Note: This is a rebroadcast.

A lot of young men today struggle in finding their footing in adulthood. They feel lost, directionless, and unsure of who they are and how to confidently and competently navigate the world.

Part of the reason for this is that most young men today lack something which was once a part of nearly every culture in the world, but has now almost entirely disappeared: a rite of passage.

My guest today didn’t want his son to flounder on the way to maturity, nor to miss out on having an initiation into manhood, so he set out to create a 6-year journey for him that would help him move from boy to man. His name is Jon Tyson, and he’s the author of The Intentional Father: A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage and Character. Today on the show, Jon unpacks the components of the years-long journey into manhood he created for his son, beginning with how he brainstormed those components by doing “The Day Your Son Leaves Home” exercise. We then discuss how old Jon’s son was when he started his rite of passage and why it began with him having a “severing dinner” with his mom. We get into what his rite of passage consisted of, from the kickoff ceremony to the challenges, experiences, trips, and daily rituals Jon used to impart values and teach his son the “5 Shifts of Manhood.” Jon shares how moving his son’s focus from being a good man, to being good at being a man, helped him get remotivated to continue the process, why his rite of passage included a gap year after high school, and how Jon celebrated the end of his son’s journey into becoming a man. We also discuss whether Jon did something similar with his daughter. We end our conversation with some key principles any dad can use to start intentionally helping their kids become well-rounded individuals who can confidently step out on their own and into the world.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• AoM Article: The Importance of Fathers
• AoM Article: The Importance of Male Rites of Passage
• AoM Article: Male Rites of Passage From Around the World
• AoM Article & Podcast: Man’s Need for Ritual
• AoM Series on the origins, elements, and future of manhood
• AoM Article: The 7 Habits — Begin With the End in Mind
• AoM Article: The 3 Families Every Young Man Needs to Grow Up Well
• James Hollis
• AoM Article: Carry the Fire
• Art of Manliness’ Carry the Fire Zippo Lighter
• AoM Article: What Is Manliness?
• AoM Podcast #527 With Richard Rohr
• The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact by Chip and Dan Heath
• The Way of Men by Jack Donovan
• AoM Podcast #49 With Jack Donovan
• AoM Series on the Four Archetypes of the Mature Masculine
• AoM Article: 100 Skills Every Man Should Know
• AoM Article: 80+ Quotes on Men & Manhood

Connect With Jon Tyson

• Primal Path
• Jon on Twitter
• Jon on IG

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Read the Transcript

Brett McKay: Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of The Art of Manliness podcast. A lot of young men today struggle in finding their footing in adulthood. If you’re lost, directionless and unsure of who they are and how to confidently and competently navigate the world. Part of the reason for this is that most young men today lack something which was once part of nearly every culture in the world, but has now almost entirely disappeared: A rite of passage. My guest today didn’t want his son to flounder on the way to maturity nor miss out on having an initiation into manhood, so he set out to create a six-year journey for him that would help him move from boy to man. His name is Jon Tyson, and he’s the author of The Intentional Father: A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage and Character. Today on the show, Jon impacts the components of the years-long journey into manhood he created for his son, beginning with how he brainstormed these components by doing the day-your-son-leaves-home exercise.

We then discuss how old Jon’s son was when he started his rite of passage and why it began with him having a severing dinner with his mom. We get into what his rite of passage consisted of, from the kick-off ceremony to the challenges, experiences, trips and daily rituals Jon used to impart values, teach his son the five shifts of manhood. Jon shares how moving his son’s focus from being a good man to being good at being a man helped him get re-motivated to continue the process, why his rite of passage included a gap year after high school and how Jon celebrated the end of his son’s journey into becoming a man. We also discuss whether Jon did something similar with his daughter. We end our conversation with some key principles any dad can use to start intentionally helping their kids become well-rounded individuals who can confidently step out on their own and into the world. After the show’s over, check out our show notes at aom.is/passage.

And away we go. Alright, Jon Tyson, welcome to the show.

Jon Tyson: Good day, mate. How are you? Thanks for having me on.

Brett McKay: So you got a book out called The Intentional Father: A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage and Character. And in this book, you walk readers through on how you developed and carried out a years-long rite of passage into manhood for your son. So let’s talk about this. When did you first get the idea of doing this sort of… This was involved. This started… This was years long, right? Started when he became a teenager, went through… Till he left the house. When did you come up with this idea?

Jon Tyson: I think the first moment it really hit me was driving back from the doctor when they told me, “Hey, do you wanna know if your son’s a boy or a girl?” And I said, obviously, “It’s a boy.” And I just had this profound sense of being overwhelmed that I personally did not have what it took to help my son become a man. I got married young and faced all the challenges of my own inadequacy, dealing with the complications of life, and I thought, “I have got to do better for my son.” And that’s where the idea was born. So I think another key moment, I was meeting with a local faith leader, and he was talking about the way their community helped young men move from adolescence to manhood, and I thought, “I don’t have anything like that, and I have got to build something like that.” Yeah, so very, very early on, and I spent about a decade reading, trying to figure out how to do it.

Brett McKay: Did you have something like that in your own life when you were a boy transitioning to manhood? Did you get a rite of passage?

Jon Tyson: I had absolutely nothing. I mean, zero. So I was working from a pretty big deficit, and I think a lot of dads are. A lot of folks out there sort of feel there’s a hole in their life, and they’re trying to figure out how to catch up, fill that and then do something better for their own kids.

Brett McKay: Yeah, I think a lot of men are like that. They didn’t have that experience but they want it for their own sons, so they’re trying to give their sons the experience that they didn’t have.

Jon Tyson: Yeah, totally.

Brett McKay: And something you start off in the book talking about is the research. You’ve done a lot of research about what happens when boys don’t have fathers, don’t have involved fathers. What does the research say as to what happens to boys when they lack a strong father figure?

Jon Tyson: Well, it’s actually very, very clear. Sort of the go-to research most people reference is from fatherhood.org, but it’s basically what you think. Kids are four times more likely to live in poverty, more likely to suffer emotional behavioral problems, higher levels of risky and aggressive behavior, two times the risk of infant mortality which is crazy, more likely to go to prison, only one in five inmates grew up in a home where their father was present, twice as likely to be involved in early sexual activity. So the presence of a dad in a home makes an incredible difference. With all of our conversations about justice in the world today, I don’t know why this one doesn’t get more attention, because one of the greatest cultural advantages that someone could have in life is a present, loving father figure. So yeah, the impact is massive.

Brett McKay: Well, and besides, you’re trying to move beyond just having a present, involved dad. Your ideal of a good dad is an intentional father, where a father intentionally thinks about walking their sons through an initiation process. What do you think men lack when they transition into adulthood without having almost like a ritual to carry them into manhood?

Jon Tyson: Well, I think there’s some kind of deep, internal inadequacy. There’s some sense of a desire to bless, pass on, and help, but they don’t have a source to get it from. So I think there’s a lot of confusion. I think there’s a lot of pain. Our culture has gotten rid of most of the sort of life passages other than formal education, and so there’s a lot of people walking around really wondering, “Am I even a man?” When are you a man? When you lose your virginity? The first time you drink alcohol? When you get your first paycheck? When you leave home? No one seems to know when manhood is conferred on them, and then how they distribute it to other people. So yeah, I think there’s a hole in the soul of most men and they’re seeking and striving to catch up with it.

Brett McKay: And something you talk about in the book, one way men often fill that hole is they create self-initiations for themselves.

Jon Tyson: Yeah. You see this… Young people… I mean, you obviously remember this. When you hit puberty, the whole world changes. Your body is filled with testosterone, you got chemicals pumping, you got all of this energy. And the number one thing you’re trying to figure out what to do with it is, how do you channel this in a life-giving rather than destructive way? And that’s what these rites of passage historically were designed to do, to create guard rails, so the gift of male energy could be channeled for the good of the community and the man. Without those guard rails, you see all the damage we see in our world today. Without initiation, young men will seek to do something with their energy that confers a sense of confidence and blessing.

So, whether it’s risky behavior, whether it’s underaged drinking, whether it is sexual behavior or whatever, you’ve basically got young men saying, “Help me figure out what to do with this energy.” And when you look at some of the other rites of passage that other cultures have had, they are… Some of ’em are harrowing. And we would probably take kids away from parents who did some of these ancient rites of passage. They can sound kind of barbaric. But when you look at the levels of anxiety with our young people today, depression with young men, the challenges that teenage boys face, our lack of initiation at scale is more damaging than the initiation cultures, no matter how intense they were, of other societies. So, yeah, I’m a big believer that we have to reclaim rites of passage, create guard rails, so that male energy can be channeled for the good of society. And that’s definitely what I’m trying to address in the book.

Brett McKay: Yeah, I like that… The idea of… This is… The idea is to channel male energy or masculine energy. And it’s one of the analogies I’ve used throughout the years when I’ve tried to explain difference between masculinity and manliness. Masculinity is just that energy and vigor that’s borne through testosterone, right?

Jon Tyson: Yes.

Brett McKay: And then manliness is a culture that you use to direct that energy, or manhood is a culture that you direct that energy. So it’s kind of like electricity. Masculinity is electricity. You create a culture of manliness or manhood to funnel that energy. But if you don’t have any wires that’s directing that masculine energy, it becomes dangerous.

Jon Tyson: Yeah, definitely. Totally agree. Yeah.

Brett McKay: Okay. So let’s talk about… You had this idea, your son was born, you’re like, “Okay, I’m gonna… I wanna create an initiation for him, to give him things that I didn’t have. And so when you started this planning process, you went through this exercise you call, the-day-your-son-leaves-home exercise. Walk us through that. What kinda questions are you asking yourself as you guide yourself through this thought process?

Jon Tyson: Yeah. I got the idea from Stephen Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, where it talks about, Begin with the end in mind. And it has that exercise where you pretend it’s your funeral, and then you go back and sort of ask yourself the question, “What sort of life and legacy do I wanna leave?” And I thought, that’s a great framework to apply to a ton of different areas of life. And I thought, I’m gonna apply this to the day where I send my son off to either college or some sort of gap year or whatever. And I did… I thought about this when he was really young. And I basically just worked my way backwards, try to keep that day very, very vivid and real in my heart, and then ask a series of questions to design this pathway for him. The first one was like, What do I want my son to know? I want him to be a man of wisdom. I want him to be able to navigate the complexities of life. Number two, Who do I want my son to be? And this was about his moral, ethical and character formation. Then, What do I want my son to be able to do? And this is sort of skill acquisition. A man should be able to do stuff, step in a room and add value through skill acquisition. And then, What experiences do I need to design to make this happen? With all the best intentions in the world, without a conscious pathway and designing experiences where these things are developed, it’s never gonna be there.

So, yeah, I basically worked backwards. And just like you do with a college degree, sort of you say, “Hey, in order to get a degree, you’re gonna have to do X amount of classes, and it’s gonna have to either be a two-year associates or a four-year or a graduate degree.” I just worked backwards, starting at around age 13 when he was hitting puberty, and then worked it out till he was 18, and then created a pathway around knowledge and character and skill development and the experiences to help him do that. And then one of the things I did was to basically ask the question, Who can help me with this? I’m a big believer that dads are fundamental in a young man’s formation. But we’re living in a world where a lot of people don’t have dads or step dads or they’re asking the question about mentoring. And so I sort of came up with this idea of building a tribe or a cohort of fathers who do this together, and then coming up, with those dads, with an asset map. And sort of everybody puts in the middle of the room, What assets do you have available in your life? Someone may say, “Hey, we have a lake house.” Someone may say, “I got a second car, and I’m willing to let the boys learn to drive in it.” Someone may say, “Hey, I’ve got a series of key relationships in my industry, and I can… ” Or that, “I’ve got access to some cool sporting events.” And then you sort of start dreaming from there.

So it was like a big white board exercise. And then I worked my way backwards, and that was how I basically designed what I call the Primal Path, which is the sort of six-year journey I came up with.

Brett McKay: No, the-day-your-son-leaves-home exercise is really powerful. I went through it through my head and trying to imagine what my son… He’s 11 right now, and imagine when he’s 18, and he’s leaving the roost. It’s just… It really gets you…

Jon Tyson: It’s heavy. Yeah.

Brett McKay: It’s a gut punch. You’re just like… And you wanna know, like, What is he gonna be like? What do I want him to be like?

Jon Tyson: Yeah, totally.

Brett McKay: And I like this idea of developing an asset map. So it’s… You get the idea of what… The things that you want your son to know, understand, be able to do. But then try to figure out, Okay, what do I have at my disposal to make that happen? And not just things, but, Who are the other people in my life that can help me make this happen? I think that was… I loved how you focused on that in making this a community project. Oftentimes, when I think… When I hear dads talk about, “I wanna do a rite of passage for my son,” it’s just him and their son. That’s fine. But I think something… There’s a power when you bring other men into the process as well.

Jon Tyson:Yeah. If you put too much pressure on a dad… No dad is gonna be a perfect father. And so to put all that psychic pressure on a dad can be overwhelming, but to distribute that through a community of men where a father or a mentor plays a primary role, but is surrounded by this cast of other sort of like wise, passionate, helpful men, I think that is a real gift. And I think it’s actually something that young men ache for. Why is there such devotion to teams, team sports, having coaches around? It’s ’cause we need that sense of community and belonging as we grow and develop. So it was very important for me, not just to be, my son and I, but it was like my son and I and a cohort of other guys walking through this.

