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The Career Trap That Makes Women Miserable - Suzanne Venker

Suzanne Venker is a relationship expert and author. Why are so many women choosing career over family? Women have more opportunities than ever before, yet many still feel something is missing. Can a career provide the same meaning as raising children? Or is the idea that women must choose between ambition and family a false choice? Expect to learn why women are choosing their career over motherhood, why young women were lied to for the past 30 years, how cultural messaging has shifted towards young women in recent years, why traditional values are making a big comeback, what actually creates lasting happiness, and much more... - Get 160+ lab tests for just $365 and save an extra $25 at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period from Shopify at https://shopify.com/modernwisdom Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Get up to $350 off the Eight Sleep Pod 5 at https://eightsleep.com/modernwisdom - 0:00 Have a Generation of Women Been Misled? 9:03 The Choices That Shape a Woman’s Future 15:30 The Most Common Regret Suzanne Encounters 19:12 Should Women Be Expected to Be Providers? 25:34 Is Part-Time Motherhood Enough? 33:41 How Cultural Pressure to Produce the Same As Men Is Hurting Women 36:41 The Truth About Breadwinning Mothers 40:23 Why Motherhood Deserves More Respect 48:12 Are Traditional Women Being Penalised? 50:12 Is Marriage the Biggest Predictor of Happiness? 53:36 The Key to Dating With Purpose 58:21 Is Living Together Before Marriage a Mistake? 01:08:46 Why Alignment Matters So Much 01:11:22 Does the Girlboss Mindset Work at Home? 01:19:41 Is Having Children Really Too Expensive? 01:30:56 Has Staying Home Become Undervalued? 01:33:38 Why Housework Causes So Much Conflict 01:38:43 Should Daycare Be a Last Resort? 01:46:22 The Alternative to Daycare More Parents Are Choosing 01:50:32 How to Stop Passing Trauma to Your Children 01:55:44 What Every Young Woman Needs to Hear 01:56:47 Where to Find Suzanne - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic here - https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Chris WilliamsonhostSuzanne Venkerguest
Jun 20, 20261h 57mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 9:03

    Have a Generation of Women Been Misled?

    1. CW

      You dedicated your book with an apology to a generation of women who've been misled.

    2. SV

      I did.

    3. CW

      How have they been misled?

    4. SV

      Yeah. I was essentially apologizing for the oversight that I believe both my generation, which is Gen X, by the way, I was born in '68, and the generation one up from me, which is the Boomers, which I think is more really what I'm talking about, but definitely some Gen X. Um, the oversight that they, um, did not share with their children, their daughters in particular, 'cause I really write mostly for young women, um, how to go about building a life that essentially includes marriage and motherhood. That the messaging has been for decades now, um, you can do anything you wanna do w- without any caveats there, with no explanation or nuance. You need to sort of prove yourself in the world in the way men do because equality is the goal. Men and women are the same, this, this kind of messaging. Um, and then taught them pretty much to put career at the center of their lives. And what they didn't do was talk about how marriage and motherhood was gonna fit into their lives and into that equation if they're just singularly focused on education and career.

    5. CW

      Hmm.

    6. SV

      So what ends up happening is that they get somewhere around 30, th- the age of 30, and it is well known that women start to think very differently about their future because they want to start having a family, and they hear that clock ticking, and their priorities are shifting. And they feel stuck. They feel like all these decisions that they've made up to this point were made with a different plan in mind because nobody wanted to talk about the fact that men and women are different, and so it's okay to construct a different kind of life.

    7. CW

      Hmm. Why do you think it's unpopular to warn women of that?

    8. SV

      Because the goal is a political one. It is about men and women being, um, equal, which doesn't mean equal in value the way I define it, but, um, sameness basically, interchangeability. That, you know, what one can do, the other can do, which by the way is often true. But it doesn't take human desire into account. So male and female desire is very, very different, and we don't talk about that 'cause that would highlight how men and women are different, and the goal is for men and women to be the same and to have these trajectories that are the same so that everything can be equal and 50/50 in this sort of utopian version of-

    9. CW

      Hmm

    10. SV

      ... what life should look like for men and women, and it's just not working. It's been several decades now with this messaging.

    11. CW

      Yeah. I, I had this idea a little while ago, the bigotry of male expectations.

    12. SV

      Mm-hmm.

    13. CW

      So there's an idea called the bigotry of small expectations or of low expectations, which kind of explains some of the white savior complex that, um-

    14. SV

      Yeah

    15. CW

      ... college educated white people have around minorities, that we will give you a helping hand. Allow us, poor people from a minority background, we will help you along. And there's kind of a similar situation I think that's happening with the way that women are being spoken to specifically by other women, which is you are only as valuable as you are able to play the role-

    16. SV

      Mm-hmm

    17. CW

      ... that typically men have done. And you know, that in some ways sounds very liberating, so you go, "Wow, this is independent. It's pushing women to be able to do what they want to do without the constraints that would've held them back previously."

    18. SV

      Mm-hmm.

    19. CW

      And I think that that's true.

    20. SV

      Mm-hmm.

    21. CW

      But what it forgets is that implicitly that denigrates what women have typically done. It makes them second-class citizens for doing the things that they used to do. There was a famous study that happened where, um, hunter-gatherers w- from ancestral times were analyzed using modern hunter-gatherer societies, and women did a slightly, uh, how would you say, motivated research team, analyzed the data and said women did just as much big game hunting as men and maybe even more. And what they were trying to put across was women were able to do the thing that men did. Now they fucked with the data. It turned out that that wasn't really the truth in, at all. But what it implicitly said was that hunting was important-

    22. SV

      Mm-hmm

    23. CW

      ... but gathering wasn't.

    24. SV

      Exactly.

    25. CW

      And, and how is that not misogynistic?

    26. SV

      Yeah.

    27. CW

      Like, that's the most misogynistic thing that I can think of from someone that's supposed to be-

    28. SV

      Mm-hmm

    29. CW

      ... pro-women. You're saying the thing that you do or did or your ancestors do or did-

    30. SV

      Mm-hmm

  2. 9:03 – 15:30

    The Choices That Shape a Woman’s Future

    1. CW

      What are the decisions that you think lock women in-

    2. SV

      Yeah

    3. CW

      ... to this future that is difficult to navigate when they grow up?

    4. SV

      So I think there are three main decisions that women make throughout their 20s that they, that can either set them up well or cause them to struggle more later. Um, the first one is professional. So I've always been a very big proponent of finding and choosing a profession and a major in school, let's say, that works well with the kind of life you wanna have down the line. So you have to really, um, think ahead and play the long game when you're making these decisions. So instead of getting a degree in some major that isn't gonna do anything for you, you're not gonna make any money from it, find something practical and some- not just that pays a decent wage, but also that can be worked around how you see your life in your 30s and 40s. So in other words, I mean, to, to simplify this, it's rather than putting career at the center of your life and trying to fit men and marriage and motherhood in around that-

    5. CW

      Hmm

    6. SV

      ... I want them to do the reverse.

    7. CW

      Hmm.

    8. SV

      I want them to put family first and make these decisions, uh, orbit around that, and that begins with the kind of career that you can, A, move in and out of more easily, ones that can be done more maybe part-time or from home. Ones that, um, give you control. Um, you own something, you know, like y- you could start a business later. Just basically flexibility so that when you're older and your priorities do shift, which for most women they do, you have options.

    9. CW

      What do you say to the women that go, "Why should I have to give that up?"

    10. SV

      Yeah.

    11. CW

      "I don't wanna have to give that up. I don't, why-

    12. SV

      Give what up?

    13. CW

      "Why should I have to, why sh- why should I have to sacrifice and build my career around family life? I should, my, uh-"

    14. SV

      There's no should, but you will want, you will very likely want to, and if you set yourself up the way you're doing it, you'll have no options. If you do it the other way, you'll at least have the option because what you're gonna feel like is important at 32 is gonna be very different from what you feel like at 22. You just don't even realize how you're gonna change.

    15. CW

      I think that's one of the challenges with this, right? That you're saying, uh, women who are not thinking about family literally don't even have it on their bingo card.

    16. SV

      Exactly.

    17. CW

      You need to think about a thing you're not planning for and currently don't want. It takes an unbelievable amount of counterculture pressure to be able to say, "None of my friends think about this. None of modern media is suggesting that I do this. I don't even feel the desire to do this, and actively, if I got pregnant right now, I don't even know what I'd do about it. But I should start to construct a life that is future-proofing me in order to do that." Like, it's a huge-

    18. SV

      It's a huge-

    19. CW

      ... going into the, against the tide moment. Yeah.

