Why Modern Parenting Is Creating a Mental Health Crisis (ft. Erica Komisar)

0:00 Children are born neurologically and emotionally fragile. They are born not resilient and they're born feeling very frightened and unsafe. >> We decided to teach women that you will be more powerful in a career with people who don't care about you than you will by shaping the entire destiny of the human race. >> Who will be sitting by your bed when you die? Will it be your boss or your co-workers? or is it going to be the people that you took time away from your work to be with to love?

0:30 >> I think motherhood is one of the most important jobs in the entire world. >> >> Erica, it is wonderful to talk to you. You are one of the few people I know who is as serious about making sure your children have somebody in the home as I am. Right. You talk extensively about how important it is to have a mother with those children. Just for context, I've been married 17 years. My wife and I right now are expecting baby number six. she stays at home and works harder than I do because I'm only out in the world working and she has five young babies and one on the way to take care of. I think motherhood is one of the most important jobs in the entire world and I don't think that we give it any credit at all. Can you please talk to our audience here today? A lot of them are women themselves or they'd like to be and I know you talk a lot about this the stigma that motherhood faces today.

1:36 Can you open up and tell us what people are facing with that? Well, I mean, I think somewhere along the way, we lost the thread that life has seasons to it. That there are many seasons to life, particularly for women, maybe more seasons to life than for men. because we have a short window in which we can bear children. And so, the idea is not that women can't work and have brilliant careers outside the home, but that in the years that if you choose to have children, because again, you don't have to choose to have children to have a meaningful life, but if you do choose to have children, then they don't they need to be cared for. And so, the concept is that the first three years from 0 to three, as you know, and I'm sure you've talked to your audience about is a critical period of brain development.

2:29 And basically children are born neurologically and emotionally fragile. they are born not resilient. it and they're born feeling very frightened and unsafe. And so it's only by being there physically and emotionally and providing them with soothing them from moment to moment when they're in distress and providing them with a sense of safety in a world that feels very unsafe to them. that after three years of consistently providing them with that comfort and and that feeling of safety, can they internalize that feeling of safety and go out into the world and carry it with them? And you know, again, we've lost the thread because at some point we told women that mothering, well, first of all, that life isn't full of seasons, that it's just one linear season. you know you grow up, you go to school, you get a good job, you make lots of money and children are an accessory to your life. They are a sideline not the important part and and so and that careers and careerism and materialism was more important. And so therefore women started to believe it. they started to believe that work outside the home in those critical years when your children need you was not valuable work. and so once you do that to society, to women, to men too because the men have to support their women, once you tell young men that that nurturing is not important work and that anybody can do it and it's funible and then you destroy the the instinctual bonds between parents and their children. and so yeah, we lost the thread that that mothering is meaningful work to be admired, to be lifted up, to be to be encouraged and supported by families, by friends, by society at large.

4:30 >> I agree with that. I would even go so far as to say that the job of the masculine itself actually is to provide a safe shelter for the mothering to take place. I think the the mothering aspect is the most important and sacred role that a person probably can have because you are crafting the nervous systems of the next generation. You're growing their capabilities. You're enhancing their their neural pathways so that they will even be able to work with other human beings. there's there's an old saying, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. And somewhere we along the way we we decided to teach women that you will be more powerful in a career with people who don't care about you than you will by shaping the entire destiny of the human race. And I think that that is a story that we definitely need to bring back.

5:17 There's another aspect there though that you touched on very importantly which is the the job of the man to take care of and provide and help. One thing that I think I've seen, I'd love to get your take on this, is seemingly over the last four or five generations, men have not done their job, and this is not to beat up on men. I think that we lost a generation of men in World War I. The lost generation lost them physically, but also mentally, emotionally, spiritually. They they they were destroyed whether they came back or not.

5:46 World War II was another meat grinder where we lost a lot of men. I think the transmission of mission and purpose and knowledge was also broken up pretty badly during those times. And as we lost so many men and they began checking out, I think that women have, as they always have and they're excellent at doing, women adapted. Right? For the last four generations, we see the the transmission of a message that says don't don't rely on men. For some reason, they are letting us down. For some reason, they are not here. They are dying sometimes or they are checking out or they're betraying us. don't trust them anymore.

6:19 So, you see a network of women teaching the next generation to be fearful. I'm wondering if that's one reason that women today are so vulnerable to the message that motherhood is bad. Not not just because they believe it naively, but but maybe part of them wants to believe it so that they don't step into a role of ultimate vulnerability like that. What do you think? >> Well, it's it's true. We told we told women not to depend on men and we told men that we didn't need them and we all need to be needed. And so we do need them when we raise young children. we need them because if we're going to take that very precious time as a primary attachment figure, we need to be loved and supported and admired and held up.

7:08 but supported and so we do need men as women and so this this kind of message of I don't know self-sufficiency and independence and self-determination for women although it's an important message for women to know that they too could have some of the things that men had. but what actually it's it's interesting because I think there were many important messages in the feminist movement, but I think what it really did is it said men are better than women and women should be more like men.

7:44 in fact, one would say that that that was the wrong message. the message is that women are valuable in their own unique way and their work is as valuable as men's work. and should be, you know, again because women weren't remunerated with money. it it today money is so important. It's become the most important kind of transactional thing. And so, you know, if you don't make money, then you're not important.