Brett McKay: Well, I think too, part of the… What you’re trying to do in an initiation or rite of passage is help the boy cut themselves off in a way from their family. So if it’s just the dad, that’s a problem. That’s gonna be hard to do. ‘Cause if you’re always there in the process, it’s hard to cut yourself off away from your father. But if you have another man there, you can have those periods where you can experience that. And I’ve noticed in my own life, I look back in my own life, my dad was always there and he taught me a lot of important things. But I remember, it really… Like a lot of times, oftentimes, the things that he told me or he modeled hit home when there was another man that wasn’t my father…

Jon Tyson: Yeah, totally agree.

Brett McKay: Showing me that. Okay. So you came with this idea what you wanted your son to be like, then you did… You started off an initial ceremony, but it was with your wife. It was mom that kick-started this thing off. What’s… That’s… I think that a lot of guys think, what’s going on there? Why’d you do that?

Jon Tyson: Well, that was interestingly enough, the most controversial piece of this period. And this is the place I get the most feedback. Just to take a little half step back, James Hollis who was I think the president of the Jungian society, he’s written a ton of books on midlife, on pathways, on stage development and theory. He basically said all societies have a six-step process of walking boys through adolescence into manhood, and one of those stages is what he calls the death of childhood thinking.

And it’s an environment where you’ve gotta be cut off from the primary influences of childhood in order to enter liminal space. And one of the things that a lot of societies did was consciously severed an overemphasized bond between mother and child, so that he could learn to be formed by the community of men. So I did what I called a severing dinner, which the publisher reduced down to a directional dinner, which sounded less threatening. And it was basically, I talked my wife into doing this, and my wife’s an absolute legend. She’s an incredible woman. And I said,” Hey, look, I need Nate not to shrink back to you for comfort, but I need you to push him back to me for formation and for challenge.” And so she took him out for a dinner to his favorite restaurant. Even though I’m from Australia, she took him to Outback. It’s a cliche, but it is what it is. [chuckle] And he’s at Outback steakhouse and then she gave him a series of gifts.

And then, I come from a faith background, so she prayed a prayer of blessing over him, sort of like an important marking moment. And then she said to him, “Hey, I’m your mother. I love you. I’ll always be here for you and I’ll care for you, but you need to be handed to your father to learn how to become a man. This is gonna be hard. It’s gonna be a challenge, and you’re gonna want to come back to me to ease and find comfort for the discomfort and challenges you’re facing. And I want you to know I’m gonna push you back to your dad and I’m not gonna nurture your immaturity.” And that was a really powerful moment. Now, to fast forward several years, when I was with my son closing out our journey together, I said to him, “Hey, Nate, I’m getting quite a bit of pushback on the dinner that you did with mom.” And he said, “No, no, no, no, you have to include that.” He said, “I cannot put into words how psychologically powerful that was for me, to realize I was entering this journey primarily being formed by men.” And he was like, “That jump-started this whole thing in my heart that I was actually entering into a different stage together.” So, yeah, it began with my wife and then sort of moved to a formal initiation ceremony on a beach off the coast of New York City.

Brett McKay: And what did that ceremony look like? Who was there and what did you do?

Jon Tyson: So I basically got three other dads together. I’ve been in New York city for the last 17 years. So, it was a few other dads who were my son’s closest friends, and basically cast this vision for him about building this pathway from adolescence into manhood. And then we designed an initiation ceremony. So we hyped it up for a few months, so they’d be a little nervous and also excited. And then when the day came, when all the boys had turned 13, this is late summer, we took them out to the beach and sat them in the sand and gathered around, told them a series of stories, shared some of our own personal lessons and learning. And then sort of tried to put… To say it in a good way, sort of inspire them and paint a picture of what was coming, and put the fear of God in them about how hard this was gonna be.

So there was sort of like that anticipatory terror. And then they ran into the water sort of like a religious baptism into this journey, dying to their old ways of childhood. And then, rising into this journey. And then we took them to Coney Island where they played a bunch of games together. And that was the kickoff. I then gave my son some gifts. I’m a big believer in the power of artifacts. And there’s something potent of one generation passing on something to the next generation that they can handle and know that they’re in a part of a continuing story. So I gave my son a really strong leather journal, I gave him a really nice pen. And then along the way, a whole series of gifts to sort of like mark it out and get along. I had this vision before I started where I wanted my son to start on the coast of New York. And I wanted his journey to end on the coast of Spain. And there’s a little town called Finisterre, and it’s a place where pilgrims, after they do this long hike, leave behind something at the end of their pilgrimage. And I had planned to sort of like go into the ocean in New York and go into the ocean in Spain. And so I had it planned to bookend and so that’s why it was done at the beach, and that’s why water was an important part of that.

Brett McKay: You were thinking way… You were thinking with the end in mind, again going back to Stephen Covey.

Jon Tyson: Yeah. That’s exactly right. Yeah. And when he leaves home, I really just… And this is one thing I would encourage dads or mentors to do. A lot of times men get into the workplace and they have…

They’re casting vision. They’re thinking abut sales or strategy or how to build things out, how to take ground, and they’ve got a ton of energy and gifts of vision casting, and that sort of stuff. But when it comes to their own kids we don’t apply any of the skills we have in our jobs to our parenting. And, if you were to put me on like a strength finder test, strategic would be number two for me. So I was like, “Hey, I’m a pretty strategic person. Why not apply this to fatherhood and then build this out?” So yeah, I had thought through this journey and tried to figure out the core components of it, and that certainly took away a lot of the panic and fear, even though there still was a ton of that being a dad.

Brett McKay: So when do you think a son should start the rite of passage? Like how do you know that they’re ready?

Jon Tyson: I think, universally through history, it’s sort of around the age of 13 or so. And I don’t know if that is… I don’t know if there’s anything culturally specific around that. Certainly not in our world anymore. Turning 13, I guess you’re a teenager, but that’s not that big a deal. I think it’s more connected to puberty. It’s when your body’s beginning to change. It’s when testosterones coming in. It’s when you start to think about sexuality. It’s when you start to think about your strength. It’s when competition really sets in. That’s when you start thinking about even a sense of vocation. You stop wanting to be the things you say when you’re four or five, and you’ve got a bit more of a realistic sense of where it is. You’re getting into sports or into academics in a new way. And so I think, again, it’s about that male energy. You’re trying to figure out “What do I do with this?” It can be very, very confusing and disorienting energy too. So right around the time this is happening within you, you want a community of men to come around you and to tell you the energy is good. It’s a gift. It must be channeled the right way and here is the path. So yeah. Universally, it seems to be sort around 13, around the age of puberty.

Brett McKay: Okay. So your son does the ceremony with his mom. You have the initiation ceremony with his friends and some other dads at the beach. The first part of this initiation, year’s long initiation process, was you actually took your son back home where you grew up. Why did you do that? What was the point of this?

Jon Tyson: Well, I mean, if I could sum up modern culture in one phrase, it would be this, project self. Project self. We live in a world that’s telling you all the time, “You are the center of everything.” Narcissism is at epidemic proportions in our world today. And particularly when you’re a teenager, you can be pretty inwardly focused. It is a confusing time. And you can think that there’s nothing outside of yourself and that there’s nothing that mattered before you showed up. And I wanted my son to have a bigger picture of life. I wanted my son to realize what shaped me, what was gonna be shaping him, and I wanted him to step into sort of a family narrative. Various family traditions, some ethnic, some religious, record family trees for different reasons. I happen to have a cousin who was a history buff, and has got a PhD in history, and he traced our family line back to the 10th century. And so he presented me like this hundreds of pages of book of our family story. And, I mean the whole thing, family crest, family mottos, it was amazing. And so, I presented that to my son, “Hey, you’re a part of a long line of Tyson men and this is what it means.” And then I wanted him to see where I grew up and what it was like for me to develop my own values.

So I took him back to Australia where I grew up, I’m from a city called Adelaide, and basically had him go through the places that formed the values of my life so that when I talked about something, he’d knew where it was. I wanted him to have a context for the story that he was stepping into. And I think without… Alastair McIntyre said this, “We can only ask the question, what am I to do if I can answer the previous question, what stories am I a part of? Or what story or stories am I a part of?” And so if you’re gonna figure out your role you’ve gotta figure out the story that you’re in, and I really felt it was important to give my son the sense of continuity and history so he could understand the story that he was extending.

Brett McKay: Now, I think that’s important. I think another way you could sum up modern life is lack of context. A lot of people were just… You’re kind of thrown into this milieu where it’s just, you’re getting bombarded by all these different stories, and you don’t have a story that you’re embedded in. And so, you’re disoriented. And I think telling your kid like, “Hey, this is… You’re part of this story. This is our family story. This is what you’re part of,” gives them some context. Now, I think this is important because it can give them, one, they could step into that and lean into it. But even if they decide not to, by giving them that story, they’re able to know like, “Oh, how can I make myself different?” It gives them something to push back against if that makes sense.

Jon Tyson: Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Brett McKay: Yeah. I think a lot of young people, they’re just kind of flapping their arms. They don’t know what they’re doing.

Jon Tyson: And I think there’s a… I think it’s important too to tell the family story in a compelling way and an honest way. The whole idea of a family reunion where it’s like a bunch of people you don’t really like wearing weird t-shirts, I wasn’t trying to do that with my son. I was trying to let him know, “Hey man, our family has an incredible history. It’s a history of people who have taken big risks. It’s a history of people who’ve sacrificed. It’s a history of people who’ve paid a real price for you to be where you are in the world today. And I want you to know you come from good stock. To be a Tyson, Tyson means fire brand, like carry the fire.” I have the Carry the Fire lighters from Art of Manliness.

But like that whole concept man, this you are born into a legacy and you don’t get to invent a universe from nothing. And there’s good things I want you to have. There’s bad things I wanna warn you about that could flow into your life because of the things we’ve been through, and then I wanna figure out how to help you carry this forward through your calling and your personality. And that was actually a really, really amazing time. I’ve had a pretty wild life. I dropped outta high school, worked in a meat factory, bought a house when I was 19, immigrated to another country. I’ve had pretty wild teenage years, and I wanted my son to sort of like see that and feel the weight of that so he could understand the context that I was parenting out of. So he really enjoyed that time even though I was heartbroken that he came back saying, “Dad, American food is better than Australian food.” But what can you do?

Brett McKay: And what I like about what you did too is you would take him to places where you made really big decisions in your own life.

Jon Tyson: Yeah.

Brett McKay: And I think that’s a really great idea cause it allows your son… It gives him a pattern to follow, when he’s making his own big decisions.

Jon Tyson: Yeah. My values were vision, passion, discipline and risk. When I go back through history, I’ve always valued visionary men. They look beyond the horizons of what is possible, and they dream bigger dreams for themselves and for the culture. I’ve always loved men of passion. I’ve respected men of discipline, who have channeled again their energy to something redemptive and something good. And then if you’re good at those things, if you’ve got vision and passion in your discipline, you’re gonna get opportunities that’s gonna require risk. So, I took him to the four places I learned those values. And again, I totally agree, when something emerges in your life, in order for it to be internalized and to become a sacred part of your story, you go to market. The power of ritual and recognition, so our life is not just a blur of ordinary days. So yeah. And I see my son doing that now. My son will take time and say, “This place matters to me. This is an important part of my story. Those sorts of things.” So yeah. He learned that by seeing it on that trip.

Brett McKay: We’re gonna take a quick break for a word from our sponsors. And now back to the show. So one of your big goals through this whole entire process was to teach your son values, family values, to help him develop his own personal values, but you also had this idea like, “I wanna inculcate masculine values into my son.” What were those values and why do you think that was important?

Jon Tyson: It is a confusing time in our culture to ask the question, “What is a man? What does it mean to be a man?” There’s a lot of stereotypes out there. There’s a lot of negative press in there. One of the things I try to emphasize to sort of get away from the controversy, and there is a lot of controversy, was the power of classical virtues. So the four classical versus: Justice, wisdom, courage, and self-restraint. I felt like the men we need in our world today are embodied in these values. We need just men in a world of tyrants. We need restrained men in a world of excess. We need wise men in a world of fools. And we need courageous men in a world of fear. Again, as someone from a faith tradition, the most important values according to St. Paul are faith, hope and love. And so to extend that I’m like, “We need faithful men in a world of compromise. We need hopeful men in a time of despair. We need loving men in a world of hate.”

So, I try to take these noble historically proven virtues and make those the baseline. And, particularly in Greco-Roman culture, these were masculine values. These were values that were associated with men. And so rather than just sort of pluck from thin air, choose random cultural values, I tried to find something that was a little more timeless and rooted.

Brett McKay: And one way you passed on these values or taught your son these values, you did this, you’d take him on trips and you’d of you’d just show it. I think that’s a very… I think that’s probably the most powerful way. But then you’d have these… Every morning you’d sit down with him and you’d have these little talks, and you’d also assign him books to read. Tell us about that.