    20. SV

      It's so huge, Chris. I mean, it's a big ask, right?

    21. CW

      Yeah, yeah.

    22. SV

      I mean, and, and the-

    23. CW

      Doesn't surprise me that women aren't doing it.

    24. SV

      No, 'cause it, it, the running joke is, well, I'm trying to get to you when you're 22 before you come to me at 32, but at 22 you're not interested, but at 32 you're like, [panting] "Help me, help me."

    25. CW

      [laughs]

    26. SV

      And I'm like, "Ugh." You know, it's so hard. I mean, one of the hardest things about coaching for me has been hearing these women And knowing that all of this stuff could have been avoided if they had just been told the truth

    27. CW

      Have you considered... In school in the UK we have something called Scare Them Straight. I don't know whether you have the same thing. It's not gay conversion. It's getting prison guards in to schools, and they explain how dangerous it is in prison and how bad of a time it is, and the whole point is to try and warn young, mostly boys-

    28. SV

      Yeah

    29. CW

      ... but I guess girls too, off of the life of crime. And I went to a-

    30. SV

      Yeah

  3. 15:30 – 19:12

    The Most Common Regret Suzanne Encounters

    1. CW

      so can you, can you give me an example of the prototypical 32-year-old person that comes to you? What-

    2. SV

      Yeah

    3. CW

      ... what career choice have they made?

    4. SV

      Yeah.

    5. CW

      What did they do in their 20s? And-

    6. SV

      Yeah

    7. CW

      ... why is that an issue now? Because a lot of women might think, "Well, if I choose a high-powered career, that means that I've earned more money, which means that I can step back from it."

    8. SV

      So I'd say the biggest issue there that cannot be overlooked, and one of the reasons... or one of the, one of the ways I think this began to go really downhill is student debt, which is a massive problem in America. And that messaging came from people who are parents who were like, "Doesn't matter what it costs. This is... I mean, this is the most important thing ever, so it doesn't matter if you have to go into debt for do- to do it because you're just gonna pay it back, right?" Well, the problem with that is by the time you're done with all the schooling and you've gotten the job, and then you're starting to be paid enough to even begin to pay it back, all of a sudden you're around 30 years old.

    9. CW

      Hmm.

    10. SV

      And then this other thing comes into play. So that... And this leads into, you know, homeownership, all these, all these f- uh, financial issues that were, um, a result of decisions that were made, again, because they're not playing the long game 'cause nobody taught them, "Listen, if you go into this much debt and then you get married and maybe you wanna stay home, you're not gonna feel like you can because you owe all this money, and your money's not gonna go as far, and you're not gonna feel like you can have a house." And it just, it just, um, it's not fleshed out in the way that it needs to be-

    11. CW

      Hmm

    12. SV

      ... for both young... I mean, I have a son and a daughter, and everything my husband and I taught, um, was for both of them. But of course their trajectories are gonna be different because one's a boy and one's a girl, and that's another thing that's really taboo 'cause nobody wants to parent their children, opposite sex children differently because you're supposed to be the same.

    13. CW

      Hmm.

    14. SV

      But the reality is that girls' and women's bodies do something that a man's doesn't.

    15. CW

      Hmm.

    16. SV

      And that has to be taken into account when mapping out a life in a way that's unique to them.

    17. CW

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    18. SV

      Yes, flexibility basically

    19. CW

      Yep

    20. SV

      Instead of these careers that are going to literally take over your life, you're working 24/7, you have no space in your life to even find love or nurture love or get married and have children, and you're not thinking about it, and then all of a sudden you're, you're older and you're saying, "Where have all the good men gone? I don't see them." It just, it's, there's a-

    21. CW

      Yeah

    22. SV

      ... there's just a downward, uh, yeah.

  4. 19:12 – 25:34

    Should Women Be Expected to Be Providers?

    1. CW

      So that's first.

    2. SV

      Sorry?

    3. CW

      You said there was three elements.

    4. SV

      Oh, yes. Sorry. Um, so the second one is, what did I say? Professional-

    5. CW

      Yep

    6. SV

      ... and then relational. So this is another big one that's, um, controversial, I guess. It used to be that men or, um, moms and dads would tell their daughters, you know, "Don't bring home any man who, uh, doesn't have a job," right? Or isn't, um, going somewhere, let's say. Um, that's of course not done anymore because you're supposed to take care of yourself. You don't, you don't need a man to take care of you. So there are a lot of women who are getting with men who are, um, who haven't found their professional footing, let's say. Let's put it that way.

    7. CW

      Hmm.

    8. SV

      Or they're gonna bank on the fact that they will find it someday. And you just basically don't want to marry a man who hasn't found themselves professionally because you, again, going back to you're gonna have fewer options down the road because you, in fact, do need a man on whom you can depend financially, if only for a short period of time.

    9. CW

      Hmm.

    10. SV

      And why should that be controversial? Here's something that's really interesting. Um, they took a poll of Americans, and 71% of American adults believe that it's important for a man to be able to brive- provide for his family. Guess how many think a woman should be able to, or should, should do it?

    11. CW

      50?

    12. SV

      32.

    13. CW

      Okay.

    14. SV

      71 to 32. Now, that says to me that we know instinctively that women become vulnerable when they have a child, and that they're going to need support, both emotional and financial, for X period of time, and that that is in part why we need men to, um, um, embrace their providing and provec- providing and protecting, um, d- desire. Um, and women aren't ex- sort of expected to be the providers because do we really want women to get pregnant, carry that baby for nine months, give birth, breastfeed, go through all of that, and by the way, get back to work. You should be working too while you're doing that.

    15. CW

      Hmm.

    16. SV

      I mean, nobody really thinks that's a good idea that you hear, 'cause why not just do that too? You know? It's not, it isn't natural. And if you're experiencing it, when you really do experience it and you look at it, you're like, "How can I ask her to go do this right now?"

    17. CW

      Hmm.

    18. SV

      She's, she's, she's, she's very busy, and she's very tired, and she's depleted, and she has an appendage hanging from her that needs her. And so I think we know that instinctually, and I think that's the reason for that gap.

    19. CW

      Yeah, it's, it's an interesting one because I wonder how many women are allowing themselves to pick up the slack of mate choices where they thought, "Well, I'm independent already, so financially maybe I'm, I'm gonna pay a little bit less attention to his future prospects in this way." You know, the top quintile, so the top 20% of female earners and the bottom 40% of male earners are mating with the woman as the primary breadwinner.

    20. SV

      Mm-hmm.

    21. CW

      So the top 20% of women are mating down socioeconomically-

    22. SV

      Yeah

    23. CW

      ... and the bottom 40% of men are mating up socioeconomically.

    24. SV

      Mm-hmm.

    25. CW

      That's a big chunk.

    26. SV

      Mm-hmm.

    27. CW

      That's a lot-

    28. SV

      It's a lot

    29. CW

      ... that's going on. So yeah, I wonder how many women are, are basically picking up the slack, which creates this self-reinforcing loop of-

    30. SV

      That's right

  5. 25:34 – 33:41

    Is Part-Time Motherhood Enough?

    1. CW

      Oh, okay. I gotta, I gotta bring this up. I gotta bring this up.

    2. SV

      Okay.

    3. CW

      Are you familiar with Emma Grede?

    4. SV

      No.

    5. CW

      Do you know who she is?

    6. SV

      No.

    7. CW

      Uh, Emma Grede is the British Kardashian whisperer entrepreneur-

    8. SV

      [laughs]

    9. CW

      ... who is the co-founder and CEO of the Good American clothing brand and a founding partner of Skims. But lately-

    10. SV

      I know Skims

    11. CW

      ... she's been getting way more attention, something else, how she parents her four kids, ages 12, 10, and four, they're twins. And, uh, we got a clip that I wanna show you.

    12. SP

      Well, and you're very honest about how you view parenting. I have to ask you about this. You did an interview with The Wall Street Journal, and the headline was, "The Kardashian Whisperer Who Says Three Hours With Her Kids Is Enough." That's based on, uh, what you say in your book. You call yourself a three-hour max mum. That raised a lot of eyebrows, as you know. What did you mean by that, a three-hour max mum?

    13. SP

      Well, what I meant by it was exactly what I said [laughs] and I really don't want to backpedal. You know, the first thing that I thought when I saw that headline was like, "Wow, that would never have been written about a man."

    14. SP

      Mm.

