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mwmerch.com now. Most people are
familiar with Mum Brain, but you found
that dad's brains go through a bunch of
changes, too.
>> Exactly. Yeah. So, I've been looking at
new fathers in my lab over the last
decade plus. We've scanned men when
they're midway through their partner's
pregnancy and then again after they have
their first child. And we find that the
brain, and I should caveat, this is not
a bad thing, loses gray matter volume
across that transition to fatherhood.
So, the patterns look similar to those
that have been observed in moms, and
they seem to be of smaller magnitude.
They're more variable and they're more
tied to dad's parenting experience.
>> How does it differ from mom brain? What
are the biggest differences?
>> So, new moms lose about 2.5% of their
gray matter volume across the transition
into first time motherhood.
>> And they lose volume in parts of the
brain that are really linked to
hormones. So that includes not just the
cortex which if you think about sort of
the outer layer of brain tissue that
does a lot of our higher order thinking
and reasoning. It also includes what's
called the subcortex which contains our
amygdala our vententral stratum which
processes reward and a number of other
structures that are linked with drive
and gut feelings. Dads change mostly
just in the cortex which is that sort of
executive functioning thinking and
reasoning part of the brain. Moms show
profound changes across the whole brain.
>> And dad's changes are like I said
smaller in magnitude. So dads do 1% of
their gray matter volume. And my lab
found that this was totally tied to
dad's parenting time and investment. So,
dads who felt more bonded with their
babies before birth, they were more
motivated to take time off after birth.
They spent more day-to-day time with
kids in the first few months, and they
reported feeling more bonded and having
more pleasure in interacting with their
kids. Those dads showed the biggest
brain change.
>> How would you categorize the change in
fatherhood over the last few
generations?
>> There's been a dramatic change. So by
some estimates, dad's daily time in
parenting has tripled or even quadrupled
compared to the father knows best dads
of the 50s and 60s. So there's been a
huge uptick. And what's interesting is
that there was an inflection point
around the pandemic where men who might
have been commuting to an office and
maybe missing a lot of the day-to-day
stuff with their kids suddenly had the
experience of being hands-on parents in
a different way. And a lot of people
wondered whether that uptick would
persist and it has. So millennial dads
are spending more time with kids than
any other generation of US dads. And
there's evidence that Gen Z dads are
spending even more time than millennial
dads. So there's been a pretty dramatic
shift.
>> How does modern fathering differ from
huntergatherer societies?
>> So it's interesting. So in my book I
talk about the a model of huntergather
fatherhood, the aka which is a society
in the Congo where men spend a lot of
time within hands reach of infants and
they're very involved in infant care.
And what's unique about the AKA and this
quality is shared by a number of other
huntergatherer societies is that they
have a very egalitarian flat social
structure and there's a lot of
cooperative resource gathering. So we
know huntergatherer societies are the
context in which we spent 95% of our
human history. So they tell us something
about the environments within which we
adapted, within which we evolved.
>> And uh we know that women contributed a
ton of calories. So when people say it's
unnatural for women to work, in fact,
women have been economically productive
for most of our human history. But in
the AKA, the main form of resource
gathering is joint cooperative net
hunting. So couples work together to
gain resources for the society. And as a
result, really differentiated
specialized parenting roles don't make
very much sense, right? They would not
be economically adaptive. But you see
other models even within Africa. I talk
about another society, the keypigus,
which is a day's drive away, where there
are strict prohibitions against men
picking babies up in the first year
after birth. No way. So you'd never see
a man carrying a baby outside his own
home. They're not supposed to share a
sleeping surface with babies because
it's considered that the the manliness
of the father will disrupt the infant's
rearing and that the infant will
compromise the father's masculinity.
>> So, and this is something I talk about a
lot in my book. There's so much societal
and cultural variability around
fatherhood. What is the resource
gathering process of the second tribe?
>> Yeah. So, it's very different. It's much
more risky. It's more hazardous. It's uh
slash and burn forest forestry. And so,
it makes sense just as in the Aka it
makes sense not to specialize too
strictly. It makes sense in the kipigus
that dads are going to do most of the
economic work and moms are going to do
most of the caretaking. And to be clear,
dads are very involved with older kids.
They'll teach them how to hunt.
>> They'll teach them how to provision, but
they are not picking babies up.
>> Do you see parallels between u modern
society with more egalitarian access to
work, more female breadwinners, and the
aka? Yeah, I think there are some key
distinctions, but there there's more of
a through line, I think, between that
model of social organization and
contemporary societies, right? Because
we have women in the workforce and our
jobs no longer require upper body
strength or high risk tolerance for the
most part, right? So, women have the
opportunity to earn income and you know,
like I said, most of human history, we
were either hunter gatherers or small
family farmers. So women were
contributing to economic productivity
even within those models. But
agricultural society has different
conditions and generally demands more
specialization. There's more stability
that allows you to accumulate and store
wealth. You need armies to guard your
wealth and you end up with a less
flexible and less egalitarian social
structure. So gender roles get a little
more entrenched. I think what's
interesting about contemporary society
is that we are in flux between these
different models of what we expect from
men and women
and and men and women are changing at
different rates.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, it makes sense that
we'd need to be adaptable. So, I'm
interested in the fact that you you
choose to do the first scan of the
father's brain halfway through
pregnancy. Is there any reason to not?
Is there any concern that by doing it
partway through pregnancy that some
changes may have happened already? Would
a baseline be better? I guess you're
trying to get pregnant. You've then
decided to basically bet your study on a
bunch of people who aren't yet parents,
but we promise we're really trying hard.
>> Yeah. I think if we'd had more time and
more funding, we probably would have
done a preconception scan. Yep.
>> And so there's a really good study that
came out when I was halfway through data
collection for my dad's study. It
focuses on mothers and they were
recruited from a fertility clinic. So
they were trying to get pregnant. About
half of the mothers did and about half
of the mothers or rather about half of
the women remained non-mothers.
>> And they found that the brain changed
even during pregnancy. So we didn't have
the opportunity to do that because I was
recruiting couples who were already
willing to come into the lab
>> pregnant and I wanted mothers and
fathers to participate together. But I
think we might have seen some different
patterns if we'd started the study
earlier.
>> What happens with fathers to be when
their partners are pregnant?
>> A lot. So we see hormone changes, we see
new emotional worries and concerns, we
see couple relationship changes, we see
even sleep disruption that starts early
before the baby's born. And we don't
know exactly the time course of brain
remodeling because like I said, my scan
study started in mid-reg. We don't have
other sources of information for the
most part and so we're making our best
guess. My hunch is that what is
reorganizing the brain more than
anything else is parenting experience
and the way in which that challenges the
brain and the social demands that it
places on the brain. So my guess is that
when we're looking at fathers, we're
going to see most of the change
happening after birth. But we don't know
that for sure. We need to replicate
these studies and extend them.
>> Right. Am am I right in saying that
there's research that shows how the
relationship manages conflict impacts
how painful the child birth is?
>> Yes, my lab did that study. Yeah. So, we
brought Is is that stressing you out?
>> It's just it's it's kind of tenuous,
right? Like you've just explained that
relationship stress happens, sleep
disruption happens, and it that feels
like quite a high
bar. That's a that's a a a big impact of
pre-child
uh
like regulation.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think the bottom
line is that kids are resilient. Humans
are resilient. We have survived in all
kinds of different conditions and that's
kind of our superpower as humans is our
adaptability.
>> But it's a relatively new phenomenon for
men to be present at their baby's birth.
Right? So birth is a very social process
and that's unique for humans. So most
animals can deliver an infant solo, no
problem. Birth is fairly
straightforward. We have these
complicated, annoying human pelvises
that reshaped when we started walking
upright. And we also have these babies
with these gigantic social brains. And
so birth can be very cumbersome for
women and they often require assistance
to steer a baby out of the birth canal.
So you see in most human births there
there are helpers and in fact one theory
about why we evolved to live in
societies is so that you would have
people to assist in child birth. That's
one reason that we humans aren't just
kind of you know solo
uh you know rors right like we need to
be embedded in society so that our
babies will survive.
But the people helping with child birth
are almost always women through most of
human history. It's a midwife, it's a
grandmother, it's sisters and community
members. So it was really only in the
19th century that child birth became
really medicalized and you have doctors
in hospitals who are presiding over
child birth. Even then, dads were kept
out of the delivery room. So it was in
the 60s and 70s really that dad started
to advocate to be present during their
baby's birth. Before that moms were
under heavy anesthesia and the standard
father role was basically hang out pass
out cigars and you know get
congratulated by your buddies. Right? So
we've seen this big shift and there
hasn't been a lot of research on how the
couple affects the child birth
experience and also what is the
emotional impact for both mom and dad
when dad is present at birth. We now
expect dads to do a lot of the support
that might have been provided by
intergenerational kin in previous eras
and dads aren't necessarily trained for
that or primed for that. And so there
can be emotional fallout from witnessing
a traumatic and stressful birth. And
like you mentioned the study from my
lab, we found that when couples fought
in more negative ways during pregnancy,
the birth was more medically complex and
riskier and both members of the couple
appraised it as being more stressful.
