,

They no longer worried as much about survival, so they allowed for divorces. And the divorces led to the breakup of the family. And then it was seen that single mothers who didn't have as many wonderful men to support them as they used to have as the boy crisis sort of increased. Now we have 50% of the women under 30 who have children in the United States who

50% of them have children without being married, which usually means the lack of involvement of the father after two or three years, even when the mother and father live together, when they have children. And then with the lack of involvement of the father, usually the children have significant problems in more than 50 areas.

that I discovered when I did the research for the boy crisis. But particularly those problems are exacerbated with males who have no male role model where they don't have very much father involvement. Well, Dr. Farrell, the amazing thing is we talk along this country about a debt crisis coming. We have a healthcare crisis coming. This is a true crisis that you can't turn around with some policy things in a couple years. I mean, you're creating a generation of

loss of hope um lost skills um you know you talk a lot about one of the keys to a father you talk about the balance between a mother and father a mother is more nurturing you know you and you give an example on that in your in your writings and then the father sort of allows them to example rough house but the father teaches them by hands-on these are the things you do there's a line you

You know, and somebody has to teach what the line is, and that's what a good father does. They let them stretch but say, no, you got it. There's a line to this. And it seems like a lot of kids who don't have fathers –

They don't know those lines. I see it. Sam and I see it when we hire people. You can tell who grew up without a father because they don't understand the lines. They lack certain empathy. They just don't know how to pull back when they need to pull back or just take a pause and count to 10. And there are huge societal consequences coming down from that. Right, Dr.?

There are really huge societal consequences coming down from that. Absolutely. We all care that mental health is taken care of in the country. We know we pour billions of dollars into doing that. But the best way to do that is to have an involved father. The lack of father involvement is the single biggest predictor of suicide.

And I'll give you a sense of what this is all about. You mentioned roughhousing. So typically speaking, a dad will be much more likely than a mom to roughhouse. In fact, when a dad starts to roughhouse, the mom feels like she has only one more child to monitor, if you will. And the father might say, let's say they have three kids, and the father will throw the three kids on the couch and say, okay, now it's your turn to jump on my back and

The game here is you pin me down before I pin the three of you down together. Okay, dad, okay, dad. And they're all excited. And mom feels like, oh my God, somebody is going to get hurt here.

here. But she feels guilty that, you know, she doesn't want to, you know, she doesn't want to be too controlling. So she says, all right, I'll stay out of it. The kids seem to be having a lot of fun, but I just know inside of myself that sooner or later, somebody's going to get hurt here. And she's only about 99% likely to be right. And so the kids jump on her back, the dad's back and they have lots of fun. And then sure enough,

somebody gets hurt and let's say Jimmy sticks his elbow in his sister's eye and dad says, hey, you can't stop, do that. If you do that again, we're going to stop the roughhousing. And mom goes, what do you mean? You're going to continue the roughhousing? And dad, you haven't learned your lesson. And now she's really beginning to be in

mom's really beginning to be discouraged about the maturity of dad. And so then, you know, dad continues the roughhousing and sure enough, somebody, you know, gets hurt again or is just too aggressive as opposed to being just assertive. And the dad says, okay, end of roughhousing for tonight. We won't have any more roughhousing until tomorrow night. Oh, dad, we're sorry. We won't do it again. I'm sorry. That's it.

So the next night, the roughhousing continues. And this time, though, when the mom, when the dad says, sorry, when the kids start getting too rough, that's the end of the roughhousing. The kids know that's going to happen eventually.

So now the kids are obeying the rules because the night before, uh, when they, uh, when they went too far, the dad ended the rough housing. And so now they know that if they start getting too aggressive, um, that, that dad's going to end the rough housing. So what the kids are learning is postponed gratification. They want to push their brother or their sister out of the way. They want to be aggressive in order to win at the rough housing, but they're learning that if they do, uh,

If they do, they won't get what they really want, the roughhousing. Boundaries are important. And unfortunately, we are up against one. We're heading to our first commercial break. But we will be right back with a very important conversation with Dr. Warren Farrell. Broken Potholes coming right back.