    15. SP

      Nobody would ever have written that about my husband. The important thing is that I bring a level of honesty to everything I say because when you work Monday through Friday, the idea that you've got this entirely free weekend to just be with your kids and orientate your whole world around your children is just not a reality. I have errands to run. I have things to do. And because we're in a social media culture that says, you know, you have to arrange every play date and count every macro and decide what your kids can and can't eat, and make sure that they're constantly entertained, it's impossible. We're setting women up for a failure, and we're holding women to impossible standards. So what I meant when I said I was a three-hour mom is that I probably spend, like, three hours with my kids doing the things that they want to do, entertaining them, being down on the floor and playing with them. Then I have other things to do, and that's just the truth. It's just a reality, and I think a lot of parents feel exactly the same, that you're depleted after a week at work, and actually, you only have a couple of hours. But isn't that good enough? I think it is.

    16. CW

      What do you think of that?

    17. SV

      So much to say about that. I don't know where to begin. [laughs] Um, in fact, when I wrote my first book, and that was 25 years ago, I... You can't even believe how many of these things. This, of course, we didn't have, uh, social media, but it was all, uh, print, but the amount of stuff that I read like that [laughs] from, um, working, hardcore working mothers who basically wanna make the argument that, you know, uh, eh, good enough, good enough mothering, just give 'em a box of cereal, they'll be fine for dinner if you're d- if you're too tired to cook, that kind of thing. Um, my, I have a theory that this over-parenting craze of the last, what do you think that is, 15 years, um, came about as a result, uh, sort of after women had started, mothers, excuse me, had g- started going into the work en masse and finding out for themselves that, wow, um, okay, this doesn't work well with, um, well, especially with littles, but full-time, with motherhood, with young children. And they had to cut corners. And so, um, m- my argument's always been that those are two full-time jobs. In the same way you can't be a doctor and a lawyer simultaneously, nobody would suggest you do that, it's no different from full-time motherhood and whatever she's doing or people are doing that are full-time. They clash. They inherently clash, and something's gotta give, and you have to make choices. So, um, the, there's a couple different elements to that. On, on the one hand, I wanna say, you know, when you are home full time, let's say, with your children, it is true that you would only spend a couple of hours, as she puts it, down on the floor with them doing something of, you know, that they wanna do really intensely. It's not like stay-at-home moms are any different from her in that regard. The difference is that the rest of the hours of the day you are physically present and available. So as an at-home mom, you're not supposed to be on the floor 12 hours a day engaged with your child as if they're the center of the universe. That's not motherhood. But it got skewed when, when this transformation happened, when moms were trying to mother with leftover time and feeling intense about it, like, "Oh my gosh, I haven't been here all day, so I have to really make this one or two hours count." And then they came up with a conclusion about, "Well, it's not supposed to be this way. Let's just say screw that."

    18. CW

      Yeah.

    19. SV

      But that's a misreading of really what it... It, it's not that you can be absent 10 hours and then come home for two hours and be intense. It's when you're there and you are present, there's so much going on, um, that is outside of the one-on-one care. I don't know if I'm making this very-

    20. CW

      Mm-hmm

    21. SV

      ... clear, but-

    22. CW

      Well, it seems like what Emma would say is she's making it work. She's doing three hours, and the kids are f- the-

    23. SV

      Well, they're not-

    24. CW

      At least-

    25. SV

      Yeah. I mean-

    26. CW

      Well, what do you think's happening to kids-

    27. SV

      Um

    28. CW

      ... that are getting three hours with mom over a weekend, or three hours on a Saturday and three hours on a Sunday?

    29. SV

      Well, it, it's more about what's happening the rest of the time. It's not, I mean, those three hours might be great, but what's happening the rest of the, the hours of the week? Um, you can't fill in for, um, an absence with a couple of hours a week with small children. It just doesn't work that way. That whole quality time thing is bogus. That's not real. Children need tons and tons and tons of quantity time, not quality time. It's just not something you can just do in leftover time. I don't know how else to say it. So-

    30. CW

      Why do you think Emma believes that you can then? Because she's-

  6. 33:41 – 36:41

    How Cultural Pressure to Produce the Same As Men Is Hurting Women

    1. CW

      You were just talking about this, like, cultural pressure on women-

    2. SV

      Yeah

    3. CW

      ... to produce in the same-

    4. SV

      Yeah

    5. CW

      ... way as men do.

    6. SV

      Yeah.

    7. CW

      Like, what does the cultural pressure on women to produce-

    8. SV

      Yeah

    9. CW

      ... in the same way as men do to women?

    10. SV

      Yeah. So I don't think at the beginning it feels necessarily negative. I think when, when men and women are young, their lives do look remarkably similar. You go to school, you get a job, you're working, you're not married with kids yet. So you kinda do look interchangeable, right? You're doing the same things. And everybody's fine. My argument is that it's really not until you start to either think about children, or then really when you have them, that our differences become glaring between women and men. So, for example, when a woman goes through all of that, that physically in being pregnant, giving birth, breastfeeding, and being at home in those early months or years nurturing. I mean, when she has a baby, her first inclination is not to financially provide for the baby. Your first inclination as a woman is to take care of him or her and to nurture him or her. That is natural to you. Um, your, your desire to work for pay, at least in that moment, for those, let's just say, months, ramps down. Generally speaking, when a man becomes a father, his desire to provide ramps up. And, uh, my theory about that is really that I, I feel like because there's such a difference in men and women a- as mothers and fathers in those early years, it's so obvious and natural that a baby needs his mother because you're physically attached, and there's so much that she's doing physically. And I feel like a father is sort of, he's there more to support her and to get things done so that she can be with her baby, but he doesn't really feel needed in the same way. And so his response to, "Oh my gosh, now I have a baby, I've gotta da," is immediately to, to ramp up his desire to provide. That's, that's my theory about it. So it-- when you have a child, it really just makes our differences gla- and they just continue. Like, it just continues. There's so many things that go on after the baby comes where marriages start to strain because they are operating in sameness mode, equality mode-

    11. CW

      Mm-hmm

    12. SV

      ... fifty-fifty, tit for tat, you do this, I do this, how much did you s- th-th-th. And it's a, it's a shit show, honestly. It really is. You cannot go into marriage with that mentality or you're gonna be really unhappy.

    13. CW

      Hmm.

    14. SV

      And so, anyway, going back to your question is, I just feel like it, because those differences i- between us don't show up until later, I think women don't realize until later how much they've been misled and how much it is hurting them until they're in the throes of

  7. 36:41 – 40:23

    The Truth About Breadwinning Mothers

    1. SV

      it.

    2. CW

      What are you learning about breadwinning mums?

    3. SV

      This is a really difficult subject for people to talk about. Um, again, going back to what we're saying is that we're supposed to be the same, so there shouldn't be any difference. But the truth of the matter is- For most women, and not all, there are some women who are happy and fine in, you know, living a more traditional man's life for life. But for most women, um, it has been my experience doing this for so many years, that eventually, no matter how happy they may be in their career at first, or, you know, being independent, earning money, whatever, if they're gonna be a wife and mother, and if you're not, that might be a separate conversation. Ultimately, that pressure to produce becomes very taxing once you've become a wife and mother, especially a mother, really a mother. And the more and more you are the primary breadwinner, and oftentimes this happens not necessarily consciously, but as the relationship grows, and if you are becoming the primary provider or the main provider, and I mean if there's a real gap here, especially if you have an, a, an stay-at-home dad, let's say, that's almost a, a- an extreme version of that, um, they become resentful. And it's not, I really... It's like it's not their fault. It's just, it's not natural for them to be doing both of those things, in my opinion, simultaneously unscathed. Meaning, you can, but you're wearing yourself into the ground. This is why we have the mental health crisis we do, this is why we're having marriages strained as we do, because you're asking them to do too much. You cannot do both of these things simultaneously without breaking down. It's because they're not meant to be done simultaneously. Um, but the only way you could understand that is if you acknowledge the incredible amount of work that goes into raising a baby to become a healthy adult. If you dismiss that or think that's just something you can do on the side, you're not really-- this isn't gonna register for you. You know? You have, uh, and that goes back to the whole, um, career at the center and thinking you can just, these things can or- orbit around it, and it just, it just doesn't work that way. A man who's providing is in the main role, he's not gonna be taxed by that. He's gonna be emboldened by that. He wants to do that. He's a provider and a protector. It's in his DNA, and it's unique to him, and it's special for him, you know, and we've taken that away from him, I think.

    4. CW

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  8. 40:23 – 48:12

    Why Motherhood Deserves More Respect

    1. CW

      You've got a line, "Men want their wives happy, and if they believe she wants to provide, they instinctively step back. After all, if she's bringing in enough, why work harder or work more?"