Jon Tyson: Yeah. Well, again, I think I got the vision of just college or high school, which is, “What do you need to cover in order to graduate? How do you graduate into manhood? What do you need to have passed?” And again, getting back to know be and do as the sort of core tenants there. So yeah. I got a calendar and I worked back through a series of months, and I just said, “Here’s the content I wanna cover in this time,” and then I just broke it up into little chunks and then we just talked through it. So yeah. I just wanted to have this point every day where I was connecting. When you ask the question, “How does somebody grow? How does somebody change? How are they really shaped or formed?” It’s normally two things. It’s big, powerful, catalytic defining moments, and then it’s like the ordinary everyday habitual repetitive stuff we do in our lives. And so, that’s what I was doing in the daily little check-ins. Sometimes they were 15 minutes, sometimes they were 40 minutes, depending on what we were talking about. But it was just getting up early before school and then picking the theme we were working on, whether it was like one of the archetypes or one of the shifts.

And then I’d just come up with content and we’d just talk it through. So, I think just sowing those small seeds every day over the course of years produces a massive kind of fruit. So, I asked my son like, “What are some of the takeaways that you got from that?” And a lot of it were like pithy little phrases. My son said the number one thing that I’ve taken away from all of these years of content was this idea, “You are who you are when no one’s looking. That’s your true self. When you’re accountable as your own man in the world before your creator, that’s who you really are, without people pushing you.” And that was just something like I winged one morning. It was just like, “Okay, let me just throw that in. You know?” So again, you never know by sowing those seeds what’s gonna stick and what’s really gonna like impact and help.

Brett McKay: And then also throughout the process, you’d read books together or you’d even watch movies. So if you were talking about courage, you would watch Band of Brothers, for example.

Jon Tyson: Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean we just churned through the movies. If you’re a busy dad, I can tell you, come up with a few discussion questions, watch a movie, make him thoughtful, and you can have a great night together. Yeah, the Band of Brothers and barbecue was a very, very strong season that we did. So we would just like talk about… Watch an episode, talk about what we learned in the characters, and then we’d go out and eat meat. And we sort of went through the… Because I used to be a butcher, we would go to different barbecue restaurants, and we honestly sort of ate our way around New York City as a reward for doing these nights together. So that was a lot of fun. Build your traditions. With my daughter, we did it with cookies. She didn’t wanna eat brisket every week, so…

Brett McKay: Yeah, I wanna talk about something, what you do with your daughter, in a bit here. Okay, so one of the things you did with this right of passage process is you used the work, or looked at the work of Richard Rohr. We’ve had him on the podcast before. Franciscan Monk, who’s thought and does a lot about male initiation. And you took this idea that Rohr has, of the five rules of manhood that every boy needs to learn in order to become a man, and then you modified it to… And you called them the shifts of manhood. So what are the five shifts of manhood?

Jon Tyson: Yeah, I mean, Rohr is obviously a sage. He spent half a lifetime thinking about this stuff and has some very, very strong works on that. But I felt like, I mean how do you say to a 13-year-old kid, “You are gonna die. You’re not that important. Life is not about you.” And then how do you help him see that he’s making progress on that? And so, I sort of converted him into these shifts. Yeah, so the shifts are from ease to difficulty. Boys embrace ease men embrace difficulty, from self to others. Boys are about themselves, men are about others. From the whole to a part, boys are all about themselves, men realize they’re only a part of a greater story. From control to surrender, boys think they can maintain control, men understand the mysterious power of surrender. And then, from the temporary to the eternal, boys only think about what matters right now, but men think out of a larger picture. And then, yeah. I designed these units to help him really learn these lessons.

And so, to be able to say, “Hey, boys are about ease themselves, the whole thing, control and temporary things, and men are about difficulty, others, humility, surrender, thinking big picture.” So yeah. I would take a couple of months on each of these, have a little daily talk about it, do this weekly thing that we call man school, and then at the end of it we would do a challenge.

So from ease to difficulty, for example, my son’s terrified of heights. So I took him in Australia to the highest ropes course and Mike, this thing was… I hate heights too. This was horrific but I wanted him to see, “Hey man, if you do this, you’ve passed like you have now embraced difficulty. Like you’re ready to move on to the next unit.” And so it was a real joy seeing him do an actual challenge that kind of scared him a bit where he had to overcome something. But it was just a way of showing progress. I think there’s nothing more demoralizing for men than working hard and seeing no progress from your labor. And so I wanted to build in this sense of “I am taking ground. I am moving down the path. I am heading down the road from adolescence into manhood” and this was something that, particularly with my son, was very, very effective.

Brett McKay: No. And I love one for the shift for temporary to the eternal like you took him to a graveyard and that was really impactful. That was one of those other things that really stuck with your son when you asked him, “What was some of the things that stuck?” And he was like, “This pithy off-the-cuff remark about “You look at a gravestone and you see the date someone’s born, then a dash and then the date they die.” And you said, “That dash, that was their life. And what’s gonna be what’s gonna be your dash?”

Jon Tyson: Yeah. What’s your dash? That was actually a really meaningful moment. And my son, anytime we go past a graveyard would to this day be like, “What’s your dash, dad? Make it count.” And it is kind of amazing to think there’s that person, their life is over. They’d do anything to get a second chance at it. Gosh. Don’t squander your life man. Time is a gift. Time is the most important commodity. And so, think properly and steward your time. And I think to this day, my son is very time-conscious as a result of that moment.

Brett McKay: Okay, so these five shifts, you would spend a few months and would you revisit like, say if you did… From whole story to part of the story, a year before, would you revisit it and say, “Hey, we’re gonna talk about this and more?”

Jon Tyson: Yeah. I’m always just… When we talk about how memory works, we forget in a week 75% of what we’ve heard a week earlier. And so you’ve got to do what they call deep encoding. And that primarily comes through spaced repetition. And we all know that you can cram overnight and pass a test and learn nothing, or you can study, which means like every couple of days you’re like loading it back into your mind, and yeah. I was constantly trying to reinforce the core ideas. And I did that over the course of several years. So yeah. Spaced repetition is really important. Keep hitting the same things again and again and again, and I think all people that educate well get this just like refocusing, putting the emphasis on these things, so they go from external into an internal component where they can carry with them for the rest of their lives.

Brett McKay: Another thing that I really, I like that you talked about in the book is this idea of preparing for moments that your adolescent’s gonna face as they go through puberty right into adulthood. And I think these moments are often, if you don’t have a conscious, intentional rite of passage, these moments often become the rite of passage.

Jon Tyson: Yeah.

Brett McKay: But what you’re trying to do with this idea of preparing for moments is making these moments part of a larger rite of passage. And so these are things like, first shave, when your kid gets their first cell phone, when they get a driver’s license. And you thought about like, “What can I do to make these… Make my son see, these moments are part of a bigger picture?”

Jon Tyson: Yeah. I’m a big believer that the book, The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath, that was just a masterclass. As a leader… As a person, your life is really a series of defining moments that have shaped you. If you were to sort of map out your story, you’re basically gonna pull out some disproportionately impactful moments, either of pain or of wounding. And I was like, okay, so these moments like we’re gonna be shaped by these moments. Is there a way to consciously cultivate them, to prepare in advance when the young men ones happen, but then sort of have a framework on how to do it? And so I was very, very aware. And I think scientists tell us as well, like the memories we form in our late teens and early 20s tend to be the strongest memories we carry our whole life, because we’re going through so many firsts and they find their way into our long term memory, they’re converted into long term memory by the potency and novelty of the event.

So, yeah, I was trying to figure out how to do those things and how to and how to build them up. A classic, my son got his driver’s license. He passed his test in New York City, and you wanna talk about a harrowing adventure, taking your driving test in New York City. And when he comes back, he didn’t even know if he passed or not. The lady just said to him, “You need to work on your three-point turns.” And then hands him a sheet. And I was like, “Did you pass or not?” He was like, “I don’t know.” I thought, “What a missed opportunity.” She could have said to him, “Young man, congratulations. You now can drive to California if you want. The car is yours, the roads are yours. Welcome to freedom.” She could have built this into a thing, and he would remember that forever. Instead, he had a terrible moment and he barely remembers it. So I had to mark that moment for him.

So, how do you make these moments and use them in ways that bring healing and blessing to our kids rather than our wounds? One of the big ideas they say in the book that I love is “Beware the soul-sucking voice of reasonableness.” And you can blow a moment out into a lifetime memory by adding 15% or 20% more energy to it. So just by adding a few more little details to it, you can change the whole experience. So I’ll give you a practical example. I had some dads who read my book, who flew in from Colorado to have a cigar and talk with me about the book. So here’s what I could have done, I could have sat them down and I could have said, “Hey, thanks for coming fellows.” But that’s not what I did. I went and brought a couple of bottles of very, very exquisite beverages to pair with the cigars. I got them a box of these Melanio cigars. I had this elaborate presentation and when they sat down, they were kind of dumbfounded. “Who’s this for?” I’m like, “This is for you. You came all of this way, I wanted to create a great experience for you.” And at the end of the night, I let him keep the glasses so that every time they use that glass they can remember the story, and it’s like those guys will remember that for a very, very long time because a normal moment was turned into a powerful moment.

And so I wanted to get a black belt in creating moments that shape people. And so I encourage dads that to be intentional, to think about these in advance, to have a plan. What are you gonna do if you find out your kid’s looking at porn, which statistically almost 90% of kids at some point will look at porn. How are you gonna respond to that? Are you gonna create a culture of shame or are you gonna help them understand sexuality and who women are? Yeah, so I just went through those moments and I’ve got a list of them in a book. Some of the big ones that you can think through and begin to plan around, but to me, getting those moments right is a huge, huge part of helping our son move through the world with blessing rather than wounds.

Brett McKay: So as you went through this process, I’m sure your kid was really excited at the beginning, ’cause beginnings are always exciting and new ’cause you’re doing new things.

Jon Tyson: Yeah.

Brett McKay: But then your son hit wall with this process.

Jon Tyson: Yes.

Brett McKay: He kinda started to lose interest, he’s like, “Ah, jeez. Dad, do we really have to do these morning talks?”

Jon Tyson: Yes.

Brett McKay: But this is hard part in any endeavor, this is the part where whether you’re starting a business, you’re doing a fitness routine, start training, start a fitness routine, this is the wall.

Jon Tyson: Yeah.

Brett McKay: You made a shift at this point to make the process not just about becoming a good man. So here’s what your trying to do. You’re trying to help your son harness his masculine energy to be… For the good of the community, but then you shifted it to about becoming good at being a man. What’s the difference and why did that shift reignite the fire in your son?

Jon Tyson: Yeah, you’ve had Jack Donovan on before. In his book The Way of Men, and he’s a somewhat controversial figure, I wanna note. But he had a core concept and I think really, really shook me, and his concept was he talked about Christian men’s movements, and that’s a part of the tradition that I come from, and he talked about a vision of good men in our society today looks typically like an overwhelmed suburban dad struggling to get his life together, and that’s basically it. It’s an overwhelmed, somewhat bored dad driven by obligation, trying to get his life together, and that’s what we think a good man is. He’s defined by what he doesn’t do. He’s not cheating on his wife, he’s not out there wasting his money, and it’s actually a pretty kind of time vision. It’s not super compelling at all, and he says, “What men actually want is to be good at being a man.” Which means when a man walks in the room, he should have a sense of confidence that he’s adding value. And so when you’re good at being a man, which means like, “I am good at understanding how women work. I am good at understanding what money is. I am good at practical skills around the home.” Obviously which your website is a…

You are a part of our central curriculum. There’s thousands of articles on practical stuff. And so I said to my son, “Hey, why do you think we’re doing this?” And he says, “You want me to be a good man.” And I said, “I do not want you to be a good man.” And he was kind of like, “What?” I was like, “No, I want you to be good at being a man” I was like, “Do you wanna walk into a room and understand how women think and not be intimidated?” And he’s like, “Yes.” I said, “Do you wanna be able to get through your high school years and have social skills where you can navigate bullies and build friends?” He’s like, “Yes.” So just like I’m trying to do the Winston Churchill which is like, get them saying yes or no. And I said, “Well, that’s what we’re here for. Man, I am here to help you be good at being a man, not to be some opaque kind of good man.” And that’s when it really kicked in, and that’s when I sort of unleashed the archetype content which is about like how to understand women and be a lover. How to understand and influence and be a leader, how to get in the fight, or how to have a cause and be a warrior, how to be a friend. What does it mean to be a brother, how do you be a sage in the world of fools, that sort of a thing.

And so when I sort of rolled out that those components, his motivation was so high, setting his own alarm, disciplining his life to get involved with it. So yeah, I kind of bland feeble morality with the stereotypical roles that has no passion, no teeth, no consequence, I’m not interested in that. And I think a lot of people today are sort of living half their lives because they’ve been shoved into these passionless scripts, and they think that this is what it is to be a man. I wanted to turn him loose, give him a bit of, as they say, fire in the belly. And that just had a massive impact on him. So it went from me trying to get him up to him voluntarily getting up. It was a real breakthrough.

Brett McKay: How old was he when this happened?

Jon Tyson: Oh gosh, he was 15.

Brett McKay: Okay, so you…

Jon Tyson: 15, so a couple of years in.