Welcome back to Broken Potholes with your host Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. On the line with us, Dr. Warren Farrell. Dr. Farrell, we highly recommend folks go out and get his book, The Boy Crisis. He has done some amazing work over the years and been interviewed on some incredible programs, including Oprah, Barbara Walters, Peter Jennings, Katie Couric, Larry King, Tucker Carlson, Regis, Charlie Rose, and many more.

And somehow he ended up here with us and the Broken Potholes gang on Saturday morning on your radio show. And we cannot thank him enough for that. Dr. Farrell, when we went to break, we were talking about some of those roles of fathers in establishing boundaries and giving kids room to grow and learn, particularly boys, what the boundaries are.

are that are different than a woman can teach them. Sometimes it's physical roughhousing. Sometimes it's moral boundaries. But at the end of the day, there's a huge role for both sexes to play in raising children.

Yes. And I want to be clear that both sexes can play both roles. There are times when, you know, maybe a little girl child will have her daddy around her fingers and, and, you know, we'll be able to manipulate dad and, and dad will be terrible at boundary enforcement. And, and so the, and go ahead. You know, I, you know, I grew up, I grew up in a house with a few sisters and I, I, I remember that. I remember that experience. Yeah. Yeah.

And then oftentimes the mother steps in or alternatively nobody steps in to enforce boundaries and you have children that have as many problems oftentimes as children in a fatherless family. But let me make a couple of very important distinction here. Many times moms think that they're very good at setting boundaries or they set boundaries.

They're absolutely right. Moms are more likely to set boundaries than dads are. But the difference is not the boundary setting. It's the boundary enforcement. So, for example, both moms and dads will tend to say you can't have your ice cream until you finish your peas. The kids, of course, will have to try to have as few peas as possible before they get their ice cream.

But then the next step is that the child will say to the mom, "Mom, I want my ice cream now. I had a bad day at school." And mom will think, "Okay, I'm not going to get into a big argument over a few peas here." That would be insensitive to the child having a bad day at school. So, "Okay, sweetie, guess what? You have this many more peas and then you can have your ice cream."

Now the child is seeing that she or he can begin to manipulate mom by talking about something that happened that was bad or something, or maybe the mom and dad are divorced and the mom senses that the mom feels guilty about that and says, I miss dad. I don't want to have, why do I need to have any more peas? And again, mom will give in. And so what the child learns from mom is that he can manipulate a better deal by appealing to her soft side.

He'll probably say the same thing to dad. You know, I want to have my ice cream now. I had a bad day at school. And dad will say, I'm sorry you had a bad day at school, but the deal is that you can't have your ice cream until you finish your peas. Oh, dad, you're so mean. You're not like mommy. You're right. I'm not like mommy. Your job with me is to finish the peas before you get the ice cream.

And again, the child is being forced to focus with the dad on completing his task, on having postponed gratification, which is the single biggest predictor of success or failure, before the child gets to have what she or he wants to have, the ice cream. And so these are, so when mothers and fathers, studies that show moms and dads set bedtimes, of course,

moms set bedtimes significantly earlier than dads do.

But the data shows that the children actually get to bed earlier when they're being taken care of by a dad. It's so true. Than they do when they're being taken care of by a mom. It's so true. It is so true. You've seen this too? Well, I live it. It's from experience. It's like you were talking earlier about the peas and ice cream. My youngest son, my caboose, who's the apple in his mom's eye,

He wanted something really badly, and we bought it for him his junior year and said he could have it when he graduates. So my great idea was buy this so he sees it. It's there. And said you have to do X, Y, Z, and we made him sign a contract. Come the end of his senior year, he did not reach the things he was supposed to accomplish. And I'm telling you, doctor, it killed me, but I took that thing and sold it.

And he has it has it has been amazing watching how he has motivated by that and change, of course, the easy thing, because I love my son so much is to let him have that. But I just said and I talked to his mother and just said, we can't we just can't do this. And it kills me doing it. And it's really been a.

a milestone for him doing that. But that was the dad playing, I don't know, bad cops, the right word, just the dad playing the enforcer. And it's so crucial. And credit to your wife also for going, for working with you on that. Yeah. Because if she hadn't, then, then you would have had to deal with what many dads have to deal with.