    2. SV

      So I, I truly believe that men need an incentive to work hard. They need something to work toward, not just work for work's sake, but to work towards something, a reward, um, accolades, um, you know, s- they, to br- to, to produce, to be useful. And, you know, when you have an entire generation of women saying, "You know, I can have the babies, raise them, and I can take care of them financially too," [chuckles] where are they gonna go? Where, what's gonna happen to men?

    3. CW

      Hmm.

    4. SV

      W- I mean, it's happening now, where they are pulling back. They're pulling back 'cause they're saying, "Well, I guess nobody needs me, so..." You know, it would be a lovely world if we could say, "Well, they should just do it for themselves," you know, the sake of themselves. But I just don't think men do that. I think they need incentive, and, um, the greatest incentive at a-- incentive of all has always been providing for a family, and I think it's just been disastrous for them, honestly-

    5. CW

      Hmm

    6. SV

      ... that they've been told, "We don't need that anymore."

    7. CW

      Yeah, there's some interesting paradoxes here that, um, deadbeat dads-

    8. SV

      Mm

    9. CW

      ... fathers that don't contribute much are almost universally, even by feminists, seen as not good. It would be better if you were contributing more, especially financially, and making it easier on the wife. But also it's put forward that women shouldn't need to rely on their male partner and that they shouldn't really be looking for their financial stability that much at all because I have my thing going on.

    10. SV

      Yeah.

    11. CW

      And you can be a stay-at-home dad.

    12. SV

      Yeah.

    13. CW

      And similarly, there's a lot of complaints around the lack of maternity leave in the US, which I think is fucking barbaric.

    14. SV

      Mm.

    15. CW

      Like, it's insane. And also that your career is the most important thing that you'll ever do in your life.

    16. SV

      [chuckles]

    17. CW

      And that if you are not working as a mum... I have a friend who, um, had a bunch of kids, then her and her husband stopped, and she was working while they had the first ones, and then the most recent one, she decided to be a stay-at-home mom. And she went to a play date with her three-year-old, the newest one, and a bunch of other mums, and they were all working mums.

    18. SV

      Mm.

    19. CW

      And one of the mums turned to her and she said, "You know what? I, I really wish that I'd known you while you were working, you know, while you had a lot going on." And she said it felt like she's never felt-

    20. SV

      Mm-hmm

    21. CW

      ... that hurt by another comment from someone.

    22. SV

      So I'm glad you brought that up because that- I mean, you've really hit a nugget there of what makes so many women today feel that they can't succumb to their inherent desire to just be a mom. And I say just on purpose, not-- Because in their minds, it's just being a mom. And I, I'm kind of been here all-

    23. CW

      To not need to be anything more than a mother

    24. SV

      Yes. And I've been like, "This is the whole thing. This is it. This is why we're on the planet." This is to build relationships, build a family. There is work that goes into this. It doesn't-- Kids don't just come about while you go do your thing, you know? It's, it's work. And because it's not work that is paid, um, we as, we as we are today as a country that is materialistic, individualistic, all about stuff, status-

    25. CW

      Mm-hmm

    26. SV

      ... we don't value it anymore. We don't value anything that doesn't, um, have a nice giant paycheck associated with it.

    27. CW

      It doesn't generate economic return, yeah.

    28. SV

      And this is new. I mean, really, this is new. Like, this is new in the la- I don't know, I wanna say, I wanna say quarter of a century. I've been writing about this since, for about twenty-five years. Um, and it, it's been interesting to see h- where things were with this subject then and now. It's just gotten worse and worse and worse in terms of our va- values and this materialism that we live in today. And it's so twisted that when you start with that base of money, money, money, status, career, whatever, y- you're never gonna be successful in your professional life and in, uh, excuse me, in your personal life and in your relationships because your focus is on the wrong thing. I mean, this is true for men and women, by the way. I-

    29. CW

      Y- your, your position here, it's probably worth restating it if it's not obvious. What you're saying is that your family life will be more important and more rewarding to you than your professional life.

    30. SV

      [laughs]

  9. 48:12 – 50:12

    Are Traditional Women Being Penalised?

    1. CW

      Do you think mothers are denigrated in modern society? Like, are women punished socially for wanting traditional lives?

    2. SV

      Um, I don't know if I'd say punished. I just think that they feel that that's the wrong choice to make. That's what I think, that they just cannot shout it from the rooftops, cannot openly talk about it or plan for it. They have to sort of do this.

    3. CW

      You don't think women are seen as second-class citizens?

    4. SV

      Uh, um, uh-

    5. CW

      When they, when they become mothers versus when they stay working. To me it seems, it doesn't seem like there's that much... The, the pedestalization of mothers seems to come from a counterculture standpoint or a tradwife-

    6. SV

      Ye- uh-

    7. CW

      ... conservative talking point, like some Christian white picket fence thing. And it, it-- To me, I don't see that much pro-motherhood content. But the-

    8. SV

      Oh, no. Yes. No, I agree with that. Uh-

    9. CW

      The Emma Griedgen lady was on Oprah, and she did two million plays a couple of weeks ago.

    10. SV

      If you're asking me whether that W- whether the non-motherhood women, I don't know how you wanna defi- define it, gets more play in society. Well, yeah, that's like 90/10. But my heart... But you know, it's always, that's mostly because the women who are wives and mothers, and even happy doing it, are quietly living their lives. They're not in front of- They're not sitting here, right? So you're not gonna hear from them. There's millions of them. It's just they're not represented because the people who are represented in the media, not so much alternative media, but all these years in mainstream media, are the minority of women for whom family is not the focus. That's really important to understand because p- prior to YouTube and, and social media and all of that, all of the information was coming from this small group of women who do not represent the average woman, and that's why it's skewed and makes the masses of women feel like there's something wrong with them, when in fact they're the norm, and those women you're hearing from are not.

    11. CW

      Mm.

    12. SV

      I always thought that was very interesting.

    13. CW

      But they're the most influential and the loudest.

    14. SV

      But they're the most influen- Exactly.

  10. 50:12 – 53:36

    Is Marriage the Biggest Predictor of Happiness?

    1. CW

      Yeah. You say who you marry and how that marriage fares will have more of an effect on your happiness-

    2. SV

      Mm-hmm

    3. CW

      ... and wellbeing than anything else that you do. Do you think women are aware of this?

    4. SV

      No, I don't. I don't. Where would they hear it? [laughs] Who's saying it to them? I mean, you're not allowed to talk about it in... When, when, really, when would they hear it? If their parents aren't passing that on.

    5. CW

      Mm.

    6. SV

      Seriously, if their parents are not passing that on, or some family member, they're not gonna hear it in the media. They're not gonna hear it at school. They're not gonna hear it on the... Where would you hear it?

    7. CW

      Well, the Disney movies wouldn't be pushing that kind of a meme as much as it would've done in the '90s-

    8. SV

      Yeah, yeah

    9. CW

      ... and maybe the 2000s.

    10. SV

      I mean, look, the reality is you can, you can change your career, you can change a job. People do it all the time. You can shift your interests and all of that. But who you marry, if you have children with them, you are tied with them until you die, if you have children. Now, obviously there's divorce, but A, who wants to promote that? That's not really, you know, any- what anybody wants to do, and B, you're, you've created a family, and so you are, you are linked. So it, it has more impact on what direction your life takes than your, than a career choice. Because again, you can change a career. You can't just change out a husband or a wife. I mean, people try all the time, but doesn't really work very well. Second marriages are notoriously more flimsy than first, third even more so, fourth even more. I mean, just go down the line. It's not y- it's not really an answer for most people. So we need to give it, in my opinion, the weight that it deserves and the attention that it deserves, and we're so afraid to talk about it, and that says so much about where we are today in what we value, that we can't even openly talk about what's great about marriage.

    11. CW

      Mm.

    12. SV

      I mean-

    13. CW

      If it's the most important decision that someone's going to make, is that-

    14. SV

      If they wanna make it. I'm not telling you you have to make it.

    15. CW

      Yeah.

    16. SV

      If you don't wanna get married, don't get married.

    17. CW

      Uh-huh.

    18. SV

      But most people do. Most people do get married, eventually.

    19. CW

      If it's, if it's as important as it is for the people who want to do it-

    20. SV

      Yeah, yeah

    21. CW

      ... isn't that strong evidence against rushing into a marriage?