8:16 then you're not valuable to society, right? So, it it did have to do with women basically not wanting to depend on on men. And you know, again, I I think I do deal with women who have been dependent and have gone through disappointing relationships and divorces, and they'll come to me, too. And and I think there's there is a lot to be learned about women needing security. That also means financial security. And so, you know, maybe what this is driving us towards eventually is that women do need some kind of financial security in marriages that is separate than their husbands. I've always said that if we could, you know, have a system where women are given their own separate savings accounts, you know, that when their husbands earn money, there's something of their own that makes them feel secure. But but yeah, we gave we we gave the wrong messaging to both women and men. One that that we didn't need each other, that women could just do fine on their own, that they didn't need men. And that's that's a message that destroys relationships. It destroyed marital relationships. And it also diminished men's role because you're right, men's role was to protect and defend and provide. and so when that was taken away from them, a lot of men became confused and disoriented and even depressed.

9:45 >> I agree with that. Actually, I agree with everything you just said to be honest with you. in particular, in very particular, I think that this aspect of giving a woman financial security apart from her husband is incredibly important. That's something I have a lot of clients come to me and a lot of them are wellto-d do and they're considering getting married and the the men often in their 30s or so, sometimes in their early 40s will say, you know, my my fiance was talking to me and she's very nervous about letting go of her job or or selling her business or whatever it is and becoming a mom and a stay-at-home mom and I'm I don't know how to handle this, Adam. She see it seems like she's going for a money grab because she's asking me how to build financial security that she can rely on even if our relationship goes ugly. And I tell them two things. I say, "Well, you should have a prenuptual agreement that protects the woman." Number one, we need a marriage contract that is protecting of both sides. Do it when the sun is shining so that when it's raining and ugly, you don't have to figure out an agreement then between your angry lawyers. And number two, I think that the practice of giving women jewelry every year on your anniversary or for every special event, that is wearable money. And I think that we've we've drifted away from that as well. But I remember my grandmother on my father's side, she would proudly open her jewelry box and show us the jewelry that she had and tell us which anniversary it was for that her husband had purchased it for. And then she was very proud, I remember this, she was very proud to say, "I never had to spend any of this." And that was so important because he had provided for her financially so that even after his death, she had money essentially that she never had to dip into because he provided for her on dual areas. That's why she had trusted him so much. That that really resonated with me and I tried that practice with my wife today to make sure that god forbid if something happened to me tomorrow, she'd be financially sound. But by the same token, I don't want her to just feel like she has to keep me happy or she won't be safe. her happiness, her safety should not be contingent on my happiness or even the well-being of our marriage.

11:45 She should always be safe. That's part of my job, I think, as well. Does that does that practice does that set up sit well with you? >> So, I don't know if do you know what a cuba is? It's the Jewish marital contract. And so, >> I know the concept, I know the name. >> Jews have been using those contracts for thousands of years. And, you know, the old ones say kind of things that are outdated now. you know five pigs and well not pigs because Jews didn't but five goats and 12 sheep and you know and and my do these are my daughter's sheep these aren't your sheep and so she'll bring them to the marriage but they belong to my daughter you know sort of so I think prenups can be seen as as threatening things or they could just be seen as as you say marital contracts that that set up a structure so women feel financially secure because it may be that a lot of what's happening too is that women feel so insecure because 50% of marriages end in divorce. you know I've written a book about how to how to manage raising healthy and resilient children even if you're getting a divorce or you're separated.

13:00 >> Very good book by the way. I recommend everyone go read that book immediately because it's groundbreaking >> and it's coming out in in March. And the thing is it's it but the idea is that women do need to feel secure when marriages end. They you know and eventually many of them will end. Yeah. >> Not all of them. And and women need to feel financially secure if they're going to take what they consider to be a risk to stay home with their children >> and sort of think of life in seasons.

13:30 where I can have a successful career and maybe even put money away when I'm in my early 20s and in my 20s I have a savings and I put money away and then I take some time off and I spend with my children and I relax into being a mother or I work less in a less demanding job and my husband still puts money into my pension and I I have a pension for being a mother and that will provide for me should anything happen to you let's Okay. So, yeah, I don't see any problem with contracts between men and women. I I don't think it dromanticizes anything. you know, I it's it's interesting because marriage is is a practical thing, too. There's a practical part of it. as you can see from the young people today, I don't know if you know, but the idea of going out and buying a ring is no longer something that men go out and do in a in a private and secret way to surprise their brides. The brides and the grooms go out and buy rings together and choose, you know, it's almost like buying an asset together. So marriages are practical, too. So I think what if women felt more secure, I think there is an aspect of financial security. If they felt more secure, maybe they would make and if their husbands supported them emotionally and said, "It's okay to take time off. I support you in this." I think more women would stay home with their children in those early years at least.

14:59 >> What you just said, I think, would solve the crisis, the the birth rate crisis here in America, to be honest with you, because we see that among women who don't have children, right? I hesitate to use the phrase childless, right? That's that's a label. But among women who end up not having children someday, the research shows that only 10% of them chose not to. And 90% of them actually wanted children, but it didn't happen. And for the majority of those, it's because they were spending time building a career. And then they tried to get involved with a man and it didn't go well. And maybe she was anxiously attached and and catered to an avoidant man for too long. I get a lot of those at year eight when they say, "Adam, we've been dating for eight years. When is a good time to bring up commitment?"

15:38 Right? Kind of things. It happens a lot. but they're they're taught women are taught nowadays especially do not get married in your 20s. Do not have children in your early 30s. Wait till your late 30s early 40s to even begin thinking about romance almost today. Begin building much much much later. And then the odds are very I don't want to say slim but the odds are not good of finding a good successful partner that fast to then build that structure together because they're also taught date for at least 2 3 4 years before you even think about getting married because only a fool would rush in so to speak and then you're waiting for another 3 four years to have kids. By the time you're 45 that's when a lot of women nowadays start. So I I think that if we had a system where women felt fully safe and I do believe it's the man's job to provide all levels of safety for a woman. That is our our very essence our being. If we don't and we are not operating as a man if we could do that that would solve the birth rate crisis. I think I think women would joyfully come back to having families because it seems like the majority of women do want them and want families and children. They just don't know how to how to admit that they want them. Maybe I think the stigma like you said also drives them away from it a little bit.