Well, you know, I'm going to be disappointing my wife. My wife's going to be thinking I'm insensitive. I'm cruel. There's not going to be any sex for two weeks and then not for weeks after that. You know, and there's going to be all sorts of things that many dads end up in the long run backing down on because they feel like it's, you know, it's for this one thing I'm going to sacrifice my whole relationship for.

But you're absolutely right. And it's amazing how much kids turn around when the boundaries are enforced because they're not only not getting that car or whatever it is,

but also they're not getting the approval of dad and mom. And they see their dad and mom are on the same page. And so that really does motivate them. It's when many children brought up by single moms end up going into the military and the military requires them to do things

that the single mom would give in at the last minute. Moms are good at setting the boundaries. They set those early bedtimes. They repeat the boundaries that they set over and over again, but they oftentimes don't enforce them at the last minute. And then moms get very frustrated because they say,

I don't get this. Dad says this once to the child and the child obeys. I've said the same thing 30 times and the child doesn't obey because the child often senses with many moms and not all moms, but with many moms that the mom in the final analysis

The only thing that he has to do is tolerate the mom saying those things, but he can go ahead and do his own thing the way he wants to do it. And, Doctor, this before we get too tied up into just moms and dads, we have about a minute before we have to go to break again, but we're going to come right back with Dr. Warren Farrell. This extends way beyond the families into a lot of parts of society from the instructions parents are receiving on rearing children, psychology, schools,

there's a lot of reinforcement of of the elements that are creating this boy crisis right yes uh absolutely there's you know you know lack of male teachers in school uh there's the a lot of things that boys just do naturally like roughhounds and um exchange with covered put downs those things are being made into things that are sort of um punishable in school to a much greater degree than they were before

There is a lot in school. There's a there's not there's an understanding that and a discussion that, you know, the future is female. And that doesn't make your son feel very positive about his future. If he's being told constantly that the future is female and that the males are oppressors and particularly white males are oppressors.

And so these are there's so many things that are happening in school today, particularly with woke culture and cancel. And we're going to address that on Broken Potholes right when we come back.

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Welcome back to Broken Potholes. On the line with us today, Dr. Warren Farrell, author of The Boy Crisis. You can follow him at www.warrenfarrell.com. And I should note that you can go there on Amazon and get this book. Gentlemen, I've just been told by Dr. Farrell you much prefer to listen to this than actually read it. And you can get the audible version. Listen to it while you're driving around in your car while you're stuck in traffic. This is going to be a fantastic help.

Chuck, this is something you and I have talked about a lot is what's going on with boys in this country. But it is really an epidemic and it is having violent consequences. And when we went to break, Dr. Farrell, you were talking about what's happening in schools with some of the things that frankly I did in high school and middle school, the fights, the conflicts that I got into today, I would have been in handcuffs for.

I think a lot of boys would have been in handcuffs for. But those were learning experiences. And we're taking a lot of that away. Very much so. Very, very much so. Go ahead. Oh, no, please, please go ahead.

Yeah, I think I'll give an example of that. And these are really very innocent understandings. I mean, nobody, no teacher wants kids to hurt each other. No. But as we're in the playground, guys will, if you and I are friends and we're

And the degree to which we become better friends is the degree to which we'll exchange wit-covered put-downs. You'll tell me, I'm a little prima donna this way. I'll tell you, oh, you were so good at school. Wasn't it really good? You did your homework last night. And whatever we're feeling a little bit

And those wood covered put downs that are often seen as bullying and taken too far, of course, they can be bullying. But when the purpose behind them is not understood, then there's a different

problem. And the purpose behind them is that the boys, the commerce of masculinity was the trading of wit covered put downs because boys unconsciously knew that if they were going to be successful, they had to be able to handle criticism.

And when boys especially do that type of put downs with girls, they're really beginning to accept girls into their sort of club of somebody that they can respect.

But the teachers and many times some girls, especially victim oriented girls, are very oriented toward, oh, you know, Jimmy criticized me or one of those Warrens criticized me. Chuck Warren or Warren Farrell, who knows? It's a motley crew, that's for sure. I grew up back east. We threw around more than a few of those. Exactly. Yes. Especially if you grew up in back east or the northeast. The wood covered put downs were just, you know, exactly what it was an art form.