    22. SV

      Um, no. I would say... Well, I don't think anybody should rush into marriage, for sure. But I, I would say it's an argument for early education about marriage, and early education about, um... Gosh, there's so much education that young people don't get when it comes to this subject because, again, we're not allowed to talk about it. Um, take the fertility crisis, you know. We don't, we're not allowed to talk about the fact that even-

    23. CW

      You're among friends here

    24. SV

      ... that you ha- that you have a biological clock. I mean, why should I not talk about that? It's, I can't change it. I didn't make it. It just is, right? So let's work with it. Let's create a life that works with what is, not with what we wish could be.

    25. CW

      Mm.

    26. SV

      And so that's a taboo subject to say that. You can't tell that to women, you know. So okay, well, the reality is a 40-year-old man can marry a 30-year-old women's, woman and still have a family, and it's not gonna be the same if a woman's 40 and looking for a husband, and let's talk about that-

    27. CW

      Mm

    28. SV

      ... even though it's painful to talk about or whatever.

  11. 53:36 – 58:21

    The Key to Dating With Purpose

    1. CW

      What does dating with purpose look like for modern women? How do you advise women to date well?

    2. SV

      You know, things have gotten so bad on that depart- in that department, like so much so over the last 10 or 15 years, really 10 years, that I, I'm almost to the point where I'm like, "Just, just get it out on the table in the first three dates," [laughs] you know? Just-

    3. CW

      Get what? Get what on the table?

    4. SV

      Just like what you want and what you're looking for and, you know, it, it... I have this theory that you just, you weed out the people who aren't on the same page as you when you just get it on the table.

    5. CW

      What does that look like?

    6. SV

      So for example, okay, I'll-

    7. CW

      Yeah, we're on a date. We're on a date.

    8. SV

      Okay. I mean, the first date, no. The first date is just who are you, hello, where are you from, what do you like, da-da-da-da.

    9. CW

      Okay, it's our third-

    10. SV

      So you get the first date

    11. CW

      ... it's our third date.

    12. SV

      Perfect. Presumably, if you're on a third date with someone, you are getting into deeper conversations than on the first, right? Just by nature of you're talking more, so more things are gonna come up. You're gonna talk about your background, presumably, and you're gonna talk about your history and what you want, I think. I guess. I did. And naturally in the conversation, you're gonna kinda learn whether or not the person is family-focused or career-focused, or wanting something temporary or wanting something permanent. I feel like by the third date you would know that. Do you disagree?

    13. CW

      No.

    14. SV

      And so why f- I... There's so much pretending going on.

    15. CW

      What would you ask?

    16. SV

      So much fear.

    17. CW

      So-

    18. SV

      So obviously-

    19. CW

      ... imagine, imagine for a second that we're on the date. Let's role play this, and you're gonna say, you're gonna ask me some of the questions that you think are important for, for women to ask.

    20. SV

      You didn't prepare me for this, Chris. [laughs]

    21. CW

      I, no. Look, I, you, you've told enough women how to do it.

    22. SV

      Yeah.

    23. CW

      Put your cards on the table.

    24. SV

      I mean- Tell me about your, you know, uh, if it didn't come up naturally, tell me about your childhood.

    25. CW

      Okay.

    26. SV

      Tell me about your parents. Are your parents married?

    27. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    28. SV

      Let's have the conversation. Are your parents married? [laughs]

    29. CW

      Why is that, why is that important?

    30. SV

      Because it's gonna skew how you think about marriage probably.

  12. 58:21 – 1:08:46

    Is Living Together Before Marriage a Mistake?

    1. CW

      I, I, I think you're right. I think that being intentional with, with dating is one of the most important things, because I think about basically the way that the human attachment system works, like not, uh, anxious, avoidant, secure, but the human romantic attachment system is basically one big psychedelic trip that hopes that you can attach yourself to this person sufficiently quickly while you're in the drug state-

    2. SV

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm

    3. CW

      ... before you get to the my brains come back online state.

    4. SV

      Mm-hmm.

    5. CW

      And I wonder how many people, "I started hanging out with this person and, and, and, you know, they were nice and hot and I kinda got a bit obsessed with them. They used to text me all the time. And then, you know, we just started hanging out a bit more. And then we, we didn't really move in, but we started staying over each other's houses a bit. And then we decided, well, we might as well move in, and that was, you know, like nine months or something. And then, and then we got a golden retriever 'cause we thought for Christmas he'd get me a golden retriever. I've always wanted a golden retriever. And then, and then, yeah, we, we just sort of stayed together and things kinda became comfortable. And, you know, we settled into it, and then we just thought, well, like you get engaged. That's what people do. You get engaged. And then we, you know, the marri- the wedding came along and th- things were okay. And then, you know, we had the first kid." And before you know it, you've fallen backward into a relationship and a cohabiting situation and a dog and an engagement and a marriage and kids that at no point you actually chose.

    6. SV

      100%.

    7. CW

      You didn't choose this thing. This person was around you.

    8. SV

      That's right.

    9. CW

      They were in your proximity-

    10. SV

      That's exactly right

    11. CW

      ... while you didn't have any serotonin in your brain.

    12. SV

      That's exact- that's exactly right. And that is why I have been against cohabitation from day one, and I was saying it from a d- in a different way 'cause people... It wasn't from a religious perspective or a sex perspec- perspective. It was... It doesn't, it, it doesn't serve you well to do that for exactly the reason that you describe. People often slide into marriage as a result of everything you just described as opposed to making a conscious, well-thought-out decision in advance.

    13. CW

      Hmm.

    14. SV

      "This is who I want to marry." And you need objectivity for that. You need separation. You need to go home to your own space.

    15. CW

      What do you advise people to do instead? Like-

    16. SV

      Not live together. Date-

    17. CW

      At, at all?

    18. SV

      ... and live in their own... No. I mean, once they're engaged-

    19. CW

      Yep

    20. SV

      ... that's fine. Once you've made... It's about making the decision. You make the decision from a distance-

    21. CW

      Hmm

    22. SV

      ... from living in your own space. "Will you marry me?" "Yes." "Ah." And then go about your business. But if you do it before, it's like you said, you, it's all skewed because, well, you're here. We're in it now. You're-

    23. CW

      You're larping as a married couple without having actually got the wedding done, which makes you think that the wedding becomes more of a formality than a decision.

    24. SV

      Yes.

    25. CW

      It's just the natural progress. We're already kind of married, right? We're already doing it. I mean, how many people have gone, "Well, you know, we're already kinda doing it"? That's a really in... I've never even thought about it that way, the, the, the cohabitation effect-

    26. SV

      Yeah

    27. CW

      ... which you're probably familiar with. That gets explained away by a variety of different reasons, but I've never thought about it as keeping you and your partner separate until you make the decision to be engaged.

    28. SV

      Mm-hmm.

    29. CW

      Because what lots of people would say is, "I'm not gonna marry someone that I don't know if I can live with them."

    30. SV

      No, but it doesn't, uh, I-

  13. 1:08:46 – 1:11:22

    Why Alignment Matters So Much

    1. SV

      You go, you know.

    2. CW

      I was... Are you familiar with the idea of a shit test? Do you know what that is?

    3. SV

      From women to-

    4. CW

      Pick-up artistry. Yeah. It was the women w-

    5. SV

      Yes. The women to the men.

    6. CW

      Exactly.

    7. SV

      The shit test their men.

    8. CW

      Yeah, exactly. They would-

    9. SV

      To see if they are strong enough

    10. CW

      ... push their buttons.

    11. SV

      Yep. Yep.

    12. CW

      Exactly. Uh, I had an equivalent when, uh, I was dating, which was I would send weird psychology articles-

    13. SV

      Mm-hmm

    14. CW

      ... to the girl that I was talking to, to see-

    15. SV

      To see what her reaction was. Yeah

    16. CW

      ... what she would respond with.

    17. SV

      Yeah. Yeah.

    18. CW

      So I'm like, "Look, this is kind of important to me."

    19. SV

      Yeah.

    20. CW

      My work is something that I care about and I think is interesting, and marriage is basically one big fucking long podcast. It's a huge conversation that lasts for 20,000 or 30,000 hours.

    21. SV

      Amen.

    22. CW

      And, um-

    23. SV

      You're still having it. Yeah

    24. CW

      ... it's important to me in relationship.

    25. SV

      Yeah.

    26. CW

      My relationships have failed in the past because I haven't had much or enough-

    27. SV

      Interest in that same thing

    28. CW

      ... to talk about-

    29. SV

      Yeah

    30. CW

      ... with my partner. And that means, uh, it's really important that we can get on the same page. So I would almost over-signal weird psychology articles upfront in the same way as you're saying get it all out on the table.

  14. 1:11:22 – 1:19:41

    Does the Girlboss Mindset Work at Home?