>> That's likely just the impact of
emotional stress on a mother's body.
Therefore, the downstream impact of that
physiologically during childirth is
going to be negative.
>> Yeah. Exactly. So, we know stress,
tension, fear, pain, right? So, when
you're delivering an infant, your body
has to release and relax. You have to
allow the infant to move down through
the birth canal. If you're clenched up,
stressed, and tense, it makes it harder
and it's going to feel more painful, and
it's going to lead to more difficult
birth outcomes. What's been the impact
of having men in the delivery room? Do
you think it's been a good idea?
>> I think it's been really good for some
couples and I think it's been
challenging for others and it's become
controversial, right? So, every sports
season there's a player that can't
participate because he has to be present
at his baby's birth. And I think it's
really valuable for moms who benefit
from having a partner there to provide
support again because we don't have
these close intergenerational ties that
maybe were normative a couple
generations ago.
>> So I think having social support,
continuous social support is one of the
best ways to have a positive birth
experience. However, I think when dads
are unprepared, when they're terrified,
and when they haven't figured out how to
communicate effectively with moms, they
can have a dealerious impact on the
birth process.
>> What's couvade syndrome?
>> So, that's male pregnancy and it's a
phenomenon by which males to well, it's
a controversial thing. I talk about it a
little bit in the book. I think it's
more anecdotal than evidence-based. So
the data on it, there have been a couple
studies that have that have been done,
but I don't fully trust the results. We
actually looked at in my sample of dads.
We didn't find any associations between
hormones and dad's self-reported
pregnancy symptoms, but it's basically
like a sympathetic pregnancy. And you
see it in different cross-cultural
models. So,
men feeling like they're experiencing
nausea, pregnancy patterns of weight
gain, uh, sympathetic labor pains, and
this study that was done in a UK
hospital found that expectant dads
reported a bunch of pregnancy-l like
symptoms during their partner's
pregnancy.
>> Just empathizing, ladies. You say that
you need us to open up more. We're just
empath. I'm empathizing so much that I'm
having period pains.
>> Well, and a lot of these pains are
stress related, right? So if you think
about things like gastrointestinal
distress and you know difficulty
sleeping those are things that come when
you're really stressed and anxious
>> basically pregnant.
>> So yeah exactly
>> basically pregnant.
>> Needless to say a lot of expectant moms
are annoyed by this research because you
know only one of you is actually puking
because of the baby. The other person
might just be freaking out.
>> But I think it's interesting that we are
so contagious and we soak up the
emotional experiences of people around
us. What do you think couples should pay
attention to as they're going through
pregnancy then?
>> So, I think they need to learn how to
communicate effectively and listen to
each other. I think a lot of the time
women hear each other's birth stories
just like you're at a picnic and
everybody's telling you the gnarly story
of, you know, their third baby's birth
that got really complicated. men don't
necessarily get the opportunity to hear
about different kinds of birth
experiences or watch media that portrays
birth in realistic ways because our pop
culture conceptions are sort of bananas.
So, I think birth education that
involves fathers can be really valuable
to normalize what to expect, what is the
progress of labor going to be like, and
how can you effectively provide support
and be a calming influence. I've heard
you say if you think that having a baby
is going to fix your relationship, don't
do it.
>> Exactly. Why? Yeah. So, the studies show
a reliable drop in relationship
satisfaction around the birth of a baby.
And it's unsurprising if you think about
the challenges of adjusting to life with
a new baby. I used to joke that my
husband and I went from good time pals
to we're suddenly operating a small
business with a very disappointed
customer. Right? You [laughter] have
someone
You have someone crying around the clock
who is not pleased with anything you're
doing to comfort them. Your sleep is
disrupted and you're suddenly worrying
about money and your living arrangements
and all of these new concerns that maybe
you didn't have before.
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Okay, so why is it that becoming a
father
isn't enough. It's becoming a caregiver
that creates dad brain.
>> So, why is it that you need to actually
spend time parenting?
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. because it takes practice and
repetition to build the brain just like
anything you learn whether you're
learning an instrument or a new language
or you know you're a London taxi driver
navigating the city.
>> So I think with moms you have this kind
of high floor of investment primed and
ready to go and partially that's because
it takes so much energy to incubate a
pregnancy. It's thousands of calories.
So moms have already devoted a lot of
energetic resources to babies before
they even arrive. So in if you think
about you sort of have a caregiving dial
that can be turned up or down, moms are
turned all the way up by the time the
baby arrives. So the example I gave you
of a village where dads don't pick up
their babies in the first year. It'd be
very hard to find a village like that
made up of moms who had similar
prohibitions, right? Moms in many ways
are biologically primed to care. With
dads, it's like the dial is set more in
the middle and it can be turned up or
down depending on culture and local
contextual demands. So, I think what's
really cool about dads is that they come
equipped with the biology that makes
them ready to adapt to become sensitive
caregivers. But whether or not they turn
the dial
>> is up to them. It's up to is mom
incapacitated
is uh am I in a culture where dads are
really hands-on? So in the book I talk
about this concept of facultative
adaptation which is to say an adaptation
that comes online when needed that can
be very useful. So you think about
primates who run on four legs but if
they need to grab something they can
stand up and walk on two legs. So you
can grab more stuff if you have that
ability. If you can turn up the dial for
fatherhood, you can enrich kids lives
and you can benefit them and provide
them with better outcomes and better
odds of survival.
>> Presumably, paternity uncertainty has
got a role to play here as well. Yes.
>> You don't want to be locked in
hormonally, neurologically to raising a
child that you're not sure is yours.
>> Exactly. And one of the really unique
things about humans is we conceal our
ovulation.
>> So human males don't know for sure
whether or not they've caused a
pregnancy. So it actually incentivizes
human males to invest in courtship
because you can't just helicopter in,
have sex once, and know that you've made
a baby. You have to show up repeatedly
if you want to be sure you have very
good odds of success. And so you're
gonna show up with gifts and you're
gonna get to know that person and and so
it's adaptive to pair bond which is why
humans have really high rates of pair
bonding compared to other species.
>> So we do see that dad's prediliction to
care again can turn that dial up or down
depending on the stability of their
relationship with the baby's mother. Oh,
so a a less stable relationship with the
mother would result in a different
parenting style from the dad.
>> It could. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it would
motivate different reproductive sta
strategy.
>> Are you familiar with the Westermark
effect?
>> I don't think so.
>> It's how incest avoidance happens inside
humans. So it what's fascinating about
this is um because you don't have
there's no guarantees I suppose even
even like Haram style gorillas and stuff
don't know that the big silverback is
the one that's had the kid and not some
young upstart that's managed to sneak in
or whatever. But for the most part that
would be a little bit different. Um
what's fascinating is when you've got
like ecologically informed
uh neurological and uh behavior change,
hormonal behavior change,
>> uh it happens there's this window
between the age of like 1 and 10. And if
you see primarily your mother but also
your father giving care to another
infant,
>> Yeah.
>> you are uh grow up with a sexual
aversion to them. And what what was
interesting I I think it's a um
maybe an Indian an Indian culture uh
that they or perhaps a an Asian culture
like Far East Asian culture where they
used to find future wives for their baby
sons as infants and they'd raise them
together.
>> So you would have, you know, a
three-year-old and a three-year-old
living together. What they didn't
realize is they were basically locking
in this biological imprinting of that's
my sister.
>> So it's highly maladaptive.
>> Um but you can see where the similarity
lies here that
>> totally
>> the father's level of brain adaptation
is based on the behavior of how much
time he spends raising the child, doing
nurturing, doing caregiving. And that
means that you can go both ways. In the
same way as you could have a twin that
was born but raised separately, you
would have no like imbued sexual
aversion to them. There would be no
incest discussed
>> because the behavior that
>> brings that in. So really mothers are
the only ones that have that like locked
in contract, biological contract with
the baby. and everybody else from
brothers to sisters to aunts to uncles,
they're all kind of just learning as
they go,
>> right? So there's that natural
variability that you see in the other
parents, the people who are playing a
role in parenting. And we know that as
humans, we evolve to be alo parents. So
we're what's called cooperative
breeders, which is to say we participate
in collective care of offspring, which
is very adaptive because human babies
are so uniquely difficult to raise. We
require so much intensive care and it's
too much for any one person to provide
all of the roundthe-clock care. So, we
help each other out with parenting and
caregiving, but the extent to which dads
play a role is something that varies
based on societal context.
>> What are the behaviors that most create
dad brain? If I was to design a menu or
a daily routine to maximize that 1%
change, what would I be doing? Yeah,
you'd be picking your baby up. You'd be
caring for them. You'd probably be
sharing a sleeping surface with them.
You'd be diapering them. You'd be
feeding them. You'd be bathing them. So,
you'd be doing the kind of intensive
care that helps you really get to know a
baby and attunes you more to their
physiology and to their mind.
>> Because where we see a lot of the change
happening in men's brains is in what we
call the mentalizing network. And that's
a part of the brain that activates when
we think about other people's minds and
their intentions. It's what reads other
people's emotions. And you could think
about it as the seed of our empathy. And
so that is a dynamic part of the brain
in new dads and also in new moms in part
because when you are having to care for
an infant who cannot communicate
effectively, right, cuz they can't talk,
they just cry. You have to be able to
read their emotions and you have to be
able to problem solve to figure out what
they need. So you're getting a lot of
exercise to that empathetic part of the
brain.