16:54 >> Well, there is also the issue I'll bring this up. I'll give you another statistic that 60% of women in America, 66% in the UK, 60% in America would stay home with their children in the early years if they had the financial and emotional support to do so. So, what does that mean? I mean, we live in a country that does not provide paid leave when every other country in the world provides some kind of national paid leave. State by state, there's a little bit of paid leave, like New York is starting to give some some paid leave. But the only thing that we have in America is something called family leave. So, family leave means it's unpaid leave. But the in other words, employers are forced to hold your job for three months. That's not paid leave. And for a family who's struggling paycheck to paycheck, they don't have the same choices as other families who are not struggling. And you know, I know there's this whole issue of affordability now in America, but the truth is that most people are living, there are statistics to show most people in America are living paycheck to paycheck and depending on two incomes.

18:00 So somewhere along the way, we also got lost. I had someone from one of the think tanks say to me that you know because I was talking to him about this and he said you know the problem also is that our expectations of material of a material life have changed in the last 50 years. So you know it used to be that people expected couples expected to have a small house or a small apartment. They were lucky if they had one car and and the idea was small was good and and you could have small and manageable and today he said a 1500 square foot house is now a 3,000 square foot house. a onecar family is now a twocar a threecar family. even middle class families. So the idea that you know new sneakers every 3 months and new clothes every season for your children, going to Target, going to Walmart, you know this idea of we really have changed our expectations too about materialism. But there really are people who are living paycheck to paycheck and without that paid leave, those mothers are not going to have the option to stay home. so you know I I I love this country but I also understand that we are in this way the most univilized country in the world.

19:25 >> I remember so I I have five children currently six is on the way. And when I first started having children with my wife I was working at a at a different job very different job than I'm doing today. And there was no paternity leave. It it was a fight even to get FMLA family leave even for a week. They could barely even spare me one week of unpaid time to just be with my wife and child, to try to get her settled in, to try to get her home from the hospital, to learn how to change diapers myself. One week unpaid. It hurt our family financially so bad at the time, even for me to have half of a paycheck essentially come in. It was devastating. It's it's just unfixable in that regard. There's things to be done certainly. and I don't want to put all the burden on men of just go make more money. That's certainly not the answer here. We have we have to overhaul our whole culture if we are going to support motherhood and fatherhood. I would love to talk with you then as a father myself. We've talked in in good ways here about mothers. I would love to hear positive things about fathers as well. You have some great material on the role of fathers which I was delighted by the way to see. When I went through graduate school, I was a licensed marriage and family therapist for many years. When I went through graduate school, I'll never forget cracking open the family systems book and opening it up to a gigantic chapter on motherhood with multiple pieces sprinkled throughout the book. It's the most important thing in the world. And then I looked and I said, "Well, where's where's fathers?" And I had to go back to the index because there was no chapter on them. And they had one page and I opened it up and it was twothirds of a page about fathers somewhere back in in in the systems generic systems book talking about discipline and how to not be absent from your children. That was basically it. Fathers are maybe going to be there. That's pretty much it. And that was soul crushing to me.

21:14 And I I pointed it out to my teacher at the time and they they just stared at me blankly and said, "So mothers are more important." And I said, 'But fathers, surely fathers have something to do with the process. And they said, 'Well, yeah, you figure that as you go. That was it. That was the answer. So, as a father myself, I I see my role as very vital. And I I don't I don't think mothers or fathers are more. I I think that we're meant The reason a child has both is because we're meant to link together like that. What do you see as the role of fatherhood in even those first three years? because too many fathers say I don't have a role in the first three years.

21:53 >> So you know people after I wrote my first book about mothering asked why don't you write a book about fathering and I said because I have lots of good examples. I mean the reason I write books is if there are no really wonderful books that I can refer my patients to. and Warren Ferrell wrote a beautiful book about about fathers. And there's a number of really good books about men and the importance of fathers. So I felt like you know there had been it had been said but I'll say it again which is fathers are if we want to talk about equality we could say they are we are equal but different but our value is both incredibly important to children and raising children. and that's a radical thing to say today because there's so many women raising children alone either inadvertently or by choice. there's so many gay parents raising children and to say that you know fathers and mothers are both very important to children. they serve different functions. they are different hormonally and in terms of their nurturing behaviors related to their hormones. So mothers because of so much oxytocin if a mother is healthy that she sort of passes back and forth between the baby. There's a lot of what we call sensitive empathic nurturing which is mothers are very attuned to the distress of babies.

23:21 and fathers have a lot of something called vasop prein neurotransmitter that makes them very very much into protective and aggressive behavior towards children meaning their nurturing behaviors are to protect their children. So, you know, we are mammals and so mammals who are males, they're going to protect their the mothers and the children from predators and and and from harm. And so they're they're both important functions. The other thing that fathers are really important for is in the separation process. So, with all of these mothers that are attaching to their babies and and raising children as single mothers, we're finding a lot of difficulty with those mothers separating because the fathers were the ones who lured the baby away from the mother at the at the appropriate time and said, you know, come into the swimming pool.