It was. And it was to find out, like, let's say there are two in firefighters or it has hazardous professions, you know, so a new recruit comes in and she or he or he usually is maybe, let's say, the son of the fire chief.

and so the the job of the other fire fighters is to see whether this guy is a prima donna because he's the son of the fire chief and he thinks he can get away with it so and because if he is a prima donna then if the if if they're in a trapped room and the the roof is falling down in the middle of a fire you're not going to expect a prima donna to risk his life to come in to help say save you uh you're going to expect the prima donna

to be able to sort of like maybe call 911 or ask for other people to help, or maybe just not have the guts to do that. And so we're all testing each other out to find out who can be respected enough to be part of the, to not be, not take themselves too seriously, to not sort of be, if you will, a prima donna. And the problem with not understanding that is you get into the workplace

And when we start criticizing a female in the workplace, the female often reports it to HR and says, we're discriminating against her. Whereas with the wood covered put downs that guy's doing, that's a sign of respect. You don't do that until you respect somebody. Correct. And when you respect. And so the female in the workplace is often experiencing something as disrespect that the guys have are programmed to do as a test for respect. Right.

And so and then because when they reported to HR, HR has become more like H.E.R., more like her rather than human resources. When she reports the complaint, it's assumed that she is that that she's the victim, as opposed to having a dialogue about what did that what did those would cover put down mean to her? What did the cover put down mean to the mail?

Yeah. You know, growing up, you would never trade those type of insults with someone that you didn't respect or like. I mean, you know, you just you kind of let them alone, quite frankly. Yes. And that is something that I think is really missing is that that toughening up of people before they hit the workplace. Education has become too sensitive. Yeah.

And especially in universities and the social sciences, if some people are told that if they're going to say something that might offend them, they should get a trigger warning that they should. There should be a safe space. And we often call them snowflakes. And our safe space is this ad break coming right up. We're coming back with Dr. Farrell in just a moment.

Welcome back to Broken Potholes with your host, Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. On the line with us today, Dr. Warren Farrell, author of The Boy Crisis. And Chuck, you were just quoting a really good statistic in the break that I want to highlight for folks real quick. So in 2020, there are 15.31 million children living with a single mother in the United States and about 3.27 million children living with a single father.

It's a pretty dramatic difference. Our legal system is created essentially, right? Well, part of it and part of it, I think, goes back to there are nurturing elements a father can't provide. Right. But I think part of it, too, there's a lot of fathers. I mean, there's a cycle going on that's not being broke.

And I think that's something we can all agree with. And that cycle is going to continue unless something starts happening, unless those who have children step up and take a point. It doesn't matter what the court does. You can still stick up, take a responsibility for your child. You produced children.

He or she. Yes. Yeah, there's two things happening simultaneously. And one is really changeable quickly. And the other one is a little bit more challenging. One is that in all 53 of the largest developed nations, when a nation is developed, they have enough of survival mastered in the middle and upper middle class that they can make the rules for marriage a lot more lax than they used to because survival is not so important.

much a key thing. And so when they do that, there's a much greater likelihood of increased numbers of divorces as we've had in the United States.

When there is an increased number of divorces, the woman basically has, the mom has the right to children and the dad has to fight for children. And so I do a lot of expert witness work in courts. And normally speaking, by the time the dad gets to me, he spent $100,000 or so trying to fight to be more involved with his children. That $100,000 should be spent on the children, not on a court fight. Correct.

absolutely and and so that we we really have to every state needs to pass laws saying that if uh when there's a divorce uh that the assumption is that the children will be with mom and dad about an equal amount of time uh that the mom and dad need to live about within 20 minutes drive time from each other in the in the in the boy crisis book i have a whole chapter called the four must do's after divorce

And the one is about an equal amount of time. The second is the dad living, dad and mom living in about 20 minutes drive time for each from each other. The third is that there's no bad mouthing that the children can overhear from either mom to dad or dad to mom. And the fourth is that there be consistent couples communication counseling that the parents do to discover the best intent of the other parent rather than then

than do the bad mouthing and putting the other parent down. When the children have those four must-dos as a result of the parental behaviors, they do almost as well, not as well, but almost as well as they do in an intact family. The other half of the spectrum is the

is the degree to which there are single mothers. I mentioned before that 50% of women under 30 have children without being married. The other group is the people over 30. Overall, a little bit over 40% of children are raised today with minimal or no father involvement.