>> The executive function has been tuned
down. So maybe your ability to come up
with novel solutions might be less.
>> Well, no, because I actually think you
have to problem solve quite a bit. So
your executive functioning is also going
to tune.
>> Did you not say that some of the Oh, is
it just moms that have got the executive
function tuned down?
>> No, moms. Both dads and moms. So it's
tuning up. Well, it depends on whether
you think of losing gray matter volume
as a tuneup or a tune down. Right.
Right.
>> And the jury's a little out on that. We
see volume reduction, which we think is
about pruning and becoming more
efficient.
>> What's lost?
>> Well, our short-term memory for objects
that aren't our baby. So, there's some
evidence that working memory gets
compromised. But we often use this
deficit framing when we talk about mommy
brain. like, oh, I, you know, I forgot
where I parked the car.
>> It actually looks like certain kinds of
memory are enhanced. And it's salanced
driven. So, it's memory for your baby's
smells, objects that are pertinent to
your baby. You know, rodents have to
figure out where they've stashed their
babies, like in a nest full of bedding.
So, one reason the hippocampus, which is
the part of the brain that we think of
as implicated in memory, is also really
sensitive to smell is you kind of have
to smell your way to find the baby to
retrieve your pup. So, the hippocampus
is really plastic in new moms and new
dads.
>> So, it's like our memory is actually
getting a different kind of workout, but
we're maybe losing our sharpness in some
domains and improving our functioning in
others. better able to detect what does
this small thing want? What does it
mean? Where did I leave things that are
associated with it? Bottles and and
diapers and and it itself and stuff like
that.
>> Yeah.
>> But maybe less so where did I leave the
car? Where did I leave the keys? What
does the rest of my day look like
outside of the baby orchestrating the
operations of the rest of my life?
>> Exactly. And it's also about value,
right? is what domains are we motivated
to optimize?
>> So, a lot of people find both moms and
dads that after they have kids, they
care a little bit less about achieving
at work, right? Which is not to say that
moms and dads are bad workers. If
anything, I actually think they make
great contributions to organizations
because of all the skills they
>> maybe a different domain to a
non-parent,
>> right? But priorities shift
>> y
>> and and at least in the short term
although the good news is that it
appears that having become a parent is
neuroprotective in late life. So there's
some work coming out of the UK bioank
which is this big repository of scan
studies from middle-aged and older
adults that finds that when you've had
more children you actually have better
cognitive functioning and brains that
look younger. So if you use a a machine
learning algorithm to try to figure out
how old is the brain compared to its
chronological age, people who've had
more kids up to a certain point, it tops
off at around three kids actually have
brains that the machine learning
algorithm codes as younger.
>> What's your proposed mechanism for that?
>> So I think it's about social
integration. So the fact that it shows
up in dads as well as moms tells me it's
not just pregnancy hormones, it's not
just birth experience, it's not just
breastfeeding. I think it's about and we
know this in both men and women that
being more socially connected to other
people is really important for health.
>> Even if that person is a mini version of
you.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean even more so maybe
because then you're especially attuned
to them,
>> right? It's good for longevity.
>> It could. So the the thing that's coming
to mind here is I wonder whether you
could replicate those neuroprotective
results by just having a really really
really deep friendship with one person.
And I wonder whether you could create
the same brain changes in reduction of
salience networks outside of this one
thing and increase of awareness,
attention, etc. with business or a dog.
Like if you just dedicate because if
these networks are as flexible as you
say they are, if they're as malleable as
you say they are, then it shouldn't just
be a baby that's able to trigger this.
>> Anything really vulnerable that you care
for or develop empathy for. So empathy
is a you might not develop that much
empathy for your business.
>> Maybe not or for your friend. I mean I
guess you can be very empathetic
>> but if it was a a a animal that you're
caring for.
>> Yeah. Absolutely. And I think a lot of
young people do adopt pets either in lie
of or in preparation for having babies
and you are practicing a lot of those
same kinds of skills. M is it just it's
literally just the fact that salience
outside all of the mum brain stuff all
of the dad brain stuff the things that
they are uh reporting being confused by
maybe being a little bit irritated by
those are primarily
stuff anything that's not baby related
is just a little bit less aware to me.
>> Yeah. Although you might find and and
this is true. I talked to somebody that
took a parenting class and found that it
ultimately made him a much better
manager at work. So, I think there's
sort of like this shortterm maybe
downgrading of everything except the
baby and then there's a long-term
building of new skills and stronger
social networks ideally, right? When
things go right, that's not true for
everybody, but I think these are
transferable skills. So, if you think
about becoming an empathetic parent as
analogous to being a good friend or a
good caretaker in other domains, you
know,
>> transferable skills.
>> Yeah. like men who are coaches, who are
teachers, who are guidance counselors,
who are religious leaders. You know, I
talked to somebody for the book who
said, "We often think about caregiving
in very feminized ways, but the fireman
who pulls a family out of a burning
building is a caregiver, right? The
policeman who keeps a family safe is a
caregiver, right? We can broaden our
understanding of care to include sort of
traditional masculinity and celebrate
how important that is for society." M.
So, if a dad's brain literally doesn't
change unless he's hands-on with
caregiving, is it right to say like, "I
love my kids, but I'm not a hands-on guy
is more a biological confession than a
personality trait." I think it depends.
I think it depends on what the context
is and what is adaptive for a particular
family. Because I think there are
cultures in which having dads who aren't
hands-on
makes sense for that the local demands
because you have other caregivers or
because dads are needed to do some kind
of very specialized labor. I think in
contemporary societies where we expect a
fairly high level of involvement from
most fathers,
I would frame it as a missed
opportunity.
>> Have you seen Bob Odenkirk talking about
what it means to be a dad? Yeah,
>> it's so good and
>> he's the man. Play that clip for me,
Jared. I think it's I think it's so
cool.
>> Who are you jealous of?
>> Anybody who's still got little kids at
home growing up.
>> Oh,
>> yeah. There's no question. I knew what I
was doing when I had kids growing up.
>> I was being a dad. I mean, that was my
job.
>> And I didn't have to ask myself, what am
I doing here? What am I doing? How can I
be a part of this world? How can I be
meaningful today? Yeah,
>> I didn't have to ask that question cuz
the answer is pick up everything between
here and the door. [laughter]
>> That's right.
>> And make sure they get to school and
have a laugh with them. You know,
>> it was life was I understood
>> my purpose.
>> Best answer. Who are you jealous of?
>> I love that. Yeah. And I think we do
find that sense of meaning and purpose
which is so important for our
well-being, our sense of connectedness,
our sense of coherence. It's like he
just talked about like feeling like you
have a reason to do what you do every
day and that life is happening according
to plan.
>> That is so important for psychological
health.
>> I'm so excited to become a father. I
can't wait for it.
>> So, are you working on it?
>> Uh yeah. Well, reliably, you can't do it
on your own. Um
>> I've heard that
>> which is which is I've have tried. Um
but uh yeah, that's you need somebody
else to be ready at the same time. Yeah,
that's the part.
>> Um, what do you make of the deadbeat dad
narrative?
>> Yeah, so I think it is true in some
cases and it's unfair to dads in many
other cases. So in 1960 you had 88% of
kids living with a father at home.
>> That dipped down in 2005 to 67% of kids
and it's actually rebounded. So today
about 76% of kids in the US are living
with a father at home. So there's been
>> a father or the father. They're usually
the father, but not always. So,
sometimes there's complex fatherhood
where dads are living with
>> um kids that weren't originally theirs,
but at least having a stepfather figure
in the home.
>> So, there's been this kind of U-shaped
change in father presence.
>> But, I think we often think about
fatherhood as this binary absent dad
versus present dad. And there are a lot
of shades of gradation in between. So,
many non-residential fathers are really
involved in caregiving. I talk about
this in the book, but after my parents
got divorced, we did join custody. So,
my brothers and I were alone with our
dad every other week and he went from
fairly hands-off caregiver to suddenly
the primary parent in charge of
everything we needed. And I watched how
transformative that was for him. So,
there are different ways again to turn
that dial of fatherhood. And I think
when dads fully check out, like I said,
it's a missed opportunity both for
themselves and for their kid. But there
are a lot of ways to turn the dial back
up. I talked to a dad for the book who
spent the first three years of his son's
life in jail and was able to get out,
reunite with his son, take parenting
classes. He now works at an organization
called Homeboyid Industries which does
uh intervention for gang involved people
in LA. And he directs a project
fatherhood program. And he said having
that bond with his son was the single
saving grace
>> that actually helped him to reroute his
life.