Brett McKay: And I liked how you took this idea of being good at being a man and tied it into these different roles that you started talking about. As a man, these are the roles you’re gonna have to fulfill as an adult. How can you be good at fulfilling that role? And I think that gives some direction for that, again, that masculine energy that teenage boys are starting to turn on.

Jon Tyson: Yeah, I totally agree. If you don’t… There’s nothing worse than standing in a room and feeling awkward. I don’t know how to talk to people, I don’t feel like I’m good at anything, and I don’t know why I’m here. If you’re projecting that sort of emotional field, it’s not gonna go well, for you, and that’s gonna lead… That’s gonna spiral into unhealthy places, so to begin to logically, sequentially, strategically break down the elements of how to be a man in the world and tell him, “You can do this, you can do this, man. And I’m gonna train you to be able to do those things.” That produces a ton of confidence, and I said… And then here’s what you do when you don’t know. You don’t fake it, you ask people who are better than you, and then you compliment them, and then they feel confident in themselves because they’re teaching you and they’re endeared to you, so… Now we did so much stuff on all the practical sort of like archetype stuff of how to be in the world.

When I asked my son today, he turns 22 this next week, I said, “Okay man, we’re a couple of years out for this. You’re a junior in college now. What’s your number one takeaway?” And he said, “The number one takeaway is the mental framework that I can figure out and handle anything.” And I was like, “Touch down, mate, that’s it.” If you can get that kind of internal confidence in a young man’s heart where he feels like he can face the challenges of life, that just felt like such a win for me.

Brett McKay: Oh, so just… You’d mentioned some of these roles. You had lover, so you talk about, okay, how can I be… How can I get along with women? How can I attract a mate? I think a lot of boys, they’re interested in that ’cause they just feel awkward. A leader, you had that.

Jon Tyson: Yep.

Brett McKay: I guess if you’re going back to union archetypes, to be the king, that would be the…

Jon Tyson: Yeah totally. Yes.

Brett McKay: Go ahead.

Jon Tyson: Yeah, the leader, the warrior, the brother, the wise man. There’s probably a few more you can put in there, but these… I try to sort of put these in things I felt my son from my tradition needed. And so one of it was a faith one, which is being a disciple, one was understanding women, one was about how to have the influence in the world through leadership, how to get the fire, there’s so much. In many ways, we’re driven by two forces, hope and hate, we’re driven by what we want to happen, and the thing that’s stopping it, the threat against the thing that’s stopping it. That’s what the warrior energy is, it’s like going after the thing you want, and then fighting off the thing that’s a threat to that. Then the power of friendships. Male friendships are so awkward, particularly that age, social media has definitely complicated it. But how do you be a faithful brother to somebody else, how do you stay the course, how do you build long-term friendships?

And I’m so grateful for that. My son did a gap year and in that gap year, he just got a crew, and because of some of the stuff we’ve talked about, they now do an annual reunion, so they’re three years removed, a couple of them have gone on and gotten married, but every year they’ve got this little tribe that gets together to mark the milestones of their life and just talk about the joys and sorrows they have been through the previous year. So it’s been a real joy to see him build a little brotherhood. And then how do you be a wise man? And the world’s filled with fools, it’s filled with pain, regret, lack of certainty, confusion, and how do you navigate some of the complexities of life? So we spent a lot of time talking about what is wisdom, what is the wisdom tradition? And how do you learn to grow in wisdom? The book of Proverbs talks about five kinds of fools, and there’s five ways of being foolish in the world and there’s five kinds of wisdom to overcome the five fools. So we spend time talking through that, that sort of stuff.

Brett McKay: One idea that I really liked and I’m gonna swipe from you, I’m gonna use it with my own kids is the life arc interview.

Jon Tyson: Yeah.

Brett McKay: What is that? And what did your son get out of them?

Jon Tyson: Well, the life arc interview is basically saying life is a series of seasons, it’s a series of stages, and without a sense of knowing what stage you’re in, what season you’re in, life can just feel very long and very painful and very, very confusing. But if you realize that hey, there’s certain things you gotta get right, certain things to look out for, certain things to avoid at these various stages, you’re gonna go in with your eyes wide open. And so it’s sort of a stage orientation. When you’re a freshman at college, they do a campus orientation, they do a freshman orientation and they’re basically trying to say to you, open your eyes, and here is how to navigate this well. So I wanted my son to go through life and figure out what to do with each decade or each stage of life. So to sit down with someone and basically ask, hey, what did you most enjoy about this stage and why? What are three or four of your favorite memories from this stage, what are the biggest regrets you had in this particular stage of your life? If you could do it again, what would you do differently? What do I have to get right? What do I… What must I absolutely avoid?

And then you begin to get a bit of an arc of what life is, and so one of the great challenges with young people today is they want the lifestyle in their 20s that their parents worked for in their 40s. And so if you say, hey man your 20s are not for wealth accumulation, as much as they are about vocational experimentation and understanding yourself, you’re gonna put some relief valves from the pressure of success and confusion. And then hopefully they’ve gotta have their own chronology, their friends got their own journey to walk, their own challenges and their own pace that they have to navigate, but then at least get some sense about like, “Here’s the territory,” if you go on any journey, at some point, you’re gonna break the journey down into stages. Hey, there’s a mountainous stage, there’s a flat stage, there’s a hot stage, there’s a stop here, see this. We do this on all trips in life, why don’t we do it for life itself? So that was my vision to sort of break that down and send him out talking to people older than him who have navigated this with some measure of skill, so he can get their accumulated wisdom and have an idea of where to go from there.

Brett McKay: Yeah, when I read that, I was thinking, man, I need to do this for my kid, like get… Or find an 18-year-old or a 20-year-old who’s just on it, who was a great kid, had a great teenage part of their life, and to be also to have my son just talked to him, what did you do? I was… I’m thinking when… If when I was a kid, when I was like 12, 13 and I got to rub shoulders with some really cool 18 year old that has a big impact.

Jon Tyson: 100%. And, you know, it’s amazing you’re actually helping form that 18 year old because you’re gonna make him sort of like codify what he’s learned. He’s gonna realize, hey, “I’m 18, but I’ve learned a lot.” So that’s gonna be a gift to him as well. And that’ll be something they could pass on to someone else, people… You do the best… You learn your lessons best when you teach it to other people. So yeah, I’m definitely grateful to be a part of a community that is multigenerational and living in the middle of New York City. My son’s growing up in Manhattan for 17 years before he left home. And… So for him, you know, he was surrounded by some like very, very accomplished people, but also people with a lot of pain, like, you know, unhealthy ambition and lack of focus. And so like, yeah, that being surrounded by a multigenerational community was a real gift. I encourage everybody to try and find that… This I think is… This sort of multigenerational long term thinking doesn’t happen in our world at large. And this is definitely something that I think kids will appreciate.

Brett McKay: So you mentioned your son took a Gap Year. Was this part of the initiation process?

Jon Tyson: 100%. 100%. All of these traditions, like when James Hollis talks about this, he says that all traditions have this thing called the ordeal. And the ordeal was to send the young man out into the world to see whether or not he has internalized and taken on the lessons that have been given to him from the community. And again, various traditions have done this. Some communities have a mission that they go on, they send people off. I grew up in Australia very, very common to do a Gap Year which is basically debaucherous hitchhiking across parts of Europe. Here’s what my vision was. I was like, “Okay, I’ve put a lot of content and a lot of experiences in my son, and college is such a formative experience.” I mean, it just swallows you whole. And I was like, I need to give him a little bit of space before he just rushes headlong into college to sort of see the kind of man he has become away from me where he could test it in the real world. So I also had a goal I wanna know, like I’m surrounded by a lot of wealth in Manhattan where he grew up and a lot of privilege. And I was like, “I wanna irreparably break my son’s heart for the global poor.” I want him to see that the privilege is growing in the disparity in the world. I want him to feel the pain of that gap, and I want him to be exposed to other places in other cultures.

So he’s not just like, “An American only in terms of his worldview and his thinking”. So he did a nine month trip. He went to a Swaziland, he went to Guatemala. He went all over the place and has since traveled all over the place. And he came back. And I gotta tell you, he was a different kid. He was like being being with a few friends. Like I said, “He built this little brotherhood, this little tribe and stuff that like so… ” The biggest example my son and I don’t say this to to sort of put him down. He’s actually a remarkable young man. But like he was a whiner. He would just complain. He just would just complain. And it was like such an unattractive quality to just complain. And, you know, I’d have my wife’s daughters come over and talk like how attractive… Like a little panel. So, like, here’s five women and here’s my son interviewing these five women on the panel. And I’d say, like, you know, do you think… What do you think about men who complain? They’re like, oh, it’s so unattractive. But even that these like attractive young women in their twenties on this little panel that my wife had formed, not none of that worked. But he comes back from this trip. My son is like, Yes, sir on it, sir kinda kid. And I’m like, “Where did this come from?” He said, “Dad, two weeks in, I realized I was a whiny, complaining child and I had a mirror amongst my peers of how unattractive it was.”

And I was like, “I do not want to be that guy.” And to this day, my son just like owns it and solves it. That that never would have happened with all of my years of effort, I couldn’t get that done. He gets in the world, sees the world, that sort of stuff is formed in him. He also just came back from… He just did another three month trip that he went on and he was in Turkey for that trip. And again he came back and I was like, “The maturity that was developed by getting out of his regular life in context was massive.” So I’m a big believer, you know, one bad year of college can undo 18 years of good parenting. And so I think there’s a lot of wisdom in having a liminal space where they can go through the world and sort of figure it out. So, yeah, that’s… That Was the vision for that. And he was willing to do it, interestingly enough, like my daughter did not want to do that. So that was something I had to sort of cast some vision for, for my son. He was worried like, hey, “All my friends are going to college, I’m gonna get left behind.” And we processed that. And eventually he came over and realized, “Hey, this probably be good for me.”

Brett McKay: So part of this Gap Year, we’re getting to the end, right? This is the ordeal.

Jon Tyson: Yes. Six years.

Brett McKay: Six years. He goes through his ordeal, he passes it changes him. This mission accomplished. You have this capstone ceremony. How did you cap this journey off into manhood with your son?

Jon Tyson: Well, one of the things I realized by talking… So, I said, “There’s quite a few sort of different groups and different organizations that will facilitate a Gap Year.” I think it’s becoming more and more popular. And one of the things in my research about sort of the comedown from the high of the Gap Year is that they didn’t debrief him too well.

So I said, “I’m gonna to do the Camino de Santiago.” Which is a 500 mile hike across Spain. And it took us 33 days to do it. I said, “We’re just gonna walk 500 miles.” There’s nothing to do but talk and we’re just gonna debrief this journey together. We’re gonna debrief the Gap Year. What happened in him? What did he learn? We’re gonna debrief all the content we went through. So I did like a series of questions every day. So to recap, in the six year journey, just trying to again, deep in coding reinforcement and then we just had a ton of fun.

And at the end of the 33 days, you come to the city, and there’s this big cathedral, it’s actually like, it’s overwhelming. You weep, if you talk about it, it’s such a profound experience, and you come into this cathedral of the city, and then it’s another 80 kilometer walk or so where you end in this village called Finisterre.

And you know the idea of a pilgrimage was you’re leaving something behind. And our idea for this pilgrimage was his leaving his childhood behind, so we end up in the city called… This little town Finisterre, and we go to this cove on a beach, and I’ve got all these letters from these men who’ve been journeying with him spoken into his life, men he respects, and I take him down on this beach and I’m like, “May I wanna tell you right now, man, this is well done, you have passed every test, you have earned this for the rest of your life, you need to know in your heart you are a man. You’re a blessed man.” In the Christian tradition, there’s a scene in the life of Jesus where he is baptized at the start of the gospels, and a voice from Heaven says, “This is my beloved son, who I love, in him I’m well pleased.” And because Jesus knew He was beloved at the start of his ministry, he had the courage and security in His identity to heal the sick, confront hypocrisy, fight off evil forces in his confrontation with the devil, so he was blessed to…

His sense of identity enabled him to overcome, and I wanted to say to my son, “You have my blessing, you are moving through the world, a blessed man, and you can overcome anything because you have what it takes within you.” So anyway, so he runs into the ocean like he did when he was 13, but now he’s 19. And he comes out and I do this big booming voice, like my god voice or whatever, and I’m just like, “Who is this man emerging from the ocean? Behold this is my son.” And then he comes out and we just cry, it’s a super, super powerful and emotional moment, and it was just. It was a blessing ceremony, and we both have a tattoo on our arms, the only tattoo I have, he’s got a few more, but it’s of our journey together to my inner arm, it’s the route of that Camino that ends in this little bay, this little cove where we did this journey, and that’s it. He left his childhood behind. So if you were to ask my son, how do you know you’re a man? He will say, “I died to childhood psychology, I went on a journey, I’ve learned the archetypes, I’ve made the shifts, I’ve done the ordeal. I’ve been blessed by my Father, I know I’m a man because I’ve earned it.” Bingo what a gift. So that was such a definitive moment that was six years in the making. So it wasn’t just the moment itself, it was marking a journey that he had been through that we had sort of done together, and a really, really significant a real gift to be a part of.

Brett McKay: That’s really powerful. See you have a daughter?