They are. And so we need to, I'm working with Andrew Yang and some other leading politicians now to try to develop a father warrior program, W-A-R-R-I-O-R. Love that. Because every generation is.

that had its war was told by Uncle Sam, we need you. When men feel needed, we sacrifice even our lives. But we've never been told we are needed as fathers, that the next generation is dependent upon us not to kill and be killed, but to love and be loved.

And that is what we need to call on our young men to do. So they have some sense of purpose, some sense of meaning. The mother wins because she has the children raised by both mother and father, and the children get checks and balanced parenting. The mother is not overwhelmed. The dad wins because he has a sense of purpose, and the children win because they have both parents. Well, and doctor, there are numerous questions

really horrific consequences for the lives of these children, particularly the boys who are growing up in a world without fathers. And it's something that, you know, you've talked about with children who have no motivation. They have no drive. They don't have the, I would call it, stick-to-itiveness to overcome problems. Yes. And that is creating a lot of chaos throughout our society. And I'm really seeing it up close and personal right now

About a month ago, I agreed to take in the son of my oldest female friend. He's been fatherless his entire life. She had him very young. And he's a good kid. He's a smart kid. He's caring. If you tell him to do something, he will do it.

But he has zero motivation. I mean, he will not do anything other than play video games. How old is he? 23 now. 23. And, you know, I wish I'd had a chance to have this interaction with him six, eight, 10 years ago or more. But I frankly don't know how to connect in a certain way with this generation because it is so different than what I grew up with in a home with a very engaged father who

in a different generation. Both you are very fortunate. We have engaged fathers and still close to our fathers to this day. My father is a guy that got up, your dad's no different, got up at four in the morning, went to the office so he could coach my little league team at three. Yeah.

Wow. And he turned down corporate jobs to own his own small business because he said, I had to have the flexibility for my boys. My father retired as the CEO of a major corporation in his early 50s because he realized he was not spending the time he needed to with us. So we really hit the lottery with that. Yeah. No question. We sure did.

My father also gave up a job and a career managing a company in Europe and came back to the United States to sell flow brushes from door to door because my mother needed to move back to the United States and he wanted to be there for her. Well, I mean, just the long term effects of those sacrifices, what your father did, you just you can't put it in words.

You really can't. And the challenge, one of the things, I just got a call from a guy that was going to be a mass shooter and I got an email from him actually. And he had a whole 52 page manifesto written up about why he was doing the mass shooting, that he was going to leave behind after he did the mass shooting.

Fortunately, when he read "The Boy Crisis," recommended by Jordan Peterson, he turned around and then contacted me. And I've been working with him for a while. But the important thing is that there's this enormous need. And he said to me that his mother allowed him to just get so deeply involved in video games

that he interpreted his entire life as as as his being with his video game friends. And he didn't know how to relate to people every day outside. So we had no no dependency on approval from real life human beings. His dependency on approval was the combination of winning in the video games and also the people who were his video game friends, which were sort of a straw human beings.

in his life. And so, you know, one of the first things that I've seen that is really helpful is to do a weaning of children from the video games, but with substituting, in a way, a positive parental manipulation of we're going to go for a walk instead. We're going to go, we're going to play ball instead. Finding out what there is outside of the video game area that can, that

that can allow him to be seduced into human relationship connection and a lot of loving understanding. And the most important thing is him knowing that you are going to be there forever.

that even if he does screw up, that you will still be there for him. Because a boy without a father like that doesn't trust that somebody will be there for him through the thick and the thin. And so it's that really strong combination of love on the one hand, security,

along with that love and at the same time very strict boundary enforcement and a weaning from the video games, including the boundary enforcement with video games like, you know, we will take away your computer, we'll take your computer out of your room, it'll have to be in the living room, there's no electronics at the dinner table, but instead of electronics at the dinner table,

There's in the Boy Crisis book, I have a whole appendix on how to conduct a family dinner night without it becoming a family dinner nightmare. You can make family dinner nights so much fun by discussing controversial things and everybody listening to everybody. The power of knowing how to listen to somebody, even when you totally disagree with them,

and really letting them know what you hear and making sure you haven't distorted anything is much more powerful than a video game. But most people feel that a parental figure, most kids feel that a parental figure is going to moralize with them. So they can't really feel free to be open. And the morality setting is very positive.