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wisdom. That's drinklnt.com/modern
wisdom. Are you aware if there's a
window similar to the western arch
effect of time after which an older male
isn't able to attach to a younger child
in the same way exists has um pretty
sort of positive connotations for
stepdads
>> um because it suggests that you can bond
pretty much just as apart from the
cognitive realization like this isn't
mine
>> uh if you spend enough time with baby on
chest, you're probably going to get
locked in. But
>> especially with stepdads and maybe
fathers that are absent or working or
whatever, they might not be as available
during those years. And I have to assume
like if I hang around with a 21-year-old
dude lots and empathize and care for
him, I'm probably not going to see him
as my son just like out of the gates. So
it suggests to me that there's a kind of
tail off in some way. But I mean, this
is total bro sciency itself. This this
makes me feel that's the bro the bro
science hat. Um but you understand what
I mean. Have you got any insight around
whether that's true or not?
>> It's a really interesting question sort
of at what point do you maybe miss that
opportunity to bond? And I think what's
key is that you have a front row seat to
a child's development during some
critical period. However, I think we
often overemphasize early infancy. And
there's this idea that if we miss the
first hour after birth or the first 3
days after birth or the first month that
we've somehow missed our chance to bond
and that's not really true, right? We
know that adoptive parents and
stepparents can have profound
connections with their kids. I grew up
with a stepdad who I met when I was nine
and he ended up being a really formative
influence in my life. And and so I think
it depends on when the dad comes into
the picture and what kind of work and
practice he's willing to put in to make
that connection. But I would say as long
as there's any stretch of a child's
youth that a dad is witnessing and
participating in, he can play a role as
a parent.
>> What about impacts on hormones in men?
>> Yeah. So we see changes in testosterone
around the birth of a new baby. We don't
know as much about how hormones change
in adoptive or stepparents because there
just isn't a lot of research about this.
Most of the work is on early parenthood
and most of it is focusing on biological
parents.
>> So testosterone gets tuned down.
>> Mhm.
>> Does that increase with caregiving?
>> Yes.
>> In fact, does that happen without
caregiving?
>> No.
>> Right. So it's linked as are the brain
changes to dad's participation in care.
>> Okay.
>> So we see this not just in humans, we
see this in animal models as well. You
are probably familiar with the challenge
hypothesis. The idea that we want high
levels of testosterone under certain
circumstances, it's adaptive for
testosterone to drop in other
circumstances. So
>> birds are the classic example.
Testosterone levels rise at the start of
breeding season. When birds are
competing for mates, they're looking to
spread their seed. They want as many
opportunities as possible. So, they need
status to try to find a partner. And
then after mating has been accomplished,
it's immunologically costly to maintain
perpetually high levels of tea,
testosterone naturally decreases and the
reproductive strategy is shifting
towards more nurturing. So instead of
maximizing our numbers of babies that we
can produce, we want to maximize the
odds that any given baby is going to
survive. And our hormones kind of follow
suit.
>> And you see it in primates, you see it
in rodents as well as in humans. You see
these natural shifts.
>> What what are the behavior changes that
happen in men
based on their hormones? So typically
when testosterone decreases, it's
serving a function whereby dads are
getting more invested in the partner
relationship. They are more interested,
more motivated to maintain a stable pair
bond and they're less aggressive. So a
lot of the work in in rodents has looked
at sort of territorial aggression and
you know when you see a new pup in the
nest, do you want to kill them or do you
want to care for them? and testosterone
levels can sort of modulate where you
end up along that continuum. So we want
in general if anyone is spending a lot
of time with infants to be less
motivated to kill and more motivated to
care
>> risk-taking behavior as well
>> goes down and you see that you you know
you you see actually in some ways health
improvements we we can talk about dadbot
at some point I'm sure but uh you see
some health improvements in terms of
less risky driving less likely to get
into fights lower levels of substance
use
being more conscientious about doctor
checkups. So all of those behaviors that
keep us alive and ready to provide for
our offspring.
>> Blame it on the testosterone
>> shift. Sure.
>> Blame it on the testosterone. You know,
one one of my favorite studies around um
risk-taking behavior and uh male and
female relationships
looking at studies of men crossing the
road and the distance from them to the
nearest car in the presence of women or
without the presence of women.
>> Yeah,
>> dude. If there's a woman there, it's
like three times closer. Like, dude,
look at how hard I am. Harder than this
car. Um, [laughter]
>> but
>> yeah, that doesn't end well a lot of
time.
>> Typically, in a fight between you and a
car, you usually lose.
>> Yeah.
>> However,
>> the thing that's interesting there, like
we know that testosterone can change. If
we had um a ton of weapons on this
table, like axes and and spears and and
guns and stuff, and me and the guys
walked around and like picked them up
and played with them, our testosterone
would go up.
>> Yeah. And I would be terrified. It's
very Yeah, that that happens after.
That's what the way that we close the
show out is by wielding weapons inside
of this.
>> Okay. Yeah, remind me to get out of here
for a
>> second. No, we're live action role
playing. It's the middle ages. Um, so
>> that
sense, the fact that we can be so
reactive as men that we talk about how
hormonal women are and yes, but
reliably. Men much more unreliable. Uh,
similarly, a lot of hormonal changes,
but they don't happen on the same sort
of lunar schedule. Um, but what that
must mean, I don't know whether this
will be the primary driver because a lot
of it's like there's a girl there and
I'm just going to show how how hard I am
and how how masculine and the
risk-taking.
>> Yeah.
>> But also there'll probably be a bit of
an increase in testosterone and that
might push it a little bit more.
>> Yeah.
>> And the same thing will be presumably
happening here as well that there's a
relational component. There's the sort
of top down baby must be here for baby
must not drive recklessly or text whilst
drive etc. But also there is this sort
of bottomup uh environment that's being
created which encourages us to behave in
that way too.
>> Exactly. Biology and culture work
together as they do in so many ways in
parenthood and and yeah I think it's
really interesting the extent to which
our culture is kind of in flux between
different models of fatherhood.
>> And so you know are are we low tea dads
or high tea dads? But there's plenty of
work suggesting that, you know, in
athletic competition, in um other
opportunities for men to raise their
status, you see changes in testosterone.
So testosterone, you know, I think we
can talk about testosterone
supplementation and what that means for
men who want to be dads. I think to me
what is adaptive about testosterone as
with any other hormone is that it's
responsive to context and we want to be
flexible because we want to have a
biology that sets us up to achieve our
goals. You're saying that if you were to
be taking testosterone enhancement
whilst becoming a father, you think that
you're able to outwit biologies
uh u wellproven environment that it's
trying to create inside of you and
you're just plowing through it by
injecting yourself with tea.
>> I think that's the fear. That's the
risk. And and anecdotally, I hear from
moms who say, "Yeah, my husband's been
taking tea and he's has no patience with
the baby." Who knows? We need better,
more rigorous studies to see if that's
actually true.
>> Yeah, but he's jacked.
>> But [laughter] exactly. So, there's a
>> The baby's growing up with a jacked dad.
Come on.
>> Well, and in some context, that could be
really good. Like if you have to fight
your way out of a cage to get a leg of
lamb for your kid, then you probably
want high testosterone in early
parenthood.
>> But that might not serve the style of
fatherhood that is more desired
>> presumably as well. If that environment
was the one that you were in, your body
would detect it and go, "Hey, there's
some more testosterone for you." As
opposed to you going, "No, shut up.
1,000 nanogs per deciliter is absolutely
fine." Like,
>> yeah. in risky
>> belieing that you do you know better
than your body does.
>> Yeah. When we're in a risky or
competitive environment, men want higher
testosterone and that's going to serve
their goals. It's not always going to
serve their goals when they're in a
parenting environment. And so, you know,
I think the thing about supplementation
is we sort of have this idea that
manliness is about maintaining
perpetually high tea. I think actually
positive masculinity is more about
adaptability, being flexible, and
showing up in the way that you need to
for changing situations.
>> Well, what a horrendous own goal it
would be if you decided to keep your
testosterone high in an attempt to show
your masculinity and in the process
ended your lineage.
>> Yeah.
>> Like, well done, dude. Like, you blew
through all of the warning signs that
you should have been tuned down from.
>> Yeah. So yeah, I guess testosterone
drops when men become engaged fathers,
right? So some men will hear that and
think, okay, so fatherhood makes you
less of a man,
>> right?
>> Do you think that the fear of losing
masculinity by caregiving is actually
driving avoidant fatherhood in some
ways? Maybe
>> this was something I worried about when
writing this book and trying to
summarize the science around fatherhood
is that the subtitle I joked for a while
would be fatherhood gives you a smaller
brain, makes you sleepier, sadder,
fatter, and have lower testosterone. But
it's really good,
>> Jared.
>> It'll give you know, so that I don't
think that would that wouldn't sell very
many books. Yeah. And we've talked about
some of the benefits of fatherhood like
an increased sense of meaning and
purpose and neurop protection in late
life. I would argue that being a good
dad is one of the most manly things you
can do. You're literally rearing the
next generation. You're guiding them.
You're protecting them. You're inspiring
them. You're teaching them. So, when you
think about what is masculinity for,
I would argue that in some ways it's for
your ability to be a good dad. So, I
think we confuse like just having a
certain hormone level equals
masculinity.
And I would counterargue it's more about
what is your social role and how are you
showing up to do the things that are
needed of you
>> and what is your definition of success.
>> Exactly.