Jon Tyson: Yes, yes, I have a daughter, 19. She’s in… Studying Nursing in university.

Brett McKay: Well, have you and your wife done anything similar with her?

Jon Tyson: We did. It’s a little different, my wife played sort of the primary role in the formation of my daughter, so she’s got a whole thing she did, you know starting when she hit puberty and walked her through her teenage years. In her senior year, she came to me and she said, “Dad like I want you to just give me a year of your best development into adulthood.” So I did a thing with her that I just, I’m a bit of a branding guy, I’m a bit of a program guy so I created this thing for her called 50 pieces of my heart, 50 key deposits every dad has to make in his daughter’s life before she leaves home. So I did 50 weeks, and it was like a little daily check-in, and then one dinner a week where we talked about like the 50 most important things I wanted her to know about life and… Yeah, so we did that for a year. Sadly, her senior year was in COVID, and my daughter loves beauty, like my son loved the challenge, so on the Camino, when we’re walking 500 miles, it’s a heat wave, we’ve got blisters that are almost down to the bone, we lost 20 pounds, it was like a wild ordeal, my daughter loves beauty.

So one of the only countries that was open in COVID was Iceland, and so we did a ring road together, we rented a car and we drove around the country of Iceland, and I sort of created this experience for her recapping these important things and just like filling her heart with beauty. It was framed by a Frederick Buechner quote. Buechner ‘s obviously a very, very prolific, gifted author. And the quote says, “Here is the world, beautiful and terrible things will happen. Do not be afraid.” And so our whole year was based around beauty and terror, like the terror of life and the beauty of life, and not being afraid to enter into it, and so that Iceland trip was an immersion in beauty and again, that was like a really powerful time, so very very different relationship with her. My daughter is a very feminine in the traditional sense, and wonderful, wonderful young woman, she’s a helper, very kind studying Nursing and so. But my wife will have to write the book of what she did with her, I was just intentional in my relationship with her, but really did a strong year with her to sort of close out her adolescence and not to send her off.

I tell you a very, very, very, very moving moment about the importance of seizing time, I was the last person to drop her at college, my wife left the day before and I had one bone to stay with her, and after 18 years of meeting with her, every week this really intense year. We spent an hour together every day for a year, and at the end of it, we had our final dinner, and I’m walking back to my car and she’s walking to her dorm so we have this one last hug, and she hugs me and she will not let go. And she says, “Dad, I need more time. I need more time with you, I don’t have the wisdom, I don’t have everything, I need you, I need more time.” And I was like, “Sweet girl, you’ve got what it takes. This is in you. You’re gonna be fine. I’m still with you. And I walked off in tears. But I was like, Oh, those words, I need more time. I was like, that was the thing. I was like, “Gosh, our kids had gone before we know it,” and so a lot of times people say, “Jon, this sounds pretty intense,” and listen man, I am a busy man in the middle of New York City, I got a lot on my plate, lot of responsibilities, lot of stuff I handle, so it was a real sacrifice to take the time to do this for my kids, but now that they’re both gone…

If I had my time again, I’d go harder, I’d sacrifice more. Those days like I just entrusted into the hands of God and say, “Hey, I did what I could, I did this with love, I did my best and I’m gonna have to trust Him and them.” But I tell you, I’d go harder again. So it probably yeah, maybe someone’s listening to this and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, this sounds like a lot.” Yeah, it is a lot, but it’s worth it. Absolutely worth it.

Brett McKay: Well, let’s say you guys listening to this is like, “Well, maybe I just… I can’t do everything. This is awesome, what you do is awesome.” Then maybe some guys just don’t have the bandwidth, creativity, etcetera. What would you say? Okay, just to get the ball rolling, ’cause I think oftentimes once you get the ball rolling, you pick up steam and you start adding to it. What are a few practices that you would think could help that?

Jon Tyson: I would say this, consistency is more important than intensity. I would say, it’s like if you wanna lose weight, yeah, you can do a liquid fast for 30 days and then intermittent fast and then eat one meal a day. And you’ll probably do that for six weeks and put all the weight back on. Or you can cut out soda for three months, and then you can cut out soda, and then you can cut out dessert. It’s just like it’s what can you do consistently? That’s what has the formative power. You gotta find like every kid that is different, you’ve gotta find that tension of like, is this actually making a difference in their life or not, and how much does each kid need in what season after that? I would say this, let me give you a larger principle rather than a specific because that’s so personal. I think the number one goal is to build and maintain an emotional bond, that is the whole thing.

Because if that bond is there in the relationship, you can pass anything through that bond. That bond can handle any teenage rebellion, that bond can handle any hard conversation, but if that bond is not there, it is very, very hard to reinsert yourself because it just sounds like moralizing or lecturing. To me it would be like whatever it takes to build that bond. You might do something as simple as I know on your website you’ve got a list of quotes, you might just do something as simple of like sit down and create a ritual where you read one quote a day about a thing. Or maybe it’s like one night a week. But whatever it is that keeps that bond alive that’s the most important factor, and then play the long game, put a date on your calendar and work backwards and just say, “Okay, here’s what I’m gonna do from now till then. And then I’ll also say two other thoughts.

Number one, something is better than nothing. Do what you can do, don’t be overwhelmed by what you can’t do. Something is better than nothing. And then secondly, if your kids are gone and maybe you’re sitting here with a sense of regret, I would just say to you, it’s never too late. You just don’t know the power of a father or a mentor’s heart moving towards a kid with repentance and with hope. They just like I’ve got so many stories. Part of what I do is I lead the faith community in New York, and over the past almost 20 years, thousands and thousands of stories of impossible relational reconciliations. When you’re willing to move with forgiveness and humility. So don’t give up hope, set your heart and move towards your kids slowly in love and you just… You’d be amazed at the blessing they ache for, the relationship they ache for, and the power of restoration if you do it with humility and consistency.

Brett McKay: Well, Jon, this has been a fantastic conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

Jon Tyson: I’ve got a course on this, it’s at primalpath.co. That’s dot C-O. And on there there’s a link for a weekly email. Every week I send out like a short thought for dads and men about how to navigate the complexity of being a man in the modern world. You can sign up for that, absolutely free. And then if you go to Amazon and just look at The Intentional Father, you’ll see that that book is there available in all formats.

Brett McKay: Fantastic. Well, Jon Tyson, thanks for your time, it’s been a pleasure.

Jon Tyson: Okay, cheers mate, thank you.

Brett McKay: My guest here was Jon Tyson. He’s the author of the book, The Intentional Father. It’s available on amazon.com. You can find more information about his work at primalpath.co. Also check out our show notes at aom.is/passage where you can find links to resources where we delve deeper into this topic.

Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Make sure to check out our website at artofmanliness.com where you find our podcast archives as well as thousands of articles written over the years about pretty much anything you’d think of. And if you’d like to enjoy ad free episodes of the AOM podcast, you can do so on Stitcher premium. Head over to stitcherpremium.com, sign up, use code manliness and check out for a free month trial. Once you’re signed up, download the Stitcher app on Android or iOS and you can start enjoying ad free episodes of the AOM podcast. And if you haven’t done so already, I’d appreciate if you take one minute to give us a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify, it helps out a lot. And if you’ve done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think would get something out. As always, thank you for the continued support.

Until next time, this is Brett McKay. Reminding you all listening to the podcast to put what you’ve heard into action.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

A few months ago, psychologist Jean Twenge released 10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World. Twenge has spent decades studying generational shifts in behavior (check out the podcast we did with her about differences between generations), and her message with this book is simple: today’s kids are growing up in a world of constant connection — smartphones, social media, gaming — and it’s not going well for them. For nearly a decade, she’s been sounding the alarm about what increased time on screens is doing to kids. Depression, anxiety, and sleep issues have all climbed, while dating, hanging out with friends, and even driving have decreased as screen time has gone up.

Her book offers a practical roadmap for parents on how to raise kids in today’s digital environment. What I like about her advice is that it’s realistic. She doesn’t pretend that we can go back to 1988 when kids just had access to a television and a landline. She shows parents how they can help their kids use technology without it using them.

Below are rules inspired by Twenge’s book, along with how Kate and I have tried to apply them in our own home.

1. You’re in Charge

Twenge’s first rule is the foundation for all the others: parents — not kids, not peers, not tech companies — set the terms for how technology enters the home. Don’t default to giving your kid a screen just because everyone else is.

Our kids have been using iPads since they were little, but we’ve always set clear boundaries and rules regarding what apps they could use, how long they could be on the devices, etc. We didn’t just hand them a screen and say, “Have at it!” From day one, we’ve made it clear that using a device is a privilege, not a right. When you start from that assumption, the rest follows naturally.

2. Delay Smartphones and Social Media

If Twenge had her way, no kid would get a smartphone before mid-high school. Her research shows that the later a child gets one, the better their mental health tends to be.

Our son Gus is a high school freshman and still doesn’t have a smartphone. It hasn’t been a big issue. We tell him, “You’ll get one when we can see a demonstrable need for it.” So far, we haven’t. When he starts driving, that’ll probably change. Until then, he can message friends on his iPad (which stays at home), and if he needs to call us, there are still these things called landline phones at school.

We also delay social media. Our 12-year-old daughter Scout doesn’t have any accounts, and Gus just has a teen account on Instagram.

For more advice on when to give your kid a smartphone, check out our article where we asked tech experts for their take on the right age to take this step.

3. Create Tech-Free Zones and Times

According to Twenge, boundaries aren’t just about how much tech your kids use but where and when they use it. Bedrooms, mealtimes, and family gatherings should be screen-free.

We’ve stuck to that pretty closely. No devices in bedrooms. No devices at the dinner table. One screen at a time — no using your iPad while you’re also watching television by yourself or we’re watching a movie as a family. Devices live in shared spaces, and can only be used in designated time windows. Once those windows expire, that’s it. Predictability kills potential arguments.

4. Use Parental Controls and Clear Rules

Twenge argues that monitoring your kids’ tech use isn’t snooping. It’s appropriate oversight.

We use Apple’s Family Sharing tools, which let us approve app downloads, set screen time limits, and view activity reports. My kids can only iMessage approved contacts. When they want to add someone else to their contacts, we have a conversation: “Tell me about this kid. How do you know her? What’s she like?”

But as I discussed on the podcast with family tech expert Emily Cherkin, you can’t rely solely on a device’s built-in parental control apps to keep your kids safe. There are things you can do to get around those, and they’re not fail-proof. That’s why we do random check-ins with our kids where we sit with them and look through their iPad to see what they’ve been doing online — the sites they’ve been visiting, the YouTube channels they’ve been watching, the kids they’ve been messaging.

If we see something that breaks our family’s rules about what’s an appropriate use of the iPad, the consequence is straightforward: use of the device is rescinded for a period. No yelling, no debate.

Once our kids get their own smartphones, we’ll continue to know their passwords. We’ll tell them, “We won’t ever read your texts — unless your behavior gives us a reason to.”

5. Encourage Real-World Freedom and Independence

One of Twenge’s key points is that real-world play builds confidence in ways digital life never can. So while you’re telling your kids to get off the iPad, encourage them to get out into the real world, touch grass, and be independent.

We’ve been doing that with Gus and Scout during the summers. We’ll occasionally just kick them out of the house and say, “Don’t come back inside for a few hours.” What do they do? They go on long treks through suburbia, maybe walking to Maverick to get a snack, then to PetSmart to look at hamsters. They’ve learned to handle themselves by being by themselves.

6. Talk About Online Behavior, Risk, and Self-Control

Twenge urges parents to talk about the internet the way previous generations talked about cars. Like cars, the internet is useful and fun, but dangerous if misused.

We’ve had countless conversations with our kids about digital self-control. “Don’t text anything you wouldn’t want someone to screenshot.” “Don’t assume messages disappear.”

When we see stories about scams or sextortion, we talk about them with our kids. I’ll show them an article about a teen caught in a phishing scheme or a news clip about a social media challenge gone wrong. I’m not trying to scare them; I’m just trying to make the risks of being online concrete.

7. Model Good Tech Habits

Kids learn tech behavior from their parents. If you’re glued to your phone, they’ll be glued to theirs.

This rule . . . I’m not always very good at this rule. My job lives online, which makes this tricky. I’m constantly checking my email for work. So I’ve had to set non-negotiable rules for myself: no phone at dinner; no scrolling during family time; no sneaking peeks at my phone while my kids are trying to talk to me. Gus and Scout know I struggle with it, and that’s actually helpful. They’ll call me out when I’m sliding, and they can see how dopey you look when you’re staring at a black rectangle.

8. Recognize That Time Is Limited

Twenge’s research shows that screen time doesn’t just eat hours — it replaces them. Every hour online is an hour not spent sleeping, reading, playing, or developing real-world skills.

The solution isn’t simply to take screens away; it’s to fill that space with something better — sports, reading, hobbies, music — anything that creates real memories. Twenge asks a good question: What will your kid remember doing? They won’t remember scrolling YouTube, but they will remember hitting a game-winning shot, building a fort, or laughing with friends until they couldn’t breathe.

Make sure, as you reduce screen time in your kid’s life, that you encourage them to fill it with something positive.

9. Be Consistent and Clear About Consequences

Rules are only as good as their follow-through.