24:12 The water's fine. Let's go play. Leave mommy. You're okay. You can try that. You can take that risk, you know. And the mother is sitting in the sidelines going, "Oh no, the monkey bars." and the father's going, "It's okay. It's okay. He's got to take a risk." And so this kind of yin and yang of parenting which allowed for the mother and respected the mother's unique role in as a primary attachment figure, but then also respected the father's unique role as as the love object of separation. So, you know, of play, of building resilience through play, of teaching children regulation of certain emotions like aggression and excitement. I mean, fathers really through their own modeling of the behavior. They teach children, particularly little boys, but little girls too, how to regulate aggression, how to regulate anger, how to regulate excitement.

25:11 just by how they regulate it, they watch their father. So fathers will play rough and physical, but they won't go over the line if they're healthy. So those fathers will, you know, get to a certain point, but then pull back or they'll get angry without getting enraged. they'll get excited without being over-the-top excited, so their bodies aren't out of control. And so that's the kind of modeling and interacting that fathers do that helps helps children to learn these things.

25:42 Whereas mothers are doing the the the regulation of emotions like sadness and fear and distress, fathers are much more the objects of play. And so, you know, when fathers are absent, there are a lot of issues that we're seeing. little boys go to school, there's more incidents of behavioral issues and aggressive signs of early aggression. you know there's there there are more more challenges particularly for little boys when fathers aren't present.

26:14 >> I think I I read some research that indicates that the majority of societal challenges we're having actually might stem back largely to fatherlessness in the homes and they're indicating that at least half of children now today are being raised in households that don't include a father or or at least are in split households. Right? We're seeing a tremendous rise in that. most of the epidemics we're facing behaviorally, mental illness challenges and all of those experiences. I saw something on your your Instagram reel recently where you were speaking at a conference and talking about mental illness rates and children vastly increasing because of these difficulties we're having. Can you talk to us a little bit about that? The link between mental illness and mental disorder challenges and parenting issues in the home.

26:58 Well, I mean, you speak about attachment disorders, I know, a lot in in adults and and relationships and and and so, you know, attachment issues obviously start very young from birth and you know, essentially secure attachment is the foundation for mental health. So, I can't say it more plainly than that, that you want to raise a securely attached child if you want them to go out into the world, feeling safe, feeling secure, being able to regulate their emotions, being able to cope with adversity in the future, and and to find love and be loved. And that's that's the plainest I can say it.

27:42 when you raise a child who does not feel secure because either you are not physically or emotionally present enough in those early years in the first three years because we know in that critical period of development 85% of your right brain or your social emotional brain is developed and it's not until three years of age that all of these wonderful things that are related to emotional security are internalized by a child. So they carry it with them into life. and so yeah, it's secure attachment is critical to mental health.

28:19 And when we don't have secure attachment, we have to develop as children, we have to develop pathological defenses that help us to cope with the absence of that person that we call mother or the our primary attachment figure who is the center of our universe and provides us with that sense of security. So our sense of security comes from that go-to person at first. It's not until 3 years that it's internalized and we carry that person with us wherever we go whether they're physically there or not. so yeah that that that attachment security is critical. So if you don't have it then it leads to things then we're seeing that those attachment disorders avoidant attachment disorders the ambivalent anxious attachment the disorganized they all lead to and are correlated with different forms of mental illness different inabilities to relate to others in a healthy way.

29:24 to emotional dysregulation and disorders of emotional dysregulation like depression, anxiety, attentional issues, behavioral problems, personality disorders. These are all related to emotional regulation. So what we're doing is we're medicating our children and our adults because we never built into those children who then became young adults and adults a sense of emotional security. We abandoned that and instead in its place is insecurity and that insecurity is then correlated with mental illness.

30:03 >> I fully agree with that. I I tried to trace out through some of my work for people exactly how generalized anxiety disorder, bipolar disorders one and two, even schizophrenia can be mapped often back to this is how I adapt to the stress in my environment. This is how my system manages when I feel so unsafe that I don't believe I am even going to survive. This is how I adapt. I I I don't like the framework that people often use of attachment wounds or healing because these are like you said adaptations. These are adaptations that we are correctly adapted to an environment that we are no longer currently in which is the challenge of now I'm inappropriately adapted to an environment that I'm not I'm not in anymore. But one thing that I have learned a lot is that loneliness especially is tied into these these adaptations.

30:53 >> We learn that we will never bond with other people. I love you brought up vasop prein. We talk about it constantly on this show. I feel like I I feel like I say vas of Preston about every other sentence most days. it seems to be something we have to be initiated into because it has a couple of layers to it. One, we have to we have to comprehend that it's possible to collaborate with other people to solve problems. We have to comprehend that it's possible to live in relation to someone in a way that is safe and protective. We as fathers I recall myself and and many of my clients, they often don't feel bonded to their child in the first six months of life. Not that they don't love them, but bonded to them in the same way. And they watch the mother bond through oxytocin and breastfeeding and nurturing and hugging. I'll always remember my wife with our first child holding the baby in the hospital bed and looking at me and saying, "Isn't he so beautiful?" And I look down and there's this little like sort of like a monkey lizard kind of like looking at me. And I was I was I was looking at him and looking at her and she goes, "Isn't he the most beautiful thing?" And at the moment, it didn't Yes, I suppose, you know, he's he's quite wonderful. But I I'll always remember about 6 months later, he was able to sit up a bit more. He was able to kind of move a bit and I could start teaching him things. And through teaching was where I began to bond with him. And that's really what helped me feel a a deeper human connection to him.