>> Especially this a more I'm going to put
it's a more controversial area uh to
talk about but if you were to say for
women
>> what is your definition of success? I
think mumbrain is seen as quite a big
loss by a lot of women. Well I'm uh
executively less competent. my ability
to remember. Maybe I was a an assistant
or a teacher or or someone who worked in
marketing or whatever and I can't hold
on to the ideas in the way that I used
to. You say, "Well, that looks like a
massive loss in all of the ways that
society says that a woman should be
successful,
>> apart from the one that's most
important, which is being a good mom."
Yeah.
>> And it's all about definition of
success. And if you're in a meritocratic
capitalist world that says your ability
to produce economically and to rise up
through the ladder of status and
prestige and socioeconomic hierarchy,
that's your primary goal. That's exactly
what you bring to the world. Yeah, that
looks like a loss. Apart from the fact
that your kid is happier and you're more
in tune with them and more in love with
them and so again, it's the same thing
as the as the dad masculinity
conversation. I just think it's a it's a
bit more of a minefield.
>> No, I think you're right. I think we we
undervalue care and we don't prioritize
it as a public social good, which it
certainly is. And I think as a result,
we have this whole discourse around
bouncing back after baby. You know, how
quickly can you get your preab body
back? How quickly can you get your
pre-baby brain back? And in fact, it's
supposed to be transformative. You have
a whole new role to play. And I think we
want to celebrate that.
>> It's a weird kind of denial of the
preciousness of parenthood.
>> Yeah.
>> It's a real middle finger to that to go
I had this
>> inconvenience for a while. I was kind of
afflicted with motherhood or or
fatherhood and my goal is to get back to
what I was before as opposed to become
something new.
>> Yeah. Exactly. And I will say as a
parent of teens, I don't want to go back
to my pre-baby self cuz I was clueless.
I think you learn a lot and figure a lot
of things out.
>> I can use that as my excuse
>> as a parent.
>> As a as a non as a non-parent, my
cluelessness is exclusively because of
my lack of child.
>> That's right.
>> Does the dad brain and the mom brain,
does that happen again and again? Does
it rekickstart? Do you regrow? How does
how do multiple children play into this?
So, there's some really interesting new
research about this. And I should
preface by saying the research
literature is really scant. Part of why
I wrote the book is because I want more
studies to get funded and more studies
to get done in both dads and moms. So,
there's one study that I know of that
looks at what happens to the brain when
you have a second kid. It was done in
moms. It was done in the Netherlands.
And what happens is the brain shrinks
again, but it actually shrinks in some
different ways and in some different
places. So, there's some rebound. So, we
actually think maternal brain change and
I'm guessing paternal brain change too
when we have more longitudinal data
points is actually U-shaped. So, you
lose volume and then you regain which is
adaptive. Exactly. Cuz you don't
necessarily want to end up with a much
smaller brain after having had many more
kids. So, you get some rebound, but then
>> 10 kids and you can't function. The kids
are looking after you.
>> Yeah. You're walking around like the guy
in Beetlejuice with the tiny shrunken
head, right? Um Yeah. You don't want
that to happen. But you end up actually
where you lose gray matter volume with a
second pregnancy is actually in areas
that are tied more to
deploying uh let's see what's a good way
to say this like managing multiple
inputs. So those are areas that if you
streamline and tune them they're
actually salient for taking care of
multiple kids. So, it's kind of like
task switching, okay? And being oriented
cognitively to variable demands. Those
are the places where you see that
sharpening of functioning. Second time
moms,
>> you know, I'd love to see I'd love to
see a comparison between that and
mothers who have twins or triplets.
>> Yeah. I don't know. Wouldn't that be so
cool?
>> Yes. And the studies unfortunately
exclude twin and triplet moms because
they're going to add too much
complexity. Yeah. But it's
>> if you did a study specifically on them,
>> it's a really interesting paradigm,
right? Because you kind of get double
the dose of parenting experience and you
get more parenting hormones, too.
>> Do you have Yeah. more time on skin? I
mean, both dad and mom will be really at
the upper limit of that one to 2.5%
range.
>> But also, I wonder if you basically
speedrun level one and go straight to
level two as mom where you've got the
the multitasking like baby juggling
skill. Yeah. um
>> you might advance to that second time
brain a little faster.
>> And my guess is also with twins and
triplets, dad gets more involved. So
again, you're talking about tuning the
dial up that turns fatherhood behavior
on. When you have multiples, you need
dad more because you need more help to
parents.
>> You basically had a baby with leverage.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. You invested you invested at like
two or 3x on the starting capital in the
beginning. That's right.
>> Uh I read about the daughter effect.
Yeah.
>> Is that real?
>> Which say say what you mean by it.
>> When uh fathers have daughters, their
behavior changes in unique ways that
wouldn't have done with a son.
>> Yeah. So, I'm glad you asked that
because my lab literally just wrote a
paper over the weekend. We do these
paper in a day retreats where we all get
together and we write chunks of a paper
together and we looked at how men's
behavior and well-being and hormones
change when they have either a son or a
daughter. So we found that when men have
daughters and this is from our
longitudinal sample, they show more of a
drop in testosterone across the
transition to that parenthood
>> and they also spend less time caring for
their babies and they report more
parenting stress and worse bonding. So
it's kind of bad news for girls
actually. Uh and we need to figure out
what modulates that and you know how to
offset it. But it suggests that when men
are expecting girls, they might be in
need of some additional coaching and
preparation to figure out how they can
show up as effective parents.
>> Does the sex of the baby change how the
brain adapts in the other direction
then?
>> So, we don't know because there haven't
been enough studies of this. I've looked
at this a little bit in our data and
>> should be pretty easy to do, right? Was
it boy, was it girl? Compare groups,
>> but you're cutting your sample in half.
So if you already have an underpowered
sample, then you know you're losing your
ability to pick up on effect.
>> Put the hat on and just throw some sun
hypothesis. It doesn't matter. it.
Yeah.
>> Yeah. I um I know of a a little bit of
work suggesting that it shifts uh
certain brain responses. Like I think um
there was a study actually it was done
at Emory in Atlanta that found that uh
the the brain was more primed to happy
facial expressions from girls and
distressed expressions from boys and so
there were some different patterns of
brain responses but the literature is
tiny. We don't know a lot about those
kind of sex specific effects in the
brain.
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Do we think the uh increase reduction of
testosterone
around girls is because rough and tumble
play more protection needed for child?
It's interesting, right? Because you
would also assume that the small boy
would become physically stronger sooner
as well. So more protection from the
outside world might require more
testosterone, but less risk-taking and
less aggression toward the inside world
requires less testosterone. So there's a
strange balance that's going. Do you
understand?
>> Yeah, I think that's an interesting
hunch. I mean, I think our time course
was just from mid-reg to the first 6
months. So we didn't really have enough,
you know, the babies aren't even more
money. Someone needs to give you a ton
of money.
>> Thank you. From your lips to God's ears,
right? Give us more grants. We'll study
this long. We're actually doing a
seven-year follow-up right now.
>> So, we'll see what happens when the kids
are hitting first and second grade.
We're collecting that data as we speak.
>> But our hunch is exactly what you said
first, which is that we think that dads
might behaviorally be interacting with
new babies differently depending on
whether they're a boy or a girl. And
there's evidence that even before babies
are born, if you ask parents, what are
the traits of your new child? They are
shaped by knowing the sex of the baby.
So, new parents tend to describe a baby
girl as being more delicate, um, more
vulnerable. They might, yeah, sweet,
soft. They might describe a baby boy as
rambunctious or mischievous or tough and
strong. And so, it may be that dads are
getting more active and are playing with
girls in a way that's more about
cuddling and nurturing and are playing
with boys in a way that's more about
playing and activating. And we know that
in fact dads do have these kind of
signature styles of playing with kids.
They do tend to engage in more of what's
called propriceptive touch, which is
like picking babies up, moving them
around in space, like really active
exploratory kind of boundary pushing
play. And it may just be that dads are
doing more of that when they've got a
baby boy and that is why their
testosterone isn't falling in exactly
the same way. but also that the behavior
of the boys and the girls will be the
boy is more likely to want to play with
trucks, linear objects, etc. and the
girl is more likely to want to do the
caregiving stuff.
>> Although again, these are six-month old
babies, so they can't even truck alone.
>> I was thinking I was thinking more about
when you get to sort of 2, three, four.
I had Joyce Benninsson on the show. It's
just the best. And uh she was saying she
looked at the playground of
kindergarteners
like 3 4 years old and you know there's
not been a massive amount of time to
socialize you into your gender role
already. And all of the girls were
playing a game where they had to keep
something alive
>> and all of the boys were playing a game
where they had to fight something in a
war. [laughter]
>> You know what I mean?
fighting something in a war is also
keeping something alive sometimes
keeping yourself alive. But I would say
like I would actually push back on that
a little bit and say there is a role for
socialization even in very young kids.