But it's only positive after the child, the younger person feels completely heard first, undistorted, and there's some time, and then is also trained to hear the parent's point of view, that hearing other people is not a one-way street.

Empathetic parents do not create empathetic children. Empathetic parents that are totally empathetic create children that are self-centered because they feel that the only person that they're always empathized with, but they're not required to return that empathy to somebody else.

and that creates self-centeredness it doesn't create the ability to empathize in addition to being empathized with one thing i one thing i've had a discussion with my friends um

I have some friends that are like buddies with their kids, and I have a wonderful relationship with my children. It's funny. They know what to call their mom about and what to call me about, and they have set what those categories are. But I remember having a conversation with a friend who loves my relationship with my kids and was asking for some advice. I said, I'm not their buddy. I'm their dad.

and I want to have this wonderful relationship with my children. But at the end of the day, I'm their dad. And as my oldest daughter has gotten married, my second daughter has finished her last semester in law school, at the end of the day, I'm still their dad. And at still times, I'll call them up a couple times a year and say, you know what? That's not good. That's not right. Maybe you need to do this. And I explain it. You know, when do you stop doing that? And I've just come to the conclusion, you don't.

I'm always their dad, and I want a wonderful relationship with my kids, but sometimes I still need to say no or you need to consider this, even though they're adults, they pay for themselves, and they respect that role. What I have found, they want that role. I have three things to say to that. Yes.

Yes, and yes. That is absolutely right. You show me a parent that says, oh, my children and I were best friends, and I'll show you a child that does not grow up productive, successful, happy, centered, and feeling really like he or she has made the best of their life.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think that's such a critical point about being there through anything, right? Yes. And I see that with my godson who I'm dealing with now is he's never had a man who stuck it out at any part of his life. His mom's had a number of different relationships and boyfriends. Some of them have fathered him to some limited extent, but then they're gone. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Oh, no, please, please.

I'm going to talk to the moms here because a lot of moms say, you know, I'm dealing with a father that's sort of like an absent father, a deadbeat dad, that type of thing. And before you make sure that that's the case, check it out by first take a look at the chapter 16 in the boy crisis on what dads and moms do differently.

Things like that I was talking about before, like the boundary setting versus enforcement, the roughhousing. There are many things that dads do. Moms assume come from an insensitivity. So before you discard the biological dad, understand first,

how and why the children benefit so much from the biological dad and the biological dad's differences, the things that you think may be risking the child's safety, maybe your input is needed because checks and balance parenting is what leads to children doing the best. But

Don't assume that because the dad lets the child go to a playground and doesn't stick around, that the dad doesn't care about the child. The dad's perspective on that is the child, the dad is okay about it. The child gets into a fight as long as the dad has a chance. It's a learning experience. Doctor, I apologize. We are coming to the end of our program here, but I want to thank you once again for joining us. We would love to have you back in the future. Broken Potholes. You're wonderful. Thanks, Sue.

Welcome back to our Broken Potholes. This is the podcast-only segment. You can follow us on Apple, Substack, Spotify, anywhere you find podcasts. You can find Broken Potholes. Chuck, just a fantastic discussion today with Dr. Warren Farrell. Yeah, he's someone you can sit down and – I mean, this is the beauty of the Joe Rogan. We're on radio, or now we're just podcasts only, but for the radio show, we're limited, right? And that's the beauty of what I think podcasts have done in this world, what Joe Rogan experiences show that –

people have the attention and focus to go two and a half, three and a half hours. And he is definitely a gentleman that I'd love to talk to through more case study type things, Adam. But I found him fascinating and hope we will have him back on soon. Yeah, we definitely need to. Maybe around Father's Day it'd be great to have him back on. I think it would be fantastic. And, you know, I mean, one of the things he's talked about

is the impact of fatherlessness on shootings, on school shootings primarily by white kids, on gang activity that are primarily by minority kids in inner city neighborhoods. And you have a lot of callousness, frankly, that is being created by fatherlessness, I think. And that lack of boundaries comes back to haunt us. And we're combining that right now with a political movement that is pure poison.