    1. CW

      what do you think about timing? Have you s- talked to women about how long you should date before engagement, be engaged before marriage, marriage before kids? Is that something that you consider?

    2. SV

      Um, I mean, I get asked about it, and I don't have any hard line about it. I think that it... I, I think it can be different for different people, and I think the circumstances matter, um, and how old you were when you met and what you're doing and what your background was like and what, who, how you are as a person. So I don't think there's a hard line. Uh, for example, I knew my first husband for five years before we married, and we were married four years and divorced.

    3. CW

      Yeah.

    4. SV

      No kids. I married my husband, current husband, only husband that I think of when I think of husband, is, um, a year after I met him. So he asked me six months after we met.

    5. CW

      Wow.

    6. SV

      Now, now, I was 29 and he was 33.

    7. CW

      Mm.

    8. SV

      So I do think it speeds up insofar as you j- as you... It's just... But there were a lot of circumstances there that to somebody else that might sound fast, but actually... And it was, but the, the circumstances were in place that made s- made, made it make sense.

    9. CW

      How long was kids after-

    10. SV

      And because I'd been with five years, sorry, with the other one-

    11. CW

      Mm-hmm

    12. SV

      ... obviously I had a, a thing that, well, that didn't work either, so.

    13. CW

      Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

    14. SV

      In my mind I'm like, well, I guess the-

    15. CW

      How long were kids after the marriage?

    16. SV

      I was married at 30, had a daughter at 32, and a son at 35.

    17. CW

      Yep. Cool. Okay. Um, all right. So you've got this situation where perhaps a woman is gonna have to go to their husband and say...

    18. SV

      I want to stay home.

    19. CW

      I want to stay at home. I wonder how many men, I think this is probably increasingly true, I wonder how many men are going to feel indignant or not seen in the fact that the lean in quite masculine energy woman that they go into a relationship with, who maybe they were trying to encourage into her softness and her femininity for a long time, and battle against and perhaps subdued some of the desires that they had around, well, you know, she's on a career thing, and I guess I'm not... that's not the kind of life that I'm gonna have. So they've kind of got into this expectation-

    20. SV

      Yes

    21. CW

      ... and maybe even tried to Suggest and, and encourage that softness and that femininity to come through, only for them to find out after kids that they were right, but early

    22. SV

      [laughs] I haven't had that exact same scenario that you just described come up, um, in coaching anyway, but, uh, 'cause usually it's-

    23. CW

      From the woman's side

    24. SV

      ... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um

    25. CW

      And might not be something that they would freely admit.

    26. SV

      No, but it's, it's so, so-

    27. CW

      I was a lean in boss lady-

    28. SV

      Yeah

    29. CW

      ... type energy for a long time, and he actually asked me to do this a while ago, and

    30. SV

      Totally. And, and I ac- I actually wrote a book called The Alpha Female's Guide to Men and Marriage. I don't know if you saw that. And that's all about how the type A, uh, masculinized, hard-charging woman can become softer. It's a whole book about how to become soft.

  15. 1:19:41 – 1:30:56

    Is Having Children Really Too Expensive?

    1. CW

      What's the truth about the financial requirements for raising a kid?

    2. SV

      Oh my. Well, it's really not that expensive in the early years, for one thing. You, you just need diapers and formula, right? Um, over the years, the long-- you know, if you're looking at the whole 18 years, there's a financial piece to it for sure, but it's also not mandatory to do in a certain fashion. In other words, you don't need to have a lot of money to have children. You need to want to have a family and utilize, uh, the monies that you have to make that work. So it's not like, in other words, "Don't have children because I can't send them to private schools, and I can't send them to college, and I can't buy them all the nice things, and we can't go to Disney or whatever." Ju- you're, you don't need all of that, even if it seems like everybody's doing that around you, um, in order to have children. So, like, in the early years, for us, there was no... We, we didn't live the way we did, say, when they were in high school, when they were early, when they were young, I mean. You, you, you live on less. You know, you make those choices, and you make trade-offs, and that's worth it to you if you value and you, if you value family and you value having a person at home then, or a mom at home or whatever. Y- y- it's just a no-brainer. Like, it never occurred to me, "Oh, well, I can't do three vacations a year, so I shouldn't do this," or, "Oh, I have to send them to private school to be able to do..." It just, you work with what you have.

    3. CW

      Why do you think it's the case, if that's true, if it's not as expensive-

    4. SV

      Mm-hmm

    5. CW

      ... to raise a child as people think, why-

    6. SV

      But it doesn't have to be.

    7. CW

      Yeah.

    8. SV

      It doesn't have to be.

    9. CW

      Why do so many women, and, and men too, but primarily women, uh, cite-

    10. SV

      Yeah

    11. CW

      ... economic requirements and economic instability as one of the main reasons they, that, "We can't afford to have a child."

    12. SV

      Yeah.

    13. CW

      "Who could have a child in this economy?"

    14. SV

      Yeah. So I, I have a-- I feel like this is the fourth time I've said this. I have a theory that, um, that social media has been extremely harmful in a lot of ways, but especially for people's perspective of what's real and what's not. And believing that, um, A, if someone says it, it must be true. B, if everybody that you're seeing looks like they're saying this and living this way, well, that's the only way to live then. You know, I, I... This is it. I can't do it. When you're not exposed to that, um, you have a more insular, which is good, insular in this sense-

    15. CW

      Hmm

    16. SV

      ... um, uh, perspective just with your own little community and your own family. It's just not... It's just been really harmful, in my, in my opinion, to see all these lives that look like they're the norm, and it makes you feel inadequate.

    17. CW

      Right.

    18. SV

      And I think that plays into that, believing that, um, you, you have to live this certain way to have children. No, you don't. I mean, you can do things your way. If you can't afford that lifestyle, that doesn't mean you don't have kids. I mean, is the argument that kids are harmed by that? You know, that's another interesting thing. Kids don't need all that.

    19. CW

      It's interesting. I wonder whether people think that kids would be more harmed by not having three vacations a year or more harmed by not having mom at home.

    20. SV

      What do you think they would say?

    21. CW

      That's a kind of a trite example. That's a silly example.

    22. SV

      Yeah.

    23. CW

      I don't think that even the more extreme people-

    24. SV

      No one would say that was true

    25. CW

      ... but, you know, t- certainly, um, I don't know. Conversations or... I don't know what it is that people think that they need. Maybe the size of the house. Like, certainly housing's a big deal, right?

    26. SV

      Yeah. Mm-hmm.

    27. CW

      So few people want to raise a family in an apartment.

    28. SV

      Yeah.

    29. CW

      They want to have a house. They maybe want to have a little bit of garden, yard to play in with the kids.

    30. SV

      Sure, sure.

  16. 1:30:56 – 1:33:38

    Has Staying Home Become Undervalued?

    1. CW

      What do you think the lessons are that men and women are told about the value of money versus time at home?

    2. SV

      I don't think there's any attention paid to the value or the significance of time at home. I think there is only focus on money. I don't... I mean, we have never been more materialistic, ever in-

    3. CW

      No

    4. SV

      ... history than we are today, and once you get on that, uh, well, y- uh, treadmill, I guess, it's, y- you're just... Y- it's almost, um, it's like autopilot. You just don't even realize there's a whole world outside of you. It's called life, right? Life that doesn't... You know, chores, um, um, errands, uh, ch- raising children, cooking. There's just this whole world that has nothing to do with earning money that is, like, life. It's the stuff life is made of. Somebody's gotta do it, which sounds like it's a bad thing to do, but A, somebody has to do it, yes, but also somebody gets to do it.

    5. CW

      Mm.

    6. SV

      You know? And, and with no attention on that, um- I don't think that people even, um, recognize it as there. And then when they do it, they get resentful about it because they're so focused on trying to make money that this, all this other stuff I just described is getting in the way of their path that they're on, and it's like that's where the resentment's coming in. But this is actually a job in and of itself, creating a home, raising children, doing errands, cooking. I mean, cooking is a subject in and of itself because we're a fast food nation now, and people are overweight, and they're like, "How did I get this way?" [laughs] And it's like, 'cause no one's in the kitchen cooking anymore. It's so daunting when you're constantly working.

    7. CW

      Mm.

    8. SV

      No one's gonna cook-

    9. CW

      Mm-hmm

    10. SV

      ... at the end of a 10-hour workday. Nobody. That's when it all started to go downhill, when nobody was home to cook.

    11. CW

      Mm.