So in the book I talked about an
experiment that was done by the BBC
where they brought a bunch of toddlers
into a playroom and they got these adult
volunteers and they switched the
toddler's names and outfits. So they had
a little girl, they put her in boy
clothes and gave her a boy's name. They
were trying to trick these playmate,
these adult playmate volunteers. So,
they took a little boy, put him in a
dress, gave him the girl's name, and
they found that the volunteers played
totally differently with the the I think
these were 2-year-olds depending on the
name and the outfit, and they sort of
appraised the play differently. So, you
know, they taped these sessions and with
the boy who's dressed as a little girl,
oh, you know, she loves the pink dolly
and with the girl who's dressed as a
little boy, you know, he wants to push
the truck. So, I do think we have this
way of sort of sorting self-fulfilling
prophecy,
>> boys and girls. And so, it's, you know,
like with everything, it's a mix of
biology and culture. There's some
biological propensity there, but we
amplify it through our culture and
through the way we socialize. And I
think that leads to more divergent
outcomes. That's like the Dartmouth scar
uh study but done on kids. Kind of
hilarious. Uh what was the housework and
cortisol research?
>> So this was work I did in my graduate
training. This was part of my
dissertation. So we looked at dual
income couples who were followed around
their homes for a week. This was like a
week in the life study of these
middle-class couples in LA. and we
recorded how much time they were
spending in common household activities.
So we looked at housework time, leisure
time, child care time, other kinds of
activities. I found that housework is
bad for your health, which I think
anyone could have told you. So the more
time you spend doing housework
on, you know, as part of a typical week,
the less cortisol recovery you have at
the end of the day. So we looked at the
magnitude of cortisol change from the
afternoon into the evening and you want
this drop in cortisol levels at the end
of the day. So cortisol has a dal rhythm
has kind of a circadian pattern. You
want to start high and you want to end
low. And when people were doing more
housework in the evenings they had less
of that
nater that they were hitting at bedtime.
And we also found that uh when you
entered moms and dads time used together
in the same model, moms benefited in
terms of their cortisol when dads were
doing more housework and dads benefited
when they had more leisure time and
their partners had less leisure time. M.
>> So, kind of a mixed bag of results where
it's sort of, you know, if you're a mom,
you want your partner to be helping with
housework and if you're a dad, you want
to be sitting back and relaxing while
your partner is taking care of business.
>> It's a bit zero sum in a way.
>> Yeah, it's sort of depressing.
>> Yeah, it is. What's stress contagion?
>> So, stress contagion is when couples
influence each other's hormone levels.
So, I found that you see linked cortisol
levels in cohabitating couples and I've
looked at this in moms and dads. I've
also looked at this in non-parent male
and female couples. So, when one person
has higher cortisol, their partner has
higher than usual cortisol as well. And
it seems like when the relationship
quality is compromised, when you have
more conflict, you have more tightly
linked patterns of cortisol. So people
are actually increasing each other's
stress rather than helping to balance or
modulate it.
>> How do you fix that?
>> You help people communicate better and
fight more effectively so that they can
calm each other down rather than amp
each other up.
>> Right?
>> I think when you're frustrated and
stressed and you have a partner who's
exacerbating that, it's very hard to
recover. If you have a partner who can
help to talk you down and sort of
balance out your
irritated state with a calm state, then
you can better recover in terms of your
biology.
>> What are the downsides of fatherhood for
men?
>> Well, we talked about already, you know,
weight gain. Um, we talked about
testosterone changes. There are also
increased vulnerability to mood
disorders. So the prevalence of
depression in new dads is about twice
that of the general population. There's
a lot of controversy about whether we
call it postpartum depression in dads. A
lot of
>> observed this in in your opinion. Do
dads get postpartum depression?
>> So in the book I say I think paranatal
depression is a better word that just
means around the birth of a baby.
>> But to me it's semantic. It doesn't
matter that much whether we call it
postpartum or paranatal. I think some
people really are attached to the idea
of postpartum really means having given
birth. That's not really what the term
means. It just means occurring after the
birth of a baby. And the fact is that a
lot of the risk factors for depression
are shared by new moms and new dads.
You've got stress, you've got disrupted
sleep, you've got relationship conflict,
you've got new responsibilities,
identity crisis,
hormone changes, brain changes. So even
though you're not the person that's phys
physically delivered an infant, you are
still experiencing a lot of the same
overlapping risks.
>> What does postpartum mean?
>> So it just means after the birth of a
baby, the time
>> after your birth of a baby.
>> Yeah. It doesn't necessarily mean it
>> is a gender neutral term.
>> Yeah, it's a gender neutral term. It
doesn't necessarily mean that you
birthed the baby. It just means the time
period that falls after the birth of a
baby. That said, I don't want to
antagonize the moms who keep coming into
my Instagram uh comments to get mad at
me for talking about postpartum
depression because I understand, you
know, I
>> What are they mad about? Are they mad
about the fact that this is our term?
Like we want it to be it needs to be
like paternal postpartum depression or
it needs some sort of a qualifier on it.
It sounds to me like and I saw a bunch
of comments on Instagram talking about
the same thing. Uh
it's not about this is a term that we
care about it. My best reading of it
right and this is me trying to steal man
it as best I can.
>> Yeah.
The process of childirth for a woman is
so arduous and traumatic and scary that
any man who appears to be flippant or
dismissive or to kind of liken the
challenge that he goes through to the
one that the mum goes through.
>> That is seen as being very callous and
and it doesn't fully appreciate or
understand the sacrifice of a of a mum.
I think that's the best reading of it.
>> Yeah, I think that's a good reading. I
think another piece of that
>> That's me with my peaceful hat on.
>> Yes. Where's your peaceful hat? You're
missing that prop. You need to You need
a new prop.
>> I would say that a lot of women
legitimately feel like they've had to
work very hard to get postpartum
depression recognized. There's
inadequate funding. There's inadequate
attention paid to reproductive health
and mood disorders in moms. And so if
they're fighting to get access to
treatment and to get education about
their mental health, they feel like how
can dads just sort of show up and make
it all about them? That seems very
unfair.
>> And I'm totally sympathetic to that
argument. I mean, I talked to a
psychotherapist who works with new dads
for my book, who's done a lot of
advocacy for postpartum mental health in
men, and she says a lot of the women's
health advocates are just like, "Can't
we have this one thing? Can't we have
the postpartum period? This is ours."
>> Right? I mean, that my peaceful hats got
taken off now. That is stupid.
Like, because what you're saying is, can
we not not support men because we want
women to have most of the attention? You
go, "Well, hang on a second. Are you
most concerned about owning this area of
cognitive real estate like it's some
sort of cultural appropriation by men?
Or do you care about the outcome of the
kid and of the mom? Because if you don't
treat the mental health of the father,
how do you think the mum's going to
feel? And how do you think the child's
going to grow up? So what you're saying
is you would rather be intellectually
superior
but in the real world have negative side
effects. Like that is the outcome.
Whether that's what they know or what
they mean doesn't matter. Like it's not
my job to sugarcoat the fact that you
trying to own some area of cognitive
real estate
ag.
So like not recognizing and if you did
this in reverse right and this is true
for a very very very long time there was
all research was done on men. It was
just the male body standard inside of
the medical industry.
No one said, "Well, this is cancer.
That's men's thing." You go, "No, this
is not a gendered issue." So, I
mean, I've got I got a video to show
you. I got a video from the Times that
you've probably seen that I think is
very interesting. And the video is
interesting and the comments are way
more interesting.
>> So, it's this one. It's this one on Tik
Tok. Jared,
>> I had postnatal depression. [music] Yes,
dads can get it, too. In 2021, when my
daughter Aurelia was about a month old,
my wife turned to me in bed one morning
and [music] she asked, "How much do you
love her?" I froze. I kind of gritted my
teeth and said, "Yeah, I really love
her, but inside I [music] knew it wasn't
there yet." I struggled to bond with my
baby. Felt disconnected and had growing
shame that I was not being the natural
father [music] I thought I would be.
About 6 months into fatherhood, I opened
up to my wife. I wanted to [music] be a
rock to Chess who had had a complicated
pregnancy. Eventually, I got therapy,
but postnatal depression was [music]
never raised. It wasn't until Aurelia
was a year old that I came across an
article about men's PND [music] that
everything started to make sense. About
10% of new dads will experience
depressive symptoms during the perinatal
period and first year of [music] a
child's life. For me and my wife, it was
a Eureka moment. Men are not routinely
screened for [music] PND. So many cases
go undiagnosed. I think the system is
not changing quickly enough to offer
support and spot the signs of depression
in dads. My bond with Aurelia is now
incredible. And with new understanding
and support, I hope I won't suffer from
P&D again, but I think new [music] dads
should know they might not have that
emotional bond straight away.
>> All right.
>> Let me pause it there. Jared,
>> I love that.
>> Just look at the Just press on the
comments on the right hand side for me.
>> I don't think I want to see the
comments.
>> Uh Matt, please. I already had a long
day. How do I make this about myself?
Thank you for telling us that's Tom
Scaro. Oh, Matt, it's not the same
thing. This isn't depression. It's
discomfort and uncertainty. Postpartum
depression is linked to the dramatic
hormonal changes that happen after
childirth, such as sudden drops in
estrogen and progesterone. Not sure how
this affects the father. Time of
irritation. 1:41 p.m. Playing on my Yes,
however, calling it postnatal depression
isn't the right phase. I think he
ultimately just didn't like all the
attention in the relationship shifting
to the baby. Please, I'm already annoyed
today. How can I make this about me,
too? I feel left out. Is there poo in my
AirPods?