That is pure poison. And last night here in Phoenix, folks, we record this on a Friday. You hear it on Saturday. I got up this morning about 6 a.m. to a whole bunch of texts from police officers and friends that I have in the city of Phoenix because we had

Five of our officers ambushed and shot last night. And a domestic? Yeah, a domestic situation. Which is always the case, it seems like. They got called to a domestic. The first officer responding on the scene was shot and critically wounded while he tried to approach the house, ambushed. And then between that moment and when the next group of officers, four of them, arrived on scene, someone actually put a baby in a carrier on the front doorstep.

The officers went to retrieve the baby, to get the baby to safety. And it turns out that the shooter was using that baby as bait to ambush and shoot more police officers. Which just makes him the most demented evil SOB walking. Well, not walking anymore because he died. We don't know what happened at that time. It's often, in that case, a suicide by cop type situation even. Right.

But, folks, this is combining – we're combining the boy crisis. We're combining a lot of societal ills with this defund the police, anti-cop movement that is out there on the left. And here in Phoenix, we have Councilman Carlos Garcia who has led these protest groups and then was elected to the council and then elected by his colleague's vice mayor.

And that was with the vote and support of our mayor, Kate Gallego, of Councilwoman Betty Guardado, of Councilwoman Laura Pastor. I mean, this is hideous. I mean, it is absolutely hideous what is happening in this country right now. And the fact that we have politicians like these who are willing to sacrifice our officers on the altar of

of, frankly, money and support from the Twitterati left. I am beyond outraged at this point by what is happening. As a lot of you know, I am running for city council. I am running for one reason and one reason only, Chuck. And you know me. I have never wanted elected office. I still don't want it. But I am running because of what's happening to our cops, because we're losing the one councilman that we have who stood up for them loudly,

Every time. And and I am just I am sick. I was physically sick and angry this morning. I think you can hear it right now. This is something that cannot be allowed to continue. And every politician who has bowed down to this needs to be removed from office immediately. Recall them, vote them out, get them gone. I agree. I agree. I just cannot stand this anymore. So you're say you're a police recruit.

Why would you want to go to this job? We're 800 to 1,000 police short in the city of Phoenix. They don't have the support of most of the city council. I mean, they'll give lip service. They do. But their actions speak louder than words. We talked last week with our guest, the president of the Sergeant and Lieutenant Association of Phoenix Police. Ben Leshner, who's fantastic. Ben Leshner. And we talked about the effects of this on families.

If you're the families, I mean, first, you have that officer arriving solo on the scene. Why? Because we don't have enough cops. We can't put them two in a vehicle. We don't have the ability to get enough on the street where we can respond effectively. And so this guy gets shot and he's bleeding out on this doorstep trying to get to cover. And there's no one else there to back him up. And then when we do get there, this guy has time to set up an ambush.

This is on the politicians of the city of Phoenix. What can the state of Arizona do to help with the recruitment in these issues? Or is it just purely a city issue? Well, I think there are things the state can do. I mean, we've seen Governor DeSantis. We've seen Governor Abbott in Texas do things like put out bonuses, put money up there to say, hey, you know, if you recruit these cops, we'll throw them a bonus from the state. They've given retention bonuses, those kinds of things. And money's part of it. But as you heard from Ben last week,

The political support is the big issue right now. Cops are hesitant in a society with guns. Sometimes there are going to be mistakes made. But at the end of the day, cops cannot be forced by their politicians to hesitate in a lethal situation. No. And that's what's happening. And they're getting killed. And I am I am so beyond over it. I don't even know what else to tell you.