Our kids know the tech rules and what happens when they break them. There’s no negotiation and no “just this once.” Parent like a video game.

10. Stay Flexible but Firm

Twenge ends with balance. Rules are important, but rigidity backfires.

We loosen up on things like long drives — screens are fine in moderation. But even then, they have to oscillate between spending an hour on screens and then two hours off. The goal isn’t perfection; it’s balance. When your daughter is home sick from school? Well, she can play Roblox more than usual.

There’s no escaping the digital world our kids inhabit. But we can shape how they move through it. What I like about Twenge’s 10 Rules is that it’s not an anti-tech manifesto. It’s a reasonable and realistic guide to helping your kids thrive in this digital world.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

For generations, the path to adulthood was straightforward: go to college, get a job, build a life. But many young men are beginning to question the college component of that path; tuition keeps rising, A.I. has made the professional landscape more uncertain, and there’s just a sense that after four years at college, guys graduate feeling like they haven’t been very challenged, haven’t much changed, and haven’t gained a lot of real confidence, competence, and concrete know-how.

My guest today, Matt Smith, has created an alternative to college — a 4-year, 16-cycle curriculum designed to shape participants into Renaissance Men: skilled, self-reliant, and grounded in character. Matt co-authored The Preparation with his son Maxim, who is currently working his way through the program.

In the first half of our conversation, Matt shares what kickstarted this idea and what’s lacking in the education model for young men today. We then turn to the nuts and bolts of The Preparation, and Matt walks us through several of the program’s hands-on cycles — including earning EMT certification, building a house, and training as a fighter in Thailand — and how gaining these real-world skills prepares a young man for whatever is next in life.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• AoM Podcast with Luke Burgis on mimetic desire
• AoM Podcast #810: How to Turn a Boy Into a Man
• Leon Battista Alberti
• AoM Podcast #1,025: The Life and Legacy of Louis L’Amour
• Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L’Amour
• AoM Article: The Pros and Cons of a 4-Year College
• AoM Article: 11 Alternatives to a Traditional 4-Year College

Connect With Matt and Maxim Smith

• The Preparation Substack
• Maxim’s Substack

Listen to the Podcast! (And don’t forget to leave us a review!)

Listen to the episode on a separate page.

Download this episode.

Subscribe to the podcast in the media player of your choice.

Transcript

Brett McKay:

Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For generations, the path to adulthood was straightforward. Go to college, get a job, build a life. But many young men are beginning to question the college component of that path. Tuition keeps rising. AI has made the professional landscape more uncertain, and there’s just a sense that after four years at college, guys graduate, feeling like they haven’t been very challenged, haven’t much changed, and haven’t gained a lot of real confidence. Confidence and concrete know-how. My guest today, Matt Smith, has created an alternative to college, a four year, 16 cycle curriculum designed to shape participants into Renaissance men, skilled, self-reliant and grounded in character. Matt co-authored The Preparation with his son Maxim, who is currently working his way through the program. In the first half of our conversation, Matt shares what kickstarted this idea and what’s lacking the education model for young men today. We then turn to the nuts and bolts of The Preparation and Matt walks us through several of the program’s hands-on cycles, including earning EMT certification, building a house, and training as a fighter in Thailand, and how gaining these real world skills prepares young man for whatever is next in life. After the show’s over, check out our show notes at AoM.is/ThePreparation.

All right, Matt Smith, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Real pleasure to be here. So co-authored a book with your son Maxim and then also Doug Casey. It’s called The Preparation in which you lay out a curriculum as an alternative to college for young men, and it’s kind of an alternative to college as a rite of passage for young men, what was the impetus behind the development of The Preparation?

Matt Smith:

Well, my other co-author, Doug Casey, he actually has been trying to get me to write this book for 12 years with him, but he called it Renaissance Man, is what he called it. He’s been trying over various times to get me to do it with him. It never made sense because he’s written a number of books and he always said, they’re total brain damage to write. You don’t make any money doing him. And then he is trying to sell me at the same time to write this book with him. But when my son turned 17, or my son was in his 17th year, so he’s almost turning 18, and I could see in him this consternation, this anxiety about the future, and I’m a college dropout and I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life. So he didn’t grow up in an environment where I was propagandizing him one way or the other.

You should go to college or you should not go to college. But he, I guess always assumed that he wouldn’t because I didn’t. And I think that I even made the path feel more uncertain to him than normal, but I think all 17 year olds probably feel this way. So I could see this anxiety in him and I had a lot of worry. And also, this is all in the COVID era too, so you’re thinking about what would make sense. And then I thought back about the book that Doug had talked to me about many years before and over and over again about writing with him. And I said, maybe we can make something like that work. I didn’t really think about writing a book at that stage. I was really just thinking of seeing if we can turn this into a program that he could follow to help your son. That was the only motivation. There’s no way I would’ve done it without that. Yeah.

Brett McKay:

And you talk about in the book that college these days, there was a time when college was a great way to segue into adult life. You learned knowledge that you could apply to a career that would last your entire life. Why do you think that model doesn’t work anymore for so many young men? Well,

Matt Smith:

There’s a whole bunch of reasons, but I mean, you could argue on one side of it, economy is changing dramatically. So with AI and automation, we’ve already started to see a lot of job cuts around that. We’ve seen people that have specialized in the fields. They were told to go into computer science, come out and not be able to find a job when they get out of school. There’s like two weeks ago in the New York Times, there was a long article about this. Somebody had applied to 5,000 jobs, had 13 interviews I think, and no offers, computer science. So there’s a question of what that future looks like without the problems of college. So one thing is the future AI and the future that might cause, and the other thing is just it’s extremely expensive and it’s no longer rare. Now 53% of people graduate high school go to college.

So you’re not among the, of course you can go to more elite schools and then the track is different of course, but people are graduating with this huge debt around this burden that they’re carrying around with them. And totally, if they find out that job that they’d specialized in, they really, they feel it’s totally soul crushing. They now no longer have options because they have to service that debt from college. They pay their rent, and so they’re kind of trapped and they find themselves, I think totally different than when even 20 years ago when costs were so much lower than now

Brett McKay:

Going back to that idea of how AI is changing the career landscape. I had this conversation with my son a couple months ago. He’s 14, he’ll be 15 next month, and we were on a walk and he said something pretty incisive for a 14-year-old. I was surprised he caught onto this. He said, dad, I think what worked for you and mom and even my grandparents as far as transitioning adulthood like college. He says, I don’t think that’s going to work for me. And I said, I think you’re right. It’s a completely different world. And he said, what do I do then? What should I major in? Where should my career be? And I said, but I don’t really know, to be honest.

Matt Smith:

That’s amazing. A 14-year-old is asking these questions

Brett McKay:

And I think a lot of young people have that anxiety like your son did. What am I supposed to do? Because it used to be you could pick out your career, even if you worked in a factory, let’s say 60 years ago, you knew you’d have a job for six years because nothing really changed all that much. Or you went to college and you decided to become an accountant or an attorney, not much change. You knew what the game would look like for your career. That’s no longer the case. And I can see that just causing so much stress and anxiety for young people.

Matt Smith:

Yeah, I think so. Even if we were wrong when we went to college, like I said, I’m a dropout, but I did go for 18 months anyway, even if we were wrong, but we believed that accounting job would be available for us even if we were wrong, it still gave us something to pursue some clarity. Today it’s clear to everybody that the future is going to be vastly different. So knowing that just increases people’s uncertainty so dramatically. And yeah, it’s a tough position for these kids. They’ve been through the ringer with all the COVID stuff and then it’s uncertain future. It’s a really tough time to be a teenager.

Brett McKay:

This book is geared towards young men. We’ll talk about the curriculum and The Preparation. I think a young woman could do it and it’d be awesome for them, but it’s geared more towards young men. But you talk about one of the things that young men, they have this anxiety, they don’t know what to do. And so what they typically do is they just default to drifting and looking at what their peers are doing, whether in person or online. And you talk about the role mimetic desire plays in this drift. So we’ve had Luke Burgess on the podcast before who’s written about mimetic desire. But for those who aren’t familiar with it, can you briefly describe it and then how does this mimetic desire contribute to dissatisfaction in a young man’s life?

Matt Smith:

Happy to. I mean, Luke does a great job. I think the book’s called Wanting, I think of the name of it, but it’s based upon Renee Gerard’s work, which essentially he says that humans are unusual animals and that basically our drives are shaped by those around us. And this doesn’t just apply to young men or young women, it applies to you and I we’re subject to, we can be subject to things if we’re not aware of them. And this is why you see things become really popular, whether it be a fashion trend or something, how they just take off you as like, why do humans follow these trends like that? It’s kind of programmed into us. And so we look to others for what they appear to want, and then it becomes our own want. It feels legitimate. It feels like we really truly desire that thing too, because we’re taking the cues from the people around us. But it’s not genuine, it’s not really authentic. And I really believe, again, this is not a young person problem. This is a every person problem. You have to be aware of it, the effect of others on you and what they desire. I mean, it’s like keeping up with the Jones’ idea. That’s that concept in a nutshell.

Brett McKay:

And I think for a lot of young men, they don’t really have good models anymore. So mimetic desire can be a positive force if your model is noble and good and positive, but a lot of young men don’t have that.

Matt Smith:

Well, I would say if anything, the great role models that might even exist even in literature are taken out of the classroom for young men especially. So I think they’re gone and there’s been an attack on masculinity in the culture, and that’s certainly made it worse. And then the counter reaction to that, the bros is also negative. It’s just not really the right thing either. It’s not real masculinity. So there aren’t heroic figures for them to look up to except I guess superheroes, which is nonsense. So yeah, I think it is a real struggle for young people to have good models and to then know where to go and what to do.

Brett McKay:

So what you do, let’s talk about The Preparation. So the goal of The Preparation is, the original idea was to help young men turn into Renaissance. Men who are competent, confident, and dangerous, basically turn ’em into the most interesting man in the world from those Dos Equis commercials. Tell us more about this renaissance man model that you’re trying to follow. So basically the Renaissance man ideal is the model that you’re hoping young men will use their mimetic desire to become like. So tell us about that. What is this renaissance man model that you’re trying to create with The Preparation?

Matt Smith:

So fundamentally, instead of the focus being on what kind of job do you want to have? The question that confronts young men at this stage in life, it’s like what kind of job you want to have or the three main choices, of course, college, military, or a trade school, nothing really wrong necessarily with any of them, but all of them are simply designed to get you a job that gets you economic viability so that you can be hopefully reasonably prosperous and have some economic security. But none of them address the most important question, which is what kind of man do you want to become? And what we try and do is get them to think about that early in the book and we focus on this, the idea of the Renaissance man, essentially as a person who’s able to, who not only knows a lot about broad range of topics, from music to art, to building a house and milking a cow, anything you can imagine, just a broad range of knowledge, but also knows how to shape the world around him, knows how to put it into action, knows how to create with it.

And that’s the difference between a polymath and a real renaissance man is a polymath, knows a lot, but a renaissance man uses that knowledge to create, to shape the world around them. Yeah,

Brett McKay:

I think we have this kind of a distorted idea of what a renaissance man is. When we think of like, oh, he’s a Renaissance man. It’s like, well, he just knows a lot. Basically we’re describing a polymath, the actual Renaissance man from the Renaissance era, as you said, they not only knew a lot of stuff, but they could do a lot of stuff and they were actively engaged in trying to shape the public sphere. So use this example of Leon Batista Alberti, who was this guy,

Matt Smith:

He was a badass, obviously a guy. He lived in the 15th century in Italy, and he is one of the central figures really of that renaissance period. He was a painter and architect, a photographer, a philosopher, mathematician, and he was also quite an athlete. He was a great horseman apparently too, and a mountaineer. I mean, he was quite accomplished in every walk of life. And he thought that the only thing that limited what you could do was your will, this renaissance area. What it did is it combined these classical virtues that were sort of rediscovered in the Renaissance from ancient Greece and Rome, and with this new life that was sort of fed into the period once actually the Renaissance period fundamentally was about revitalization by a rediscovery of these ancient virtues where a man could shape themselves and ought to shape themselves. So that that’s what life’s about, is that pursuit of shaping yourself into something great. And so he’s kind of the iconic figure of that period really, who really proved it true.

Brett McKay:

Yeah. Going back, one of their goals was they wanted not only shape themselves, but they wanted to shape themselves so they could shape the world, have an impact on the world, and I think all humans crave that. We crave that desire to mold our outside environment. Nietzsche said, joy is the feeling of power increasing and for Nietzsche power was like creativity. It’s like, yeah, you had an impact. I think all humans have that desire, but I think particularly in young men, young men really want to feel like their actions have an impact on the world around them. I think that’s one of the reasons why video games are so seductive. It gives you the feeling that you’re doing something but you’re really not. So I really love this idea of the renaissance model of someone who acquires knowledge and skills to act in the world.

Matt Smith:

And these are, I think with young men, what they really want is they want to be somebody. So they have this angst to do something meaningful. They know that by doing something meaningful, they’ll become something meaningful, but there’s so little that they can do. They’re so restrained. It’s like so little freedom on kids. I say they’re the most surveilled group of people that have ever existed on the face of the earth. Everything’s scheduled and organized for them and almost infantalized because of it.