32:16 I loved him since before he was born. I was waiting for him to come out. I I I got a little choked up. I wept a little bit when he was born because I was so glad he was here. But but the human connection wasn't there until I was able to teach him. And as we have progressed, my moments and my times teaching him have been actually some of the most treasured memories I hold. And I think we are building vases prein. I'm guiding. I'm teaching. I'm protecting.

32:39 I'm overcoming challenges. I'm helping him overcome challenges. and I'm initiating him into a sort of not not uniquely masculine but but very masculine at the same time bonding protocols. I see a lot of men today who don't know how to build male friendships. They shy away from male friendships. They shy away from the roughness of it, the accountability of it. They shy away from the teachings of it. And then they don't actually talk to their male companions or elder males about challenges they're experiencing.

33:07 So then they can't troubleshoot with them. They can't build solutions with them. A lot of men therefore I think are becoming very depressed and very shut off. We see the the self harm rates going through the roof for young men even more so today. I really think that's an initiation into vasopressin that's missing in fatherhood. Does that resonate with you? Does that make sense? >> I do. I do. And I want to go back to the early days just because you mentioned it. So, I'll say that I think there there was a time when fathers didn't physically hold their babies because I think they felt a little fearful.

33:43 They were so fragile or they just said, you know, it's just the woman's job and so I don't do diapers and I don't bathe the baby and I don't hold the baby. What we know is that as I said, there were good things that came out of the feminist movement. One of the good things is that women who women could be a little bit more like men in certain ways and men could be a little bit more like women. And so it what we know is that men can produce oxytocin when they hold their babies or nurture their babies. It comes from a different part of the brain. And it doesn't make them sensitive empathic nurturers. It makes them playful.

34:17 >> Yes. >> And so skin-to-skin contact with the father. You said, "What can a father do to bond with a baby early?" and and he can hold his baby what to give the mother relief because mothers need relief from holding babies and by holding the baby and making skin taking his t-shirt off and having skin-to-skin contact with that baby. It might not make him look at that baby and go, "Oh, honey, can I soothe you in distress and give you the breast?" Because he doesn't have one anyway. but it it it will make the father play with the baby. And so that playful relationship is bonding because it's the beginning of a playful connection to the baby that will be a kind of buddy relationship. So fathers are buddies with their children under the age of three. And then when the separation starts around 18 months, then they serve that function of the vasopress and helping the kids to play and take risks and and play and separate a little. So I think there's a lot that fathers can do to bond with their babies early. I think but it isn't the same as mothers. And so that's where we get confused because when it becomes a competition between mothers and fathers to see who the baby loves more in a certain way or and that's what's happened is that we've lost the whole you'd say we've lost the plot which is that raising children has always been a team exercise.

35:50 think of a corporation. You only have one CEO, but then you have a CFO and a COO and you have a head of marketing and they do different things, but they're all critical to the to the to the organization. And so, I think we've sort of lost the plot in that way because now women and men compete, I'm finding sort of a competitive thing about raising children. And that then I hate to say it bleeds over into other things. It bleeds over when parents get divorced. It bleeds over into custody battles for very young children where fathers say, "I can do the same thing as the mother." Even though the baby's breastfeeding and sleeping with the mother and I'm the mother's body all the time, the father then says, "Well, I'm I'm the competition for the mother. I can instead of saying, wait a second, this is a very young baby. I'm going to let this baby live with the mother and be breastfed." So I want to ensure this emotional security but I'm going to come every day and play with that baby and I'm going to hold that baby and so and then later what are the repercussions later vasop prein is it it is the bonding hormone for men and it does produce this protective aggressive relationship but it also is the way that men nurture and so you take the nurturing out of the relationship and you have a vacuum and what what it is what what then fills that vacuum can be aggression, can be violence, can be conflict. I'm I don't know if you say this to the couples that you used to treat as a therapist or on this show, but I always say this to couples when they come to see me. If the sex goes out of a marriage, if the romance goes out of a marriage, so there's aggression in a marital relationship, healthy aggression, teasing aggression that's expressed through different behaviors.

37:46 And for parents and children is through play. Through fathers and children, it's play. Through couples, it's through sex. When there's a sexless marriage, it leaves a vacuum. And that vacuum is then filled with hostility and aggression that's not healthy. if it's not sublimated into sex or teasing or loving or and so this is what happens when you asked about older children and vasopressin it leaves a vacuum and that vacuum is then filled with stuff that's not so good >> right we start binging dopamine we are susceptible to loneliness to anxieties we know that when we have high levels of oxytocin it stimulates high levels of GABA which then suppresses cortisol manages our nervous system so one of the best things a father can do. And one thing that I teach most of my clients is the man needs to be physically holding his wife, physically holding her every single day nonsexually to stimulate as much oxytocin as possible to then stimulate GABA in her so that her nervous system is calm and regulated and then she's better in herself. She's better for their children. She's better with him and more receptive for sex. But if he's not physically taking time number one to regulate his own nervous system to hold her otherwise he's just holding her and grinding his teeth and st it's not going to calm her. Be calm and regulated. Hold her and help her be calm and regulated. She in turn can hold your child. Let the oxytocin flow down through your family. Most important thing a man can do. Emotional safety as well. Emotional safety meaning safety for her to have emotions and safety for her to be protected from your emotions.

39:23 Not not that you don't have them. who must have them. But to discipline your emotions, as you said, to let them see anger, but not let them feel anger. Those are two different things as well. Children need to see when they make you angry and and and give you an anger response, I should say, at least when they provoke an anger response, but they shouldn't feel your wrath. You shouldn't be punishing them. You should be teaching them. Even your even your emotions must be teaching tools. And this leads to something very important.