Well, folks, if you support law enforcement, you need to let your feelings be known to those who you elect to office. Yes. Call them up, write them, tell them to stop this madness. We need to support our law enforcement. It doesn't mean reform. It doesn't mean excusing bad behavior. It doesn't mean the system's perfect. It doesn't excuse bad behavior by a cop, and those need to be punished quarterly. But we're seeing a group of people who take a broad perspective.

paintbrush and just do the stroke and say they're all XYZ and it's just a lie. Whereas supermajority of these folks are good, honest, doing the work that needs to be done to keep our city safe. And unless you have safe cities, there's total chaos. There's no room for economic growth. There's no education. There's nothing. And this is the poorest neighborhoods are suffering the most. Yes.

There is no reason – this isn't about racism. This isn't about equity. This isn't about money. This is about safety and fairness and what it's like to live in a community that has no law and order because look around this planet. There is not one decent place to live where law and order doesn't rule. Yeah.

Absolutely right. Let's end this in a little bit of a different note. Yes. I'm sorry. I'm going to have to take a deep breath before we go here. So, Kylie Kipper, I just read that somebody bet $5 million on the Bengals. Is that you by chance? That's absolutely not me. If I had $5 million, I probably wouldn't be spending it on gambling. Okay.

Wait, wait, wait. She says this and she has to pause and she gives us that look. I think if I were a CIA-trained interrogator, I would assume that was a lie. So just as we wrap up here and time is out, who wins the Super Bowl?

Well, I want the Bengals. That's not what we asked. Okay, who wins? Do they beat, do they cover the spread? I think the Rams will win. Do they cover the spread? Well, so wait. Is it four or three? I don't know the spread right now. I haven't done my research into that. You're the one with five apps, gambling apps in the office. So who does it? You tell us. That is true, but

I had to focus on one sport at a time, and right now it's the waste management. And you're failing miserably on that, correct? You picked a Norwegian? Was it Norwegian you picked? Yeah, I picked a Norwegian. You never pick a Norwegian on anything but winter sports. Anything besides that, you don't pick a Norwegian. We all know that. You know they're going to melt in the sun when they get to Scottsdale. This is freaking predictable. Okay, I did my research. I read he has like a 77% accuracy shot. I don't know what that means, but it sounds like a good number.

But she bet on it nonetheless. Nonetheless. Look, Chuck, all I'm saying is, hang on, hang on. This is really an indictment on the ASU education system. Yes, it is. I think we need to get her prediction for who's going to win the Super Bowl and who she's betting on. So, folks, you bet on whoever she says. Yes. Whoever else. Yeah, you go the opposite direction. The West is the West Benjamin Open. Who should they not bet on right now? Don't bet on Victor Hovland. From Norway. From Norway. I did do top 10 for a couple Americans, and they're not doing so hot either. So, like...

So what we will do on Broken Potholes probably, we should probably start putting on the website, Kylie's picks, pick the opposite. Yes. It was the same with Fantasy. Like if I was playing someone and I truly thought I had really good players, they would do so bad and the other team would do like really good. Even though their team sucks. Yeah.

They would just have the best week, and it's only against me. See, this is why I've always believed that when you're in a big office, what you need to do if you're in a fantasy league is go and have the woman who picks on something like how they look in their playing papers. They usually do the best. They win everything. I know. So I was on fire last year. You know, I picked...

the Super Bowl for Tom Brady to throw to Gronkowski. I hit that. And then right after that, I played the March Madness and I won my bracket. So I was like, you know what? Let's give this a shot. You won the bracket? Yeah. Can we give you... Truly unknowing nothing. I picked the Baylor team. Can we give you the address for Gambling Anonymous? Because I think this may be necessary at this point. If you're on the apps longer than 30 minutes, it puts up the number for you. Okay. Call it.

I mean, seriously, no. I think you need to be calling that number. So just briefly here, what's the worst app? Oh, Win. Sorry, Win. But it's the Win app. Okay. Well, folks, thanks a million for this week. We hope you enjoyed our guest and discussing fatherhood. And if you're a father, be a father. Yep. And you know what, Chuck? What I want to do, I'm going to buy another copy of Dr. Farrell's book. And, folks, if you're out there listening to this, go on Twitter.

retweet the interview with Dr. Farrell. If you retweet the interview, we'll put you in a little drawing and I will send you that book if you're the name drawn. And I'd like to do that, I think, going forward with all the authors we have on. I think that's something that would be fun. Folks, have a great week and go Bengals.

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