Brett McKay:

Any other fictional or historical characters besides Alberti that you think are examples of this Renaissance man who not only knows a lot but can do a lot and have an impact on the world?

Matt Smith:

You can look at a lot of the founding fathers, frankly, like Ben Franklin. That man knew a lot and did a lot. It’s actually quite impressive of his accomplishments. You go through the founding fathers and you’ll find at least half a dozen that I think would qualify as Renaissance man amongst them. I’ll say for my son what was particularly motivating for whatever reason, and you never know why certain characters connect with you or don’t, but he really loved Edmund Dantes from the Count of Monte Cristo. I really made him watch one of the versions of the movie with me when he was younger, and I said, you’ll like it, trust me. He never really liked movies, but it or not. And he loved it. He loved that idea. And then he read the book and then he read the Under bridge book and he’s now read it a couple times. And this idea of this guy’s like a good virtuous guy, but really innocent and got basically everything that mattered to him, completely taken away from him all of a sudden and was at the total bottom of a, well, essentially in prison and really couldn’t get any lower, but built himself up and to become quite a remarkable man who absolutely did have the ability to shape the world around him.

Brett McKay:

Another one, as I was reading the curriculum for The Preparation, which we’re going to talk about here in a bit, another person that reminded me of this sort of renaissance man ideal that’s more modern. Louis L’Amour, the Western author, a hundred percent. You like him? Oh, I love Louie L’Amour.

Matt Smith:

Oh, oh, good. That’s good. That’s a good sign. Yeah, no, he’s great.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, we’ve had his son on the podcast to talk about his work, but also his book Education of a Wandering Man, which is basically an education of a renaissance man.

Matt Smith:

Yeah, my son has read that book three times. It’s a really good book going through this process. It’s been, he said, it’s been interesting going back and my son has been the beta tester for this program for the book. What ended up being the book, he’s been doing it in real life for the last two years. And so as he goes through different stages of it, he’s read it at different points and he’s like, I see different things at each stage. So it is quite an inspiration for him as well. And Lou, the More absolutely was a renaissance man,

Brett McKay:

And I would even say a lot of actors from the golden age of Hollywood, I’m talking Steve McQueen, even writers like Jack London, Ralph Ellison, if you look at their lives, they didn’t follow. They didn’t, a lot of ’em didn’t go to college or if they did go to college, they dropped out and they just did weird stuff. Like Steve McQueen, he was in the Marines and then he labored on a chain gang in the deep south because he got arrested for vagrancy. He was a lumberjack. He joined the circus, I think Ralph Ellison before he became a rider, he tried to become a professional trumpet player in New York City and he was living in A-Y-M-C-A trying to be a trumpet player. And that’s where he met Langston Hughes and he got kind of brought into that circle of the Harlem Renaissance there in New York City. Sean Connery, I mean he served in the Royal Navy. He was a milk man, he was a lifeguard. He was like a bodybuilder for a little while. And what stands out to all of these guys? They were just doing stuff. They’re just trying different stuff, increasing their surface area of luck and just these opportunities came up where they found something they really were good at and passionate about and the rest was history.

Matt Smith:

They did it their own way too. I think they were able to, in all those cases, I think they were able to devote their time and energy to the things that drew them in more because they had this broad exposure to many things and broad exposure to lots of different people and different things. It just increases their total decision set. So like their optionality in life increases dramatically. The more like the way I guess you put it surface area they touch, but I have to include people they touch within that as well because you build this weird networks that connect you with weird people. If you do unusual things

Brett McKay:

And if you just go to college like, well, you go to college and you might learn some interesting things, but your experiences aren’t going to be as varied as these guys.

Matt Smith:

And today you can learn anything. You can learn in college without going to college. That’s the thing. It’s available to us now in a way that it was not before. There is some advantage if you happen to have a great professor who can take whatever the subject matter you’re studying and they can bring it to life in a way that you would not catch without them. There are those rare instances, but most of it is not like that, at least in my experience.

Brett McKay:

So before you talk about the specific skills a young man should develop and that your son Maxim is developing with The Preparation, you spend a lot of time in the beginning of the book talking about developing a personal code. Why start with that?

Matt Smith:

I think it’s because it’s the only thing that matters in the end. And so you got to start at the end, I guess, Doug, when he originally pitched me on the book 12 years ago, he was very vague about it. He says, I want to write a book about becoming a Renaissance man. And I said, tell me more. And he said, well, the three most important verbs in the English or didn’t really any language are be and do. And and I didn’t get it. It took me a long time to really understand what he meant by that. But essentially, if you think about it have is what everyone is oriented to generally. It’s certainly a part of this mimetic desire that people have. They look around, they see what other people want, they want to have things, they want to have a beautiful wife or they want to have a new car or they want to have a travel experience.

They basically are oriented almost only toward have. And in our consumer culture, this has been amplified, like the dial’s been turned up to 11. It’s really intense and it’s almost hard to avoid it if you don’t understand this framework. So the problem with focusing on have is that have is a byproduct. You don’t get it directly, you get it indirectly. By doing so, do is the operative, do is what matters. What you do will determine what you have. But the only thing that actually matters is be and be is who you are. What is your substance? What is the thing that differentiates you from the other 10,000 people standing in line? What is the difference? And this is the thing that this essence, a bee is the thing that I find is very motivating to young men. Actually, it’s motivating to men of any age because the bee, the substance, the thing that makes you solid.

And so we had to focus on that. So what is the, the way we think of it is that with this personal code, we ask them to go through this exercise, it seems kind of trivial. I understand at first it can seem trivial. The first part of it, is a set of rules for yourself that you don’t expect anyone else to follow, but they’re just rules for your own conduct. And that requires a little self-reflection. And it’s like when you do things that make you feel small or that make you feel a little ashamed. One example, if a friend invites me out to dinner on Friday, I could say, I’m busy little white lie. Or I could say, I don’t really feel like it this Friday. Maybe we could do it another time. The path of least resistance is simply to just actually say, oh, I’m busy, I just can’t do it.

But every time, personally, when I would do something like that, it made me feel small, made me feel not good. And it’s not real deception, like a really bad lie, but it’s still not good. It didn’t make me feel good. And so we asked them to look at those things that they do that make them feel small and write ’em down and just decide not to do those things anymore. Just set up these rules for yourself. It might sound again trivial, but this is the formation of self-esteem. This is the formation of the self itself because this is how you are separating yourself from going with the flow, from just doing what everyone else is doing because you’re deciding, no, I’m not going to do these things. It’s only a negative thing first. I’m not going to do these things under these conditions. And that’s where it starts though.

It’s like you develop this beachhead where a young person, anybody can build from a real self from that, just a little bit of self-control around I’m not going to do the things that make me feel small. That’s the first part. The second part is things to aspire to, and this goes back to the virtues. So we introduce ’em to the same virtues that inspired the Renaissance from Greece and Rome and we just basically share a list with them and say, which ones do these speak to? You pick five or whatever, six that feel good to you. That’d be awesome. Courage. That’s cool. Yeah, I would like to be somebody who’s known as courageous or maybe it’s that you’ve got what they call the gravitas, which is actually just dignity. I mean virtue, the core of the word is vir, which means man. So the pursuit of virtues is the pursuit of being a man in general.

So anyway, we tell ’em to identify those virtues that they voluntarily decide to aspire to. And unlike the rules which are binary, it’s like, oh, I messed that up. I failed. Or I did the right thing by my own standards. Virtue is something you never get there. It’s always just something you’re trying harder to get. You can always be more courageous, you could always be more disciplined if that’s a virtue you choose, you could always be more steadfast. So it’s something you pursue constantly and this is inspiring to people to be because what kind of man do you want to be? What kind of man do you want to be known as? So that’s the second part. The third part is where we tell them to start to list their stack of accomplishments, which will grow as they get into the book because we actually later on tell them exactly what they should do.

Brett McKay:

So it sounds like it’s all about helping these young men develop a sense of self.

Matt Smith:

It is the most important thing. Be is the thing, and this is what when you see people who are even gainfully employed, having gone to college feeling quite lost, why? Because they still don’t know who they are. They still don’t know what differentiates them specifically. Is it what makes them? So the beginning of that starts with this. I think it’s totally core to, I mean, I would much rather spend time. I like people who have done a lot of stuff. They’re very interesting and I like people who have a lot of stuff. I have a lot of stuff. Stuff is nice. But if the person is not a good person, I mean if they don’t have virtue, if they aren’t pursuing virtue, they’re not people I want to be around. And certainly I don’t want to be someone like that. So it’s a constant barometer for me as well.

And I just think it’s never discussed with young men, they never hear it, they never even hear this. So I think it had to be there first because most of the book is about what to do, but doing for what reason? Because some of these things are hard and when you’re doing them, you don’t like Louis Morris running around doing a lot of weird stuff. Everybody’s doing these weird things, they look weird. And so to everyone around them it might’ve looked like they’re failing. So in that you have to be able to come back to something like a higher purpose than that. And that is the being that is what kind of man do you want to become.

Brett McKay:

Alright, so let’s get into the brass tacks of the curriculum of The Preparation. I think what everyone’s probably like, okay, what’s in this thing? What is my young son going to be doing? So you break the curriculum into cycles. How long do the cycles last and what are the components of a cycle? Alright,

Matt Smith:

So again, we’re competing with college is the way we think about it. And so we imagine four years, my son is through two of them now each year is broken up into four quarters. Obviously we call each quarter a cycle. So there’s 16 cycles and each cycle basically has a few key components. The most important one we call the anchor course, that’s the main event. Sometimes there’ll be a couple weeks long, sometimes they can be a couple months long of that tire cycle, three month cycle. But that’s the main thing. And everything else is built around that because these are hard to schedule so you have to plan everything around it. So you plant the big rock, you put the big rocks in first in the jar, that kind of idea. It starts with that. And then related to it, Doug especially is a strong advocate for academics.

He thinks they’re super important. So every cycle has academic courses as a component to it. As much as possible we try and make it so that they’re related to the subject matter, that they’re anchor course that they’re actually going through at the time as much as possible. So there’s the academic portion, there’s a set of activities that we encourage people to do and they could choose the things that are interesting to them. But we encourage diversity by trying a lot of different things and they could be from learning a musical instrument and it’s a good thing for sure. Definitely learning to play chess is a good thing for sure. But scuba diving and skydiving and well, we have a whole list, a whole bunch of ’em in there of different activities and there’s some time that’s set aside each week for those kinds of things. And other than that, there’s a reading list of course too.

So we have books that we recommend and then it’s reflection. So in total we actually, unlike college, which you can be considered a full-time student if you’re taking 12 credit hours now supposedly there’s a lot more outside of that than that. But I came from the army as I had to pay for my college, I had to go to join the National Guard. So I came from the army to college and I couldn’t believe how much free time everybody had. It was so shocking to me. The difference between high school and college, it’s a huge difference. You’re so much free time. This basically assumes you’re putting 40 productive hours in every week. Now these could be some of these hours. Are you at the gym that counts lifting weights, that’s good for you, that’s one of your activities. But there are required things in there too that we have. But we’re assuming 40 hours a week, which definitely prepares somebody that in and of itself more for the real world frankly, than a heavy course load would.

Brett McKay:

Okay, so each cycle has an anchor course and this is the more intensive hands-on component of a cycle. Then there’s some related academics that you’re going to do and then there’s some activities you can choose from. And then you’re supposed to do a written reflection at the end of a cycle. And as you said, you’re pitching this as an alternative college. And as we talked about earlier, college is just really expensive these days. I think doing four years at an in-state university is something like a hundred thousand dollars in total and then it just goes up from there. So the academics with The Preparation, that’s like online courses you can take for free, but stuff like the anchor courses cost money. So how much does The Preparation cost to do altogether?

Matt Smith:

Yeah, so if you did the exact 16 ones that we have, and there are two that are really expensive in here, the total cost of that over four years is about $70,000. About $70,000 basically. That’s one year to prestigious college in the US today, but it’s a lot of money. 70,000 even that I understand. But the difference, the thing is, is that you can work your way through it. And I have some evidence I’ll share with you. There are two, I don’t know if you want me to get into the anchor courses now, but there are two that are really expensive. You don’t have to do those and saves a lot of money. One of ’em is becoming a private pilot. You don’t have to do that one, but it is, my son went through it, it’s very interesting. It’s a good skill for him to have. And the other one is learning to operate heavy machinery, but you get certified in it. And that could be, you could always fall back on that and do that for work. That pays pretty well. But those two things are pretty expensive courses.

Brett McKay:

Yeah. Okay. Well let’s talk about some of these specific cycles. This is a lot of fun. The first one that you talk about, I think this is the first one your son did is the medic. Let’s talk about the medic. What’s the anchor course of this cycle and then why did you even pick this? You set this out for your son. So

Matt Smith:

Basically the anchor course is just getting your EMT certification. So if you ever unfortunately are in an ambulance, you’ll be there with probably one paramedic in one EMT. EMT is like the base level, the reason that he started with it. And I think the reason why a lot of people should start with it or why we placed it. The first one is simply because it’s the most accessible. It requires wherever you are, wherever you live, somewhere around you, there is an EMT school not too far away that you can attend. And it’s very low cost. I mean some of ’em $1,200 sometimes maybe up to $2,000, depends upon exactly where you are in the country. But basically what it does, it qualifies you to work on it like an ambulance obviously. And that pays basically minimum wage, just not a great job, but it does give you some economic viability.