39:48 You said something so beautiful, right? We have different roles inside a company. Everybody has a different a different seauite executive role. I when I work with couples now I do I coach them. I have something called the CEO and the COO model of marriage. Equal as co-founders, equal co-founders, and equal in value, different in specialization, right? The man operates most often as the CEO. Vision, clarity, putting out fires, running at the challenges, head first, right? Into the wall kind of, so to speak, over and over and over, but endlessly responsive to the need of his organization and willing to step into the line of fire again and again. That's the CEO's job. The COO should be protected and buffered from any of that stress inside the company so that they can focus purely on optimizing operations, on harmony, on efficiency, on inside the system, even the morale of everybody involved, the wife operating as the COO. She should not be on the front line with stress. She should be buffered from it as much as possible.

40:49 However, everybody out there listening to that, if you're cringing a little bit for a moment, remember that she is not the assistant running and fetching the CEO CEO's coffee. She is a full executive co-equal in foundership, different in specialization, working effectively together with him to build the systems that will maintain their family. And the second aspect, and I think where we've lost the thread, is so much of the time we end up trying to compete about who does our child love more or how am I feeling right now or have we had sex this week or am I currently happy or or does my kid like me right now in the next 5 minutes or should I, you know, should I give them an ice cream cone to make them like me?

41:25 Should I not discipline them so that we're still friends? The plot we've lost is the larger purpose. I think most people are so focused into surviving the next week or even the next day that they're not thinking 40 years from now when their child is in middle age building their own family, their own company, everything we have lost that thread of looking at the rest of life or at legacy itself. I think that that's a big aspect. What what role do you think focusing together on legacy as a family, where does that play into this whole mix?

41:59 Well, I mean, I think we've become such a very immediate gratification kind of society. We become a society that can't think past. I mean, we have to do is look politically. Nobody can think past like today. What are my needs today? What are society's needs today? And the truth is, we have to be able to hold on to our needs today, but also think what will our needs be in the future. I mean, you know, I I think there isn't a lot of planning and strategizing for having families, which is a problem. I mean, I think there isn't a lot of asking important questions about the future when you pick a partner, which is one of the reasons I think there's there's a lot of divorce because I think people actually don't know each other very well when they marry because they don't ask really important questions about the future because if they did, they might not marry. you know so I I do think the ability to hold on to most importantly be in the present but be able to understand how the past affects the present and then be able to also plan for the future and think about the future. I think there's many parents who are so preoccupied and obsessed with their careers that all they can think about is their immediate gratification and sense of satisfaction with their work right this moment outside the home and not thinking about what that absence will do to their children three years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now. meaning I mean Aristotle's deathbed question is an important thing which is you know who will be sitting by your bed when you die. Will it be your the people that you worked with you know your boss or your co-workers? Are they going to be sitting holding your hand when you're dying? Or is it going to be the people that you took time away from your work outside the home to be with, to love, to be at at their baseball games, to be at their recital, to pick them up from school, to do homework with them, to play baseball in the backyard, to eat dinner with them, you know, talk to them about their day. Who's going to be sitting by your bed when you die? And I guarantee you're not going to be wishing that you had made more money or had a bigger promotion when you're dying.

44:32 Those aren't the things you're going to be thinking about. You're going to be with the people that you love or that love you. And if you didn't love enough in those early years with your children, I think what you'll find is that you won't get much back. >> Yes. We we we spend the first 12 years with our children chasing us and then we spend the next if we're lucky 50 to 60 years chasing them hoping that they are easy to catch. And and part of our job is making sure that they want to come back to us so we don't have to chase them as hard as we get older. One thing that I'm very inspired by Aristotle's deathbed question and it's something I've turned it into with most of my clients is the day after your funeral, the people that you love will be left behind. How would you like them to be interacting with each other? Would you like them to be supporting each other?

45:23 Would you like them to be arguing and bickering about cash and money and inheritance? Would you like them to not even speak to each other and be alone in this world? my five children, my wife and I are doing our utmost to raise them not in a way that smothers them and says you you have to serve the family but in a way that says you you five children soon to be six. You are in some ways all that you will have in this world. You you are each other's greatest assets and each other's greatest enemies at the same time. Here's how you can live together in peace. Here's how you can support each other. Let's practice that.

45:58 be, for example, we my wife and I both try to make sure that each of our children pair off with each of the other children differently at different times to play the oldest with the youngest, the boys with the girls, different experiences with each other so that they don't separate out and almost bulcanize so that they are really getting time together as as as individuals, as couples really in that regard. And what we've seen is that at first they resist they were resistant because they had they had their favorites of of who matched well among the family, right? My my two oldest daughters best friends.

46:31 It's hard to get them to separate, even go even to leave the room from each other. the boys want to punch and fight and and wrestle each other and bite each other like a couple of gorillas constantly. What we found was as we guided the children to play differently with each other was that different aspects of their personality started to grow. Instead of just being the jokester all the time, sometimes my my middle daughter, she could actually step forward as a voice of wisdom for some of the younger children instead of feeling like she had to compensate by being funny with the older ones. my oldest daughter, instead of always having to be a guide, if she stepped in just with her oldest brother, she could just relax, let her hair down, and be the youngest one in the room for a bit.