>> Oh my gosh.
>> Like,
>> yeah, I've been I've been fighting in
the comments sections like these for a
while now. And uh you know, people
really come out of the woodwork to be
frustrated with this kind of material.
And I think there's a gatekeeping around
paranal depression that is unfortunate
because mental health is a family
system. You need the best possible team
around a baby. And the best predictor
actually of mom's mental health is the
support that she gets from her partner.
So if dad is not well,
>> dad is not showing up mom's mental
health either. I think the idea that
this is a fixed pie or that it's a zero
sum game, like there's a finite amount
of resources that are going to go to a
parent's mental health and they need to
be directed solely to mom, I think is
really limited. We need to be thinking
about how do moms work together with
dads to make sure that the baby is
getting well cared for and that
everybody's mental health needs are
getting met. Having a zero sum view of
empathy is like one of the dumbest
especially with something like this.
It's just a guy going I went through
this really hard thing and people going
no you didn't. No you didn't. Or I went
through something that was way worse
than that.
>> Yeah. Why are we gaslighting dads and
why are we pitting dads against moms?
And my response to that is if we want to
have a society where men are stepping up
as parents and they're fully
participating in caretaking, they're
waking up with the baby, they're doing
the hard parts of care, we need to
recognize that that's going to have
mental health consequences. It's going
to be taxing. It's going to be
isolating. It's going to be draining.
And if we really want men to
participate, we have to respect that
their mental health matters, too. We
can't guard it as though it's the sole
domain of new moms because we want dads
to act more like primary caregivers, but
we're not willing to accept that they're
going to have vulnerability tied to
that.
>> Bingo. Yeah. Saying the same thing in
two different bre saying different
things in the same breath, which is we
want dads to be fully involved, but we
don't believe that they can have the
negative outcomes that other people
who've been fully involved for all of
history have.
>> Right.
>> What's the rate of post-natal depression
in women? It's a little higher in new
moms than it is in new dads. I think
it's it ranges across studies but like
19 to 21%. It's about 10%.
>> Which is however the same as the change
in brain 1% to two two and a half.
>> And I think important context is that
women have about twice the rate of
anxiety and depression in the general
population.
>> So it tracks with that overall base
rate.
>> Wow. That's a spicy realization that it
could just be an increase in whatever
your predisposition was and that dads
are actually getting it at the same rate
as moms.
>> And now that we've got more involved
caregiving, which is the primary
enforcement mechanism for the the
change, I'm going to guess postpartum
depression in fathers is mediated by the
amount of caregiving that they do.
>> Right. And that's the other thing. So,
you're telling me like that's brutal
that any dad that's listening to this
now knows the more that I care for my
baby, the higher my likelihood of
getting postnatal depression is.
>> Well, let's keep in mind it's still a
low rate and
a lot of people experience baby blues
that don't
>> turn into full-blown de debilitating
depression, right? There's a continuum.
So you can have depressive symptoms
without necessarily becoming somebody
who's incapacitated by depression.
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a checkout. Why is there an adaptive
explanation for postpartum depression in
women?
>> So, I actually think probably not. I
think it's more of a sign of an
evolutionary cultural mismatch, which is
this going back to this idea that we as
humans are cooperative breeders and we
evolve to have a lot of support around
caregiving. So, we evolved to trade off
care, to share care with people in the
community, with our kin. I think we now
place a lot of pressure on individual
parents and on the individual nuclear
family to serve the roles that dozens of
people used to serve when there was a
lot more proximity and people helped
each other out a lot more with care. So
we isolate new parents. We
>> don't value their work. We've already
talked about, you know, the incentives
of a very late capitalist society where
we want people to be ambitious drivers
and we want them to move on quickly from
this interruption of birth
>> and and so we're not providing the
support. You know, in this country, we
don't have universal paid maternity
leave or paternity leave. So,
>> a lot of women go back to work probably
before they feel like they're ready. A
lot of men do, too. We don't give
inadequate or we don't give adequate
time and protection,
>> right?
>> And we, you know, we create an uphill
battle where parents feel isolated and
drained.
>> So, is there any evidence of postpartum
in huntergatherer societies?
>> Not that I know of, but I'm also not
sure how well it's been tracked or
measured.
>> Yep. Okay.
trying to see if this mismatch
hypothesis kind of it can just be split
tested across like civilizations.
>> Yeah, I mean I I think it's a really
really interesting question and
depression in general you know hasn't
been observed as much in those
populations.
So it's a really interesting question
but you know in huntergatherer societies
when a woman becomes a mother she
becomes if anything more socially
integrated into the life of the
community. In contemporary society, when
a woman becomes a mother, she often
becomes more isolated. We have all of
these public spaces that, you know,
don't bring the baby to a wedding, don't
bring the baby to a restaurant, don't
bring the baby to a cafe. People don't
want to Yeah. to work, right? Like a
hunter gathering mom can actually still
go to work. She can still be wearing the
baby. She can function economically,
>> swaddled up, grab some berries. Yeah.
>> Had a good day in the office. she can
occupy a high status social role.
>> Yeah.
>> And and she can be, you know, fully
integrated into the community.
>> That's interesting. So the the this the
what is rewarded socioeconomically at
the moment specifically for women uh is
not
baby
accommodating.
>> We have this kind of sharp divide
between work and home which I think is a
legacy of the industrial revolution.
Right? We before that work generally
happened at home. Dads were around a
lot. Moms were around a lot. Kids were
raised as workers. They were
contributing to the family business, the
family economy.
>> Jared, if you brought your kid in here
and they were able to write good cop, if
your eight-month-old was able to write
good YouTube copy, I'd be down. But I
would be I would be absolutely fine. I
mean, you're allowed to come as long as
you contribute, but
>> yeah,
>> yeah, he's trying. Um,
>> good way to hone those skills. What I'm
interested what do you think's the best
advice for dads like trying to be great
father, great husband, still take care
of themselves whilst supporting a mom
who's going through postpartum.
>> Give yourself grace. Don't expect that
it will be easy. Forewarned is
forearmmed. So, you know, know that this
is going to rock your world and it's
going to be transformative, but it's
supposed to be transformative. And I
would say steer away from the myth that
dads don't have any innate wiring to
know how to take care of a baby. I think
we have this idea that moms are just
born knowing what to do when a baby
arrives and men are going to be helpless
and useless.
>> Does that help moms postpartum?
>> I don't think so because I will say when
I had my kids I was like what am I
supposed to do with these people? you
know, you have to learn and you figure
it out. And it's about your motivation
and your willingness to practice more
than it's about just, you know, having
some inborn reflex that's telling you
how to care for a child. And dads have
that capacity to care and to build those
empathetic, responsive, caregiving
brains.
>> I've got two potential hypotheses in my
mind. Uh first one is like postpartum
contagion. M
>> I have to assume that if the mom is
dealing with it, it's more likely that
the dad's going to deal with it.
>> But I wonder if level of
paternal child caring
decreases the likelihood of uh female
postpartum depression. Yeah.
>> Do we know
>> do we know what
levels of household setup can increase
or decrease the likelihood? So, there is
some research on this and it
corroborates both of your hunches.
>> Dude, don't test me. Don't test me on
this
>> So, you can keep the the science hat
off. Yeah, you don't need it.
>> Good.
>> Um, good instincts. But there's research
that depressive symptoms are correlated
within moms and dads. So, if mom is more
depressed, dad's more likely to be
depressed. If dad's depressed, mom's
more likely to be depressed. And if one
partner is well and can support the
other partner, that's also a huge
resilience factor. That's a buffer.
>> So they track together.
>> Yep.
>> And there's also evidence that when dads
are more involved, moms benefit. So one
really cool study tested a paternity
leave reform program in Sweden where
they were expanding flexibility of
paternity leave for dads. They found
that if you look at babies born right
before and right after that policy
intervention, you actually see lower
rates of anti-anxiety medication.
Prescriptions were filled less often by
the new moms. So if dads have more
access to leave, moms actually show this
population level mental health benefit.
And my lab has done similar work and we
found that if you look at prenatal to
postpartum trajectories of depressive
symptoms, when dads get access to paid
paternity leave, moms are less likely to
get depressed after the birth of a baby.
So it seems like for postpartum
depression, maybe for dads as well as
moms, one of the key drivers is social
integration, level of social
integration. Does that mean that if
you're struggling with postpartum
depression, you should try and like turn
on the the socialization taps a little
bit, do mommy daddy daycare meetup
things. That seems like an intervention
that might work.
>> Exactly. And that goes back to the
evolutionary mismatch idea, right? We're
supposed to be embedded in social
networks that help us care for our kids.
We're not supposed to do it alone.
>> Is postpartum basically like,
this is a lot and I'm overwhelmed.
>> Yeah. I mean, that's part of it.
>> Yeah. Compounded with sleep loss,
identity challenges, relationship
strain,
money and life worries, and your brain
and hormones getting totally, you know,
disrupted.