    12. SV

      I mean-

    13. CW

      That's interesting

    14. SV

      ... the obesity, the childhood obesity, which tripled in the last 50 years, happened at the same time mothers left the home en masse. Because what do you, who do you think was cooking before? When we, before when we didn't have, um, the obesity crisis, why was that? B- people talk about chemicals and oils, and that's all fine and great, but the truth is there was a mom in a kitchen cooking.

    15. CW

      Well, calories are king, right?

    16. SV

      [laughs]

    17. CW

      Um, if you know what you've put into your food-

    18. SV

      Yes

    19. CW

      ... regardless of the seed oils-

    20. SV

      Yeah. [laughs]

    21. CW

      ... it's-

    22. SV

      It's calories in, calories out.

    23. CW

      Correct.

    24. SV

      Yeah.

    25. CW

      Yeah. And if the kids are getting takeout on the way home.

    26. SV

      Mm-hmm. It's the lifestyle. It's a lifestyle switch that has happened that has created all these

  17. 1:33:38 – 1:38:43

    Why Housework Causes So Much Conflict

    1. SV

      other problems.

    2. CW

      What do you think about, there's a big debate around the, the double shift for women, the sort of share of housework between men and women.

    3. SV

      Yeah.

    4. CW

      [laughs] Every c- every, every question, every question that I ask you, it seems like it kind of comes with... It, it pains you.

    5. SV

      [laughs] I'm sorry. It's just, um, sometimes you're asking me some things that I haven't actually talked about or thought about a while, but I've written about extensively, so I just have to pull it out of my mind.

    6. CW

      Yep.

    7. SV

      Um, [laughs] um, full-time motherhood includes all of those things that people are now fighting about between each other, um, the husbands and wives or couples about who does more or whatever. If you have somebody at home raising children, those things that we're talking about are gonna naturally be part of that lifestyle of raising children. So for example, when I was home and my husband was working, I would do more child, I would do more, um, household chores because I'm there. I'm physically home-based and there. So I did the grocery shopping. I did the cooking. He would come home and do the cleaning. He did plenty. He changed diapers. He cleaned. He did all the, all that he could do on top of his full-time job. But at no point did I fight with him or play tit for tat about who's doing more because you didn't have to, because once you've divided it up that way, it's kind of obvious. That stuff only came into play when women started working full-time too, and now you've got both people doing it, and men and women don't respond to the home stuff in the same way.

    8. CW

      Mm.

    9. SV

      So women think men are supposed to respond the way they would respond, but again, my... If, if you come with the argument that men and women aren't the same and interchangeable, it makes perfect sense. But to them it's, "Well, what do you mean we're equal? So I should do this, and you should do this." And he's gonna step over the sock maybe 'cause he doesn't see it or he doesn't care about it. It's not 'cause he thinks you're supposed to pick it up. That's not the point. It's just he doesn't care, and you care. And women care more about the home because they're nesters. They're nesters by nature even if they work.

    10. CW

      There's a cool study that's done that women's s- level of sexual arousal, um, based on how tidy the house is, that basically if there's-

    11. SV

      I mean, this is man

    12. CW

      ... if there's not orderliness around the house-

    13. SV

      Oh

    14. CW

      ... uh, then they can sometimes struggle to switch off.

    15. SV

      Oh, yeah.

    16. CW

      So that's being irritated by the sock is a perfect example of that.

    17. SV

      Mm-hmm.

    18. CW

      I don't know how many socks it takes to turn off your horniness.

    19. SV

      Yeah, I don't know either.

    20. CW

      But maybe not many for some women.

    21. SV

      Yeah.

    22. CW

      Maybe some women are more sock sensitive than others.

    23. SV

      [laughs]

    24. CW

      Uh, my point being-

    25. SV

      Yeah

    26. CW

      ... that, uh, there's-

    27. SV

      Yeah

    28. CW

      ... element- the same is not true for a man probably.

    29. SV

      Not at all.

    30. CW

      On average, let's say. There's another great story I saw on, on Twitter. It was so good. Um, a woman had asked the man to do the dishes while he, she was out, and she came back to find that he'd grouted the shower. He'd, like, re-grouted the shower. So he'd gone in and fixed all-

  18. 1:38:43 – 1:46:22

    Should Daycare Be a Last Resort?

    1. CW

      Daycare. What do you think about daycare? It's a necessary evil for many people, or they think it's a necessary evil. They've got work. They can't be at home with their kids. The maternity leave that everybody-

    2. SV

      Yeah

    3. CW

      ... I think thinks should be given isn't there. What do you think about daycare?

    4. SV

      Daycare was at one ti- you know, daycare was originally a Head Start program, and it was just initially designed for low-income families and/or one-income families who literally had no choice because mom had to go to work. When it opened up, which it did over time, to just anybody who wanted to use it just because, regardless of their financial circumstances, that's when it ballooned and became eventually over time just a way of life. Like, it just normal. And one of the things that's been really interesting is watching, even, like I told you, I started this 25 years ago when I was first writing about this, that was st- at a time when the mommy wars were all raging, and it was kind of understood that you had to defend your s- your choice of using daycare if you were using it. Like, people were writing about it b- because it was instinctively understood that that was not good.

    5. CW

      Hmm.

    6. SV

      It was understood. Fast-forward 25 years, and I have noticed people are talking about it like they're taking a shower, j- dropping off their two-year-old in daycare, or one-year-old, or whatever, or six-week-old, literally like it's nothing. And I look at that, and I see what's happened, and I s- this is not... This person literally has no idea that daycare is bad. No clue. So you can't... It's, it's almost like you can't blame her per se because she just doesn't know what she doesn't know, and I truly believe that's where young moms are today. They really have no idea. Daycare is the last place that, that littles belong. Littles belong at home with their mom. If not with mom, with dad. If not with dad, then grandma. If not with grandma, a nanny. If not with a nanny, a neighborhood small... I mean, daycare is the bottom of the bottom. And-

    7. CW

      Why?

    8. SV

      It's, the reason why is it's so giant, it's so un- it's, um, it's too big, number one, and you have so much turnover and in and out of people coming and going that the attachment that you are trying to replace for what they need in those early years that can only be really done with one-on-one person, it can't be had in an environment like that. They, it's way too stressful. There is, I mean... [sighs] I think if people go into daycares, really go into them and see what goes on, they'd have a better, um, understanding of what it really looks like. But it's like you're lined up, like you're one of a bunch of people, and you're just, it's, it's a pecking order. You know? You're, you're a part of a machine almost.

    9. CW

      Hmm.

    10. SV

      There's no, all those, um, needs that need to be met in the early years can't possibly be met in an institutional environment like that. I mean, the sleep alone, I mean, babies need sleep, and they need to be on a schedule, and they need quiet, and they need peace, and they need to be cared for in a way that is not possible to replicate in a daycare center. And-

    11. CW

      Because one kid is awake and crying or making noise while another is trying to sleep.

    12. SV

      As an example, yes. Or th- or 10 people are, and you, how can you sleep with 10 people, you know. Um, or if you're hungry, you're not necessarily gonna be fed until they can get to you.

    13. CW

      Hmm.

    14. SV

      Or you start to attach yourself to somebody, and then that person goes into another room and gets moved, or he, he or she leaves, she, usually she-

    15. CW

      Hmm

    16. SV

      ... leaves the building altogether after you've started to develop an attachment. And then the, the, the exhaustion, the mere exhaustion, so all those tears. And by the way, just to clarify, there's a big difference between a couple of hours in an environment like that and 10 hours for a one-year-old, let's say. And people don't delineate or talk about that. There's massive difference. I mean, a baby can handle an hour or two apart or even in an environment like that temporarily if they know that they're immediately, you know, going back to mom. But 10 hours being left there, eight hours or whatever, is, is awful. It's just bad.

    17. CW

      I, uh, posted a couple of clips with Erica-

    18. SV

      Yeah

    19. CW

      ... talking about, talking about daycare. [clears throat] Some of the interesting sentiments that came back from moms are things like, "My kid loved going to daycare. He, he can't wait. He wants to run out of the car," or, or, um, like, "He, he's always really happy and, and smiley when I drop him off at daycare."

    20. SV

      Mm-hmm.

    21. CW

      What do you think about that?

    22. SV

      So there are many things that occur in the, um, drop-off, pickup scenario with a mom and a baby. I mean, m- nine out of 10 times when you first introduce a baby to that environment, you're gonna get tears. Uh, actually both, both pe- both people are crying usually, both mom and the baby. And you'll hear story after story, or I have anyway, of story after story of moms dropping them off for the first time and hysterical all the way to work. I mean, just crying. It was horrible, horrible, horrible, which to me is a signal that something's gone wrong. This is not good. This is not normal.

    23. CW

      Hmm.