47:13 So helping them pair out differently was so important. Siblings, how important do you think it is for a family maybe to have more than one child so that they have a sibling experience? >> Well, I'm always careful to be sensitive about this because there's some people who can have more than one child. But what I would say is that siblings are a wonderful gift to children. it may not feel that way to them when they're really young and they're competing with one another and it's normal for siblings to be rivalists and you know if there's enough love and attention and presence from parents the rivalry remains rather tame most of the time you know maybe with the spikes as we say but if there isn't enough love and attention and presence from parents often siblings are really I mean if you think about it what they're really fighting as they're fighting over attention from parents. So, you know, I would say that the important thing is to recognize that sibling rivalry is normal, but if it's very excessive to reflect on whether it's actually your child's way of telling you they're not getting enough of you. because parents, particularly parents with a lot of children, can sometimes, it's like whack-a-ole, the game whack-a-ole from carnivals. kind of have to go where you're needed and then go where you're needed again and then sort of do the rounds. But sib a sibling relationship is a gift that you give to your children. it's a wonderful state of grace to be a sibling. it's a relationship as you said that you'll have once your parents pass. there's nothing quite like it. it can cause great love and intimacy and great animosity, but there's still nothing else like it. And so yeah, I would say it's very very valuable in terms of you know parents relationship with when you have so many children. I mean you want to make an effort as you said with the pairings of your children to be alone with each child and that's the hard part when you have a lot of children is not to bunch them together, right? Because we want to to make it easy on ourselves. We sort of say, "Okay guys, let's all do it as a family. Let's all be together." And the thing is, kids don't necessarily do well in that kind of family claustrophob kind of throwing people together into a big ball. They do better when their individual sort of needs are met at least some of the time.

49:44 And so like even having a date with each child to have time with them alone each week to have a meal with them alone to you know not to undervalue the value of all together. Now but yeah it's probably less important really than the individual relationship which helps that child to sustain the love they have for their siblings in the future. I love this and my wife is admittedly better at this than I am. She has a spreadsheet where she tracks the individual date nights for each child. We have a rotating system. She tells me whose night it is. I take that kid. I go spend time with them for an hour, two, three. We go to a restaurant.

50:26 Whatever we can do, she tracks it very carefully. She's so diligent and it's it is crucial. Family time. Family time they play a role. They play a character in the family. one- on-one individual time. You see who they really are and they get to develop their own identity apart from the family under your guidance and your mentorship. You get to experience them. My oldest son is a vastly different human being in a group setting. He's almost unmanageable in a group setting. He doineers. He takes over. He's right now he's at a tough age, but he is he is the largest character in the room and he feels like he needs to be. And I'm I'm trying to nurture him through that. And the way I'm nurturing him through that is when we have our one-on-one times, he is the calmst, most intellectual, most empathetic, most thoughtful individual.

51:14 We have incredible conversations. Even at 9 years old, we have fantastic conversations. And I'm I'm nurturing him through that to help him understand you don't have to be this character here right now. You can be this person and shift your role over here in our family. You don't have to fight for that. And he's he's growing into that. He's learning. He's riding the testosterone instead of it riding him a little bit. But the the individual time, I don't think without the individual time that he could grow into a healthy, robust group character. I think that he would be damaging in that aspect.

51:46 I think that siblings are crucial in that regard. I love that. Tying back to mothers a little bit, fathers are I don't want to say this carefully. Fathers are notorious for getting tunnel focus and and myself included at times. we are notorious for getting tunnel focus on providing financial safety, for thinking that there's always another task to be done, for not being able to sit down and rest because we feel like there's something we have to do. we are notorious for fixating into work and business and practical aspects. And often times we do lose sight sometimes of the emotional importance of pausing, breathing, spending that time. Sometimes it's hard to get our attention. What is the role of motherhood or or wifehood in this regard of getting fathers re-engaged?

52:36 What can what can women be doing to get men back into that system, back into the living room instead of the garage, so to speak? Well, I suppose you could say that. I don't I hate to use this word because it's it sounds critical or judgmental, and I don't mean it that way because in psychological terms, it's not a judgment. But when we feel greedy, when enough is not enough, when we're always fearful that we don't have enough money or enough resources, but we actually do.

53:10 and we're always wanting more and more and more. It's actually a sign of some pathology. So, workaholics, it's not a healthy thing and it's usually something that in a way defines some kind of early attachment issues because they never quite feel secure enough. You know, Stephven CVY used to say, you know, we can spend our lives putting out fires or we can get to the most important tasks of life, which are relationships and relationship building. So, I think there's a lot of fathers who live in fear that they're not going to have enough to provide for their families.

53:53 And maybe some of them don't have enough and that's reality and they have to keep working. But the others, you know, I would say that there's a lot of fearfulness around money too that may be based in reality, but also a lot that may not be based in reality. And so what happens when it's not based in reality and what the father's really saying is I'm feeling frightened that I will never be enough, never have enough, never be able to provide enough. It's sort of not being good enough. And that does tie back to early, you know. So I always say if your husband is a workaholic and not really present for your kids, don't let them get away with it because it's not good for them either because it's a sign that they feel in they're desperately being chased by a fear of, you know, not being enough. And so and that can lead to depression. And that's the problem that if we don't as wives, as women catch it when our men are are in such fearful states that it can if we leave it untouched, you know, and think it's not such a big deal and then your husband loses his job or he loses some money or I mean that's that's when men get very severely depressed if they feel that the only thing that makes them feel like they're enough is being providers.

55:17 There's so much more to being a man and being a father and being in a h a husband than just being a provider. And so, yeah, that's what I would say about it that women play a role in and and and in being the checks and balances for men and saying, you know, you're spending too much time working and not spending enough time with the family and not spending enough time with me. And that's sort of an old trope, right? You you're used to hearing that. But it's actually very important because if men don't diversify how they get satisfied in life with their relationships, then if they should lose their jobs, if they should stop making money, if something should happen, if they get ill and they can't make money, they fall into very very deep depressions. And so yeah, that's what I would say.