Does that mean
does that mean that there is a
socioeconomic predictor for postpartum
depression because people who are more
wealthy are more likely to have child
care which means that they have more
assistance, less pressure and better
sleep?
>> Yes,
>> dude.
>> Yeah.
>> Yes. So there is a socioeconomic link
between postpartum depression risk and
part of it is you know there are moms in
the US who go back to work less than 2
weeks after the birth of a baby. So if
you're a shift worker, if you're a gig
worker, if you're at Walmart, you are
probably not getting time to rest,
recover, and bond. And that's really
stressful and really taxing to your
ability to adjust to parenthood. So
that's part of it. It's also like what
are the community resources that are
available to you? Can you afford support
and child care? But some of the best
interventions for postpartum depression
are around shoring up your social
support networks. So helping get people
to be more proactive about asking for
help, helping to invest in your
relationships. And you can even do
preventive intervention before a baby's
born to say and we actually do this um
my lab leads psychoeducation workshops
with a big um hospital system that
serves low-income new parents. We say we
have them make a social support map. So
we say who are you going to be able to
ask for help in different domains after
the baby comes. You know, maybe your
older brother isn't going to be that
helpful when it comes to taking the baby
for a nap, but he can help with your
lawn care, you know? So, how do you plug
different people in your life into
different roles to make sure that your
social support needs are are met? And we
try to coach people to be more assertive
for about asking for help because I
think we're conditioned in our society
to be very agency individualism.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I I learned from Louise
Perry that in uh like Renaissance
England there was a period called lying
in laying in
>> Yeah.
>> where for 2 weeks the mother didn't move
after childirth waited on hand and foot.
>> Yeah.
>> Anything that was needed. All she did
was hold baby and and like feed baby and
everything else done. Right. the whole
family comes in and and and desists and
you just you know you physically
traumatic things happen to you like that
it just seems it seems very contrary to
this
like [sighs] hyper
speed
productivity engine thing and it's it's
kind of strange right because my
>> original background was as a
productivity dork um which I still have
vestigages of And the way that I started
the show was trying to learn life hacks
and memorization tools and how to have a
great to-do list manager and stuff like
that because that was what I thought was
really important to me. And I think I
always just assumed that at some point
you become an adult and you sort of grow
out of that. But that really is one of
the drugs of the 21st century, this
hyperoptimized efficiency culture, get
more out. And there's no reason, it was
kind of naive of me to think that, oh
well, just when you become a parent, you
forget about that or you realize that
other things are more important like my
parents did. My parents were never
afflicted with productivity culture
beforehand, right?
>> So that's interesting. And then this
other story that it really it gets me
every and I mentioned to you I just
finished this silent meditation retreat.
So my uh heart is particularly tender.
But I I went to a meetup when I first
moved to Austin about four years ago and
it was a bunch of business owners,
millionaires and decaillionaire like a
couple of millionaires in there and
everyone was a founder. I was by far the
poorest person in the room. And
>> uh they were all talking about um what
they were doing with their businesses
and plans and oh I know a guy that can
get you in at Target and so on and so
forth. And I was like sat kind of
silently the white belt at the back of
the class and um it was a circle thing
and then someone dinged the glass and
said um well we'll we'll have a little
brainstorming session. If you've got a
problem that you're dealing with at the
moment, put your hand in the air.
There's a lot of competent people in the
room. We'll see if we can help you. And
I'm thinking some guy's going to go,
I've got a massive problem with the IRS.
I'm like trying to get my offshore
accounts working, but the Cayman Islands
don't like some other stuff. This guy
just went his hand straight in the air.
He said, "My wife's 6 months pregnant,
and I don't feel anything
>> and I'm scared I'm going to be a bad dad
and that I'm not going to love the
baby." And she keeps asking me about how
I feel and there's nothing there. And I
I feel so guilty and ashamed about the
fact that I I really want this and I
love my wife and I want to be a good dad
and I'm terrified that I'm going to be
I'm terrified I'm going to be a bad dad.
I'm terrified I'm not going to be able
to support her. I've got guilt and shame
around. I've got this secret. I feel
like I'm keeping a secret from her.
>> The room was like
that wasn't what we were expecting. One
of the guys over the far side straight
away went, "Dude, don't worry about it.
Happened to me. Happens every single dad
was like every single time. Always
happens. Wait 6 months. It'll all be
fixed. like wait six months, lie with it
on your chest for a while. It gave all
of the dad hacks, I guess. I just
remember thinking like, like this
guy's in a room
surrounded by really impressive business
people and he was one too and he was
competent, all the rest of it, and he
could have asked anything that he wanted
about his business, but the most salient
thing in his entire life was the fact
that he was watching his wife go through
the hormonal changes that make a mother.
Right. Pregnancy doesn't just make a
baby, it also makes a mother. Yeah,
>> but pregnancy doesn't make a father in
the same way.
>> Right.
>> I I it makes him in some negative ways,
right? The lack of sleep and the stress
and you know got the Puvade syndrome or
whatever it's called.
>> Um
>> but it doesn't
>> it doesn't prepare you in that way. And
then when you layer on top our ability
to judge our own
>> competence in these things, we think,
well, what are you judging? Well,
judging how good of a dad I think I
might be. Maybe I wasn't cut out for
this. I wasn't a dad before.
>> And I bet if you were to look at,
>> what could we call this?
>> Like uh potential parent guilt.
>> Um if you were to look at potential
parent guilt or potential paternal guilt
might be better. Um
>> I bet that it doesn't happen on second
kid.
>> Yeah. I think this is a common thing
that I hear from expectant dads that
they're terrified, that they're not
going to know what to do, that they're
not going to be good at it. And I think
we expect men to be highly competent,
you know, women, too, but we really
socialize men to be good at things. And
it's hard to be really good at taking
care of a baby in the abstract because
it's all about what does your particular
baby need and how do you get to know
your baby and that's individual and it
depends on your time and your motivation
>> and your practice. But I think that idea
that men are sort of flailing around
really uncertain. I talked to a guy
whose whole career is talking to startup
entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and he
says very similar story as yours. He's
talked to men who are great at all kinds
of, you know, conquering the business
world
>> and yet when you get them onto the
subject of their kids, they're all
totally worried that they don't know
what they're doing, right? But it's a
domain where we don't have that same
sense of of skill and power and it's
harder to optimize. And I would say, you
know, you you mentioned this kind of
self-optimization culture and
productivity.
>> And it's interesting if you watch the
kind of like get ready with me videos or
here are all the, you know, here's my
regimen, here are all the things I do to
completely, you know, biohack my way to
success. frequently they're of someone
who's alone and they take a lot of time
and they take a lot of solitary activity
and they're not necessarily about being
connected. They're not about giving to
other people. They're not about caring
for someone who's vulnerable. And I
would say when you think about what
makes life worth living, a lot of it is
about our relationship health. You know,
that's what the best studies of
longevity have told us. That's what work
on men has told us that you know when
men are socially isolated in late life
that's a real risk factor for early
mortality. So how can men get more
connected? Well, part of it is by
devoting yourself to learning how to
care for other people. And so again
going back to this idea of how do we
reframe masculinity in more pro-social
ways?
It's manly to take care of vulnerable
people.
Well, I hope that when
baby life does begin for me that
everybody is ready for me to shove it
down their throat for ages. It's just
going to be an endless end like a a
sickening barrage of fatherhood content.
I can't It's going to be It's going to
be fantastic.
>> You're going to be the new doctor,
Becky.
>> Uh that's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [laughter]
We'll see about that. Um what do you
think is the worst advice that new dads
get?
>> Well, we already talked about, you know,
you can fix your relationship by having
a baby. So definitely that's very bad
advice.
>> It's the worst advice the potential dads
could get. Yeah. Yeah.
>> I think other bad advice is just, you
know, dads don't know what they're
doing, so keep your distance. And I
think there are these preconceptions
around should we invest in paternity
leave for new dads? Well, dads are
useless in the early months. These
they've got nothing to contribute. And I
think that is bad advice because as with
moms, dads are capable of learning and
their neurobiology is going to come
along for the ride as they learn how to
take care of kids. I think the other
thing is we sometimes privilege early
infancy as the sort of only time for
dads to shine. And I talked to Richard
Reeves who's written a lot about healthy
masculinity. He said he thinks that men
should be able to take paternity leave
up to their kids 14th or maybe even 18th
birthday.
>> Yeah. Well, there's some roles,
especially for dads with girls around
puberty that are more important
>> Yeah.
>> than perhaps in early life.
>> Yeah. And he told me he was a
stay-at-home dad to his sons for a
period when they were school age, and
that was a great experience. And he
loves taking his kids on trips and
excursions. And so I think there's a lot
of value that dads can add at different
stages along the lifespan. And I think
when we decide that men don't know what
they're doing and we kind of opt them
out of a key parenting role, we're
losing that opportunity and we're not
giving them the windows in which to
build their competence.
>> I love it. Dobby Saxby, ladies and
gentlemen, you're great. I love your
work. I think it's fantastic. It's brave
to do this stuff and to talk about it,
and I think the world's a better place
for having you in it. So I appreciate
you.
>> Thank you. Real pleasure talking to you.
>> All right, goodbye everybody.
>> Yes, you did it.
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