    24. SV

      The baby's crying. You're crying. That's something you should pay attention to, not something you should push away, which is what society wants you to do, is push it away. "It's okay. He'll be fine." And what that baby does or child does, um, in trying to get his needs met and seeing that they're no longer going to be met, they just sort of stop and give up, and they're not crying for that moment. And so you think they're fine, but actually they just sort of, well, gave up because nobody's tended to their needs. That doesn't mean they're fine. It just means they're just quiet.

    25. CW

      Hmm.

    26. SV

      In fact, the quiet ones sometimes you need to worry about more.

    27. CW

      This was actively a, a, a lady or maybe a few ladies saying, um, they love it. Like, they, they, they-

    28. SV

      Oh, yeah

    29. CW

      ... they seem actively positive to be going there when I drop them off.

    30. SV

      Yeah. And, and they... Well, that would be an older child, not a baby.

  19. 1:46:22 – 1:50:32

    The Alternative to Daycare More Parents Are Choosing

    1. SV

      Then there's that.

    2. CW

      What's an alternative to daycare? Some, some households are unable to survive-

    3. SV

      Yeah

    4. CW

      ... on a single person's income. Mom needs to get back to work at some point, or Mom wants to get back to work-

    5. SV

      Well-

    6. CW

      ... at some point

    7. SV

      ... extend it as long as you possibly can before you do that, and exhaust every possible means of care that is not group care in that way.

    8. CW

      So what, what are some of your favorite-

    9. SV

      So that's neighbors, that's family members, that's, um, uh, um, tag teaming. Some people tag team with their husbands. That's another thing. Some people can do that depending on your job situation, where one's in and one's out.

    10. CW

      Uh-huh.

    11. SV

      It's not great for the marriage, but if you do it temporar- because you don't see each other. But you could get away with it temporarily, and I've known people who have done that. One's working days, one's working nights, so someone's always with, at home. That's one thing. Um, but your neighbors or your friends, like trading off with your friends. So maybe your baby stays with your friend while you're working, and then her baby's with you. So it's just you and two, your, your kid and your friend's kid.

    12. CW

      Two on one.

    13. SV

      Yeah.

    14. CW

      Yeah.

    15. SV

      The smaller, the better.

    16. CW

      Hmm. Yeah, I mean, look, uh, one of the most interesting conversations I had, there's a, a company called Athena that make virtual assistants, and I had the, the founder and CEO on. And I was saying that having a virtual assistant or an assistant at all is wonderful, but, like, how many people have got access to that?

    17. SV

      Yeah.

    18. CW

      It's, that's not that realistic. He said, "Well, there's lots of ways that you can basically get the exact same function of that j- just by using your friends." And one of his examples was childcare.

    19. SV

      Yeah.

    20. CW

      And he says, "If you want to work one day a week or two days a week-

    21. SV

      Yes

    22. CW

      ... you only need one other mum-

    23. SV

      Yes, to-

    24. CW

      ... to alternate

    25. SV

      ... to alternate.

    26. CW

      Yeah, exactly.

    27. SV

      Yeah.

    28. CW

      And, like, one on two or one on three maybe, like you can probably get away with that. You can come to our house if-

    29. SV

      Yep, yep

    30. CW

      ... or you can come to yours, and then, hey, if we organize our working schedules, you could get two days a week of work out. And look, I mean, the days when you're gonna be at home outnumbered two to one or three to one by kids, like that's also gonna be a pretty, like-

  20. 1:50:32 – 1:55:44

    How to Stop Passing Trauma to Your Children

    1. SV

      about that

    2. CW

      It's an interesting duality, another one of those paradoxes that we were talking about earlier on. Um, a lot of people are into therapy.

    3. SV

      Mm-hmm.

    4. CW

      A lot of people love books like, uh, Attached by Amir Levine-

    5. SV

      Yep. Yeah

    6. CW

      ... or Jessica Baum's book. Uh, Amir's got a new one out called Secure. Um-

    7. SV

      I just saw that. They're in my home. Yeah. Just got, read 'em

    8. CW

      ... lots of people are very informed on the attachment literature, and a lot of people that are going to therapy are also understanding the fact that, hey, my parents maybe didn't care for me in the manner that would've been optimal to give me secure attachment, and I'm now having to unpick and unwind-

    9. SV

      Mm

    10. CW

      ... some of these things. Well, what are those? Well, you know, they didn't hold me when I needed it. They didn't see my needs without me asking. They weren't understanding. I didn't feel safe and secure. There wasn't consistency, availability, reliability, responsiveness, and predictability-

    11. SV

      Yes

    12. CW

      ... like the five elements of atta-

    13. SV

      Yep. Yep

    14. CW

      ... of secure attachment. Those things weren't there.

    15. SV

      Mm-hmm.

    16. CW

      But-

    17. SV

      But [laughs] and yet, yeah. Let's not talk about this thing.

    18. CW

      I can pay that forward.

    19. SV

      It... Yeah. Yeah.

    20. CW

      It's like I'm gonna go to therapy to unpick the patterns from the past because I don't want my kid to inherit my bad patterns. But because of the situation that I've constructed or that I need to or feel like I need to from education and employment and lifestyle demands, I am now potentially-

    21. SV

      Creating. Mm-hmm

    22. CW

      ... just recreating the thing. Not only recreating the thing that happened to me and I don't want, but that I'm actively trying to unpick in an attempt to not pass down. And this is where, this is, like, why I think that when it's said in a sober way, in a calm way, in a gentle way that accepts the challenges and the fucking, like, really odd economic and cultural situation that young women find themselves in now, that it should be something that if it's, if what you're saying is heard properly for what it's supposed to be, it should be pretty well-received. Because look at how fucking hard you're working in therapy. Why? Well, because you wanna be happy yourself, and you don't wanna be, you know, fucking puppeted by these patterns and stuff like that. But because you don't wanna pass it down to your future kids, too. Like, you're really, really working hard at this thing. You're just working hard at it within the confines of this model that exists.

    23. SV

      Yes. Right.

    24. CW

      The, these are the rules that you play.

    25. SV

      Yeah.

    26. CW

      Well, you earn lots of money to have the therapy so that you can not pass the patterns on to your kids, but that means that they've got, you can't afford to stay at home because you need to-

    27. SV

      So literally, that's the reason I wrote How to Build a Better Life, which is the, my most recent book, and it was, it's for women who want to prioritize marriage and love and family, really. Like, to have that be the core of their life, and that requires starting early to make the decisions that we've talked about. If you do that, all this stuff doesn't... It ceases to exist. That's kinda like the whole point, you know? Like, if you create this life that's countercultural and not like the way you've been taught to do it, you wouldn't end up in this boat of worrying about repeating the patterns of, like, your attachment issues. Um, if it's circled back and understood that daycare is going to create that, then you can stop that in its tracks before it starts. But if you're not-

    28. CW

      Or at the very least, it's not gonna make it better.

    29. SV

      Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I just... That's, there's just a whole different way to do life, I guess, is my point.

    30. CW

      Mm.

  21. 1:55:44 – 1:56:47

    What Every Young Woman Needs to Hear

    1. CW

      What do you wish more young women knew? If you were able to put a billboard up that all young women would see on their way to work, what do you wish you'd be able to tell them?

    2. SV

      Um, nothing in your life is going to compare to the euphoria and the satisfaction and the meaning of having a baby, and raising that baby, and having a family, and having that sense of security and peace when the world's going batty around you, and you just have your little home that you've created. And nothing you do and no amount of money you're gonna make is ever gonna compare. But you don't know that yet. [laughs] But I'll put my, uh, money on it. Let's put it that way. So if I'm wrong, what's the worst that's happened, you know? I've, I'm wrong, and then, um, y- the point is that you have choices if you, if you believe me and you set up your life that way, you will have choices, and that's where I want

  22. 1:56:47 – 1:57:18

    Where to Find Suzanne

    1. SV

      you to be.

    2. CW

      Heck yeah. Suzanne Venker, ladies and gentlemen. Where should people go to keep up to date with everything you're doing?

    3. SV

      Um, well, they can go to suzannevenker.com, and I'm on, I'm mainly on Substack these days, but everything is at suzannevenker.com.

    4. CW

      Heck yeah. I appreciate you.

    5. SV

      Thanks, Chris.

    6. CW

      Thank you for sticking your neck out and touching every third rail in existence.

    7. SV

      Thank you.

    8. CW

      All right. See you next time, everyone. [upbeat music] Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, YouTube knows who you are deeply. It thinks you're gonna like this one even more. Go on, press it.

Episode duration: 1:57:19

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