56:05 >> That's a wonderful answer. I and I reflect on my own marriage. My wife, one of the greatest gifts she's given me is to not be afraid of me and to not and to not take my crap. Both of those is I think a lot of women are either afraid of their man because they're afraid that if they provoke some sort of discomfort in him that he'll leave or a lot of women feel that the best way to be a loving partner is to reduce his friction to zero and give him no friction whatsoever so that he will sort of blossom into a greater version of himself. because life is so easy. And I think that that that is a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes a man actually grow and strengthen, right? Men men often seek friction if he's a healthy man especially. He wants to grow. His muscles only grow through carrying heavy things and through fighting and wrestling. So, one of the greatest things my wife has done for me is if I if I get off on a a too far or I'm spending too much time at work or too much time invested in projects or whatever it may be or if I'm getting too worried about something, she will get in front of me, grab me by the nose in a non non-aggress, but grab me by the nose and just shake it a little bit. Say, "Hey, where are you right now?" Just right now, where are you? Because your feet are here and I need you to spend a bit more time with this child or this child or this child. We need to make sure we're investing properly. And it's my job as a man to take that and because I've told her to do that. That's a job I assigned to her to breathe, say, "Okay, I'm going to listen to you right now at this moment. I will assume you know better than I do. We'll talk about it and let me reorient my nervous system, get back on track, and then get to a place where I'm spending time. You said that kid over there. Okay, I'll go spend time with them next." We have to be able to be not reactive. Men shouldn't be reactive, but responsive.

57:52 We should be responsive to our wife and in return our wife needs to give us something to respond to. Frictionless I I I think friction frictionless marriages are some of the worst things on the planet because they always lead to divorce. Does that make sense to you? >> Sounds like that sounds like you agree with that regard. Do you think women today should be a little more brave in their marriages and men should be a little bit more responsive?

58:17 Well, interestingly, I'm going to challenge your narrative that we talked about a corporation. Let's do it. >> I think women are more the CEOs and families and fathers are the CFOs. >> Interesting. >> And the reason I say that is because I think women are the ones who are actually making a lot of decisions about the family. They're making a lot of decisions about the well-being of the children. They're making I mean, there are sort of boots on the ground. So they're seeing things that fathers can't see because they're at work. And and so I think in the end mothers and and you and if you ask people in other countries, they would say that mothers are you know, even in countries where women seemingly have less important roles, you know, cultures in the Middle East. And if you go into their homes when they're taking off their veils, they have a lot of control in those homes. So I think yeah, women sort of make a lot of important decisions for families. but fathers really keep the boat afloat financially particularly in those years.

59:28 I mean the CFO of a company I would say is of equal importance to the CEO. they're of equal importance, but they have different roles. and so I think it's the mother who says, "Actually, Johnny might have a learning disability." Or, "Jane, I think needs piano lessons. She's, you know, she's really got some talent there." Or, you know, we haven't taken a vacation as a family and you're looking exhausted and and you haven't really got we haven't gone on a date night lately. I mean, mothers are really the CEOs. I'm going to say they make a lot of, you know, there's a lot going on there. But that that means that that that's sort of the analogy of you can be of equal power but have different roles. And I think that's the concept.

60:16 >> I think that it is so crucial that we understand that there is no competition between men and women. There is no competition. If you are in one company, >> executives, it must be executives in a company don't compete against each other at all. If they do, that company goes bankrupt. And the same way that your marriage will go bankrupt if you're not collaborating and unified together as a team. >> You can have disagreements. Actually, the healthiest companies do have disagreements. An open dialogue, but respectful unified front where you are working together toward a shared purpose. It is non-negotiable. I think we need to be bringing that back. And if if we have to teach men and women how to do that again and bring them back to the table so that they can trust each other enough to work as a company, then so be it. I think that we've given them a great framework here today to understand what that is supposed to look like. Do you have any last thoughts to throw into the audience? And at the same time, where can they find you? Because I want them to understand everything about your work. I want them to understand everything about all the motherhood aspects that you teach. That is crucial.

61:18 I want every woman on the planet to hear it. >> So they can find me at www.comomasar.com and on there you can reach out to make an appointment with me. You can find out about speaking engagements and my writing is all on there and and you know I think you can also follow me on Twitter or you can follow me on Instagram at Erica Komasar. but you know, I want to just sort of put a plug in for a couple of things that I'm doing. One is I have a book coming out in March about divorce, as we talked about, which I think is going to help a lot of people to raise healthy children through a very difficult time. but I also started a nonprofit called detachment circles org org and that's got a website of its own and basically it's a it's a platform for education and community building around healthy child development and it's really for I found that parents who were very serious about attachment security and raising really mentally healthy children felt quite isolated because they felt that parents were so preoccupied with work outside the home and other things and and so I wanted a place where parents who really wanted to learn about child development and also find other parents who were who were raising their own children who wanted to form communities could find each other. So attachmentscircles.org is a wonderful organization and a place that you can go to find community and and learn a great deal about a lot of the things we're talking about today. So important that we have those communities because today people are more isolated than they've ever been. We think that our phone is keeping us integrated with others. We are not. We are alone biochemically everything. We are alone.

63:10 Get in contact, get connected to people. This is one of the most important things I think one of the most important fights we're going to have for the next 10 years is helping people get reintegrated with each other as we have fractured them off into their own homes and apartments now. So thank you for doing that. That is incredibly important work. Everybody out there, you know what to do. Her Instagram especially is wonderful. There is so much information on there. All those links will be down below in the show notes and the descriptions. Check them out and I will see you on the next episode of I Wish You Knew.