I mean it does qualify you for a job that you couldn’t have if you didn’t have it. But it also is an amazingly useful skill that actually can be parlayed into quite a bit more as Maxim did. Specifically Maxim because of his part of this is that weekly reflection and accountability we talked about earlier as part of it. So he published, he started publishing a substack just basically at first he was simply listing what he’d done that week. It was like a way to hold himself accountable, just they had to put it out there and no one reading it didn’t matter over time. There’s a few thousand people that have read it now, they’re just subscribed to it. So it’s a little harder for him, but I mean it’s a little harder in that he knows that there’s an audience. But through that someone reached out to him and said, Hey, you’ve got this working on an ambulances and a fund, you don’t want to do that.

I don’t know. It was wildfire fighting business basically where the contracts with the western states during the summers when they have these terrible fires and as an EMT. So he spent one of his cycles, a work cycle. He spent one summer last summer fighting fires in Oregon making $600 a day, no expenses, which for me when I was 18, I know money isn’t worth what it was was worth, but I think that was roughly my take home pay for a month in the army was $600. So through things like that, unique opportunities show up for you and there’s different ways to leverage it, but for him ultimately if there is a emergency trauma type situation, he’s qualified and skilled to be able to be the person who can step up and do something about it, to know how to handle the situation, to assess what’s going on and to take action. And that skill gives you walk into the world differently. You encounter the world differently when you know that if something like that happens, you will know what to do.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, it’s a big confidence booster. I think it’s really powerful. And after I read that section like man, I’m going to have my son, he needs to get EMT certified, I want to get MT certified after reading about it. And so along with the EMT certification, there’s an academic component and as you said, you try to keep the academics related to the anchor course. What kind of academic stuff was your son doing?

Matt Smith:

I mean this one, it’s like anatomy, biology and there’s some practical chemistry in there too actually, which is kind of fun. But yeah, it’s as much as possible related to it. And then there’s part of it that is just like in college there’s required and then there’s room for electives. We have this whole, in the back of the book, there’s basically they could choose, they could fill in electives with things that they’re just curious about. So there’s plenty of options beyond for the elective section, but in the required it’s anatomy, biology and practical chemistry.

Brett McKay:

Another cycle that really piqued my interest, I was like, I wish I could have done this. The builder walk us through the builder cycle.

Matt Smith:

There’s this awesome place in Maine called the Shelter Institute where over three weeks, if you do the three week version, there’s a two week version and a three week version. The three week version you design and build a home and you don’t build it to completion, but you actually just, you put up the timber frame structure in the third week, but the first two weeks are really the most important ones. They really, you go through the entire process of exactly understanding how do you handle plumbing and electrical and how do I choose the site and how do I begin to even start with this? So you learn to design a home. Now you don’t necessarily want to be a home builder, but you can’t understand the benefit of this. And they’re mostly the people that go to this are adults by the way. They’re not children that go, there are people like you and I are like, Hey, this would be cool to know.

But when you have this skill, you see the world differently. You encounter it differently. And also it could expose you to creative outlets that might draw you in deeper. But the whole point of all of this, and there are lots of the 16 we picked, we could have picked another 16 that I think would’ve been just as valuable. But the key thing is that they all build upon one another. Helping being, helping this person have a list of accomplishments that impresses them that is impressive to others and that makes them see the world from what they could do instead of what they can’t do because things are a mystery to them. They don’t understand how anything works. So I order food on Uber Eats, that’s how I eat. Milk comes from a carton, I don’t know. You want to expose them as much as possible to as many of these things as you can. And so their framework and understanding of how the world works and how they can effectively create and it becomes clear to them.

Brett McKay:

After I read about the builder and I learned about this school you could go to, I was like, I’m doing a two week vacation where I’m going to go to this thing. I think a lot of guys have that dream of I’m going to buy some property somewhere and I’m going to build myself a little a-frame cabin. I couldn’t do that. I had no clue what it would look awful and I wouldn’t even know where to start. So I’d love to have that skill. I also think it’s just a useful skill knowing how to build a house just as a homeowner.

So many times where I’ve had something broken into my house and he needs a repair and I bring a contractor and he’s explaining it to me and I’m like, is this guy ripping? Is this actually a problem? Maybe this isn’t a problem. And he’s just saying it is. But I don’t know

Matt Smith:

Exactly. This is the problem with specialization in a way. It’s allowed us to become a prosperous society like this specialization. It’s been good in that way, but on an individual basis, what it does to us is bad. It has a real negative effect where our basic understanding of how basic things around us function are totally outside of our awareness or understanding. And if you think back maybe our parents’ age and if not absolutely their parents’ age, they knew all of this stuff. I mean not necessarily all of these different things, but they basically understood the world around them way better than people do today.

Brett McKay:

The academic component, I imagine it’s a lot of architecture. Yeah, history. There’s some literature in there. That one too. Yeah. Yeah. Another one that intrigued me, the cowboy, again, I think this reminded me of Louis L’Amour. That’s why I liked it. What’s the cowboy cycle? 

Matt Smith:

Maybe it’s because I’m such a Louis Lamore fan too. There’s a lot of benefits. Well, there’s two parts to it actually. For this one, basically there’s this place called this cowboy academy you go to and they teach you all the basics of working with horses and on a ranch. And it’s a pretty short course. I believe it’s five days. That’s a pretty short one. And then there’s a longer one where you actually go on or you do horse and mule packing in Idaho. But learning to deal with these animals and to feel comfortable around them is really important. I think it teaches, it’s humbling in some ways. I mean if for an adult, even if you haven’t been around horses, that could absolutely destroy you if they wanted to and learn how to work them well and work cooperatively with them. And plus it’s so much fun and I think it taps into some of these things will absolutely tap into this wanderlust side of the hero’s journey, the rite of passage.

These things that I really think are totally missing from our culture today that we have to, if you’re a really involved parent, you try and construct these things if you can for them, but they’re limited in that they don’t get to experience it on their own fully. And through these cycles, they do some things that don’t make sense. There’s no rational reason to do it. There’s no obvious benefit you’re going to get out of it. It’s just a journey. And this is definitely one of those I think that comes out of that. I mean, handling a horse teaches patients and discipline, even leadership, believe it or not, it’s weird. I don’t know if you spend a lot of time around horses, but they’re beautiful, amazing. In that time we spent a lot of time focusing on the academics and the academic portion of this cycle. It’s a lot of US history, western history, western literature to give ’em cultural context, including of course the Sackett series.

We encourage them to start reading and get into that because I think virtues are present in the characters of the Old West and certainly in all of Louis L’Amour’s books. But also learning about Kit Carson, I mean his life, just things he accomplished in his life. So you read this biography of him as well during that cycle. And I think these do give these models for when you look at what’s possible, if you’re like a 17, 18 and 20-year-old, hell, if you’re even 50 years old, and you look at these examples of these people who totally break the Overton window of possibility of what you can do with your life, it helps motivate you, inspire you. And so there’s a lot of focus on that in this cycle. A lot of wanderlust in this cycle.

Brett McKay:

So another cycle, the fighter cycle. I think your son’s about to start this one, is that correct? Or is he doing it?

Matt Smith:

January he starts that. Yeah, he’s in the entrepreneurship cycle right now.

Brett McKay:

Okay. So tell us about the fighter cycle.

Matt Smith:

Alright, so fighter cycle, basically you go to Thailand and there’s several different schools, but we recommend one in particular. It’s got two locations where you basically enroll in Moy camp and it’s pretty intense. It’s pretty intense, but most of it’s just basic physical training, basic sparring. Of course, at the end of it, the hope to actually do a real bite. And it’s not required of course, but it’s the hope that they would do that I think is good. And that one fundamentally the truth is that we encourage the study of martial arts anyway. So the question is whether or not you make a cycle out of it because a lot of the activities we talk about could have honestly many of them could be turned into cycles that are worth it. So my son was doing BJJ, that’s Brazilian jiu jitsu, almost wherever he was.

There’s almost always a place he could go to do that. So we encourage it anyway, but we decided to make it part of his cycle because that hero’s journey arc — get away going somewhere totally different. Where the world functions in a totally different way, where everything is exotic to you gives you a better sense of the entire, I mean most Americans don’t really see how the rest of the world functions, so we want them to get out and see the world a bit. And this gives them a way to do that in an environment where they’re not just traveling for the sake of traveling, but they’re traveling with the sense of purpose and learning and where they’re going to walk away a different person, they will come out of that not being the same person

Brett McKay:

In the academic portion are you doing Asian Studies?

Matt Smith:

Yeah, pretty much. I mean a lot of, let’s say martial history, part of it too, philosophy of combat. We have the Book of Five Rings for instance, is one of the things they read during that. But yeah, it’s mostly oriented toward while they’re there to learn about the history of the brand.

Brett McKay:

I mean if you did just the cycles we’ve talked about, so the the cowboy, the builder and the fighter, if a young man did just that, he would be head and shoulders above his peers. One of the most interesting young men out there, he would have, as my son would say, aura. He’d have infinite aura if he did these things. And these are just four of the possible cycles. I mean there’s other ones like we’ve talked about. So your son’s doing an entrepreneurial one right now. He basically has to start a business in three months and make money.

Matt Smith:

Well, he doesn’t have to make money. He could fail. I mean I’m not an entrepreneur, I’ve started many businesses and some have succeeded, some have failed. But the things you learn along that process is quite good. And the cycle starts off very hands-on, very specific and structured. And then it gets more into the abstract things like entrepreneurship, investing, the things that I think are very important but don’t give you a sense of self in the same way that these hands-on hardcore recognized skills do. And the four we’ve gone through, basically imagine just if someone just took a gap year before college just did those four in the gap year, different person, they would be going into college. If they still chose to go that route, they’d go there knowing a sense of self and a sense of where they want to take their life.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, I mean so other ones you talk about, and we won’t talk about ’em in detail, but there’s like survivalist cycle where you go to a primitive living intensive school for two weeks. You mentioned the pilot cycle where you get your pilot’s license. There’s a sailor cycle where you’re going to learn how to, you’re going to go to South America and learn how to sail, which would be awesome.

Matt Smith:

My son did that basically around the Falin Islands and then through the Strait of Magellan. And he learned how he’s a certified crewman on a sailboat. And so that’s also an economically viable job actually.

Brett McKay:

For sure. Yeah, the welder cycle, that’s another economically viable job. And it comes in handy. I’ve got a friend who started a farm after selling his business and he had to learn how to weld. He had to go to trade school, learn how to weld. There’s a lot of welding you do as a farmer, surprisingly, the heavy equipment operator obviously. And I mean I think that your big takeaway, all these things you’re going to learn, these skills you’re going to develop that contributes to the do of character and then that leads to the being of character. So it just gives you this sense of self that you’ll carry with you for the rest of your life. But what’s after The Preparation, after your son finishes all these things, what do you going to happen? What do you think he’s going to do with himself? So he’s got this awesome resume. He’s a renaissance man. I think you can make the case that with this diversity of real experience, I can give you the confidence and the capacity to pursue a variety of paths more so than college. But I can imagine that there are people out there listening, dads who are listening that are thinking, okay, well now what

Matt Smith:

I think that’s again the wrong question. I mean I get the question, but when have we known for sure where anything we did was going to take us in reality? Maybe we had a general direction to move toward, but we never really knew exactly what is the question basically cancels out because of the uncertainty of it, it can cancel out the desire to strive to become because it seems impractical because you want to know the practical answer. The truth is I can’t imagine what he’s going to be doing after two more years. I really can’t. I mean the changes I as a father saw where he started with this kid who had a lot of anxiety, he was basically super like I’m an introvert. I trained my kids maybe to be introverts. I don’t know. My daughter’s not so much, but my son certainly reflects that he did.

He’s completely gotten over that. He would never feel comfortable going and interacting with a lot of people, but it’s no issue for him whatsoever. He’s totally got that under control. I dunno if he manages it or if it’s dissolved away. But he’s gone from being basically a boy into being already after two years, every qualification I would say of being a man except for the fact he’s not yet a father. Shouldn’t be a father yet. I want to be a father yet. But I mean that’s the last step where I would differentiate between a boy and a man and after two years he’s already there. The world is full of opportunity for him already. He says no to things, opportunities all the time. So I can’t imagine, I can really can’t imagine what he’ll be doing.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, I mentioned earlier, I think doing all this stuff increases your surface area of opportunities and I think your son’s a testament to that. I mean, he got that job offer to work wildfires, and I’m sure he’ll have other opportunities that pop up just exposing himself to different people in different situations.

Matt Smith:

And lemme explain one more thing I forgot to say earlier about how expensive this is, and I said he could finance your way through it. Now I saved for him. A lot of people might be thinking again, it’s not economically possible for me so I can’t do it. I grew up very poor. My son did not. Okay. But I saved an irresponsibly low amount of money in his Vanguard account. Not enough for that one year at a prestigious university, that’s for sure. And he started with that two years ago and he’s never asked me for money. Today he’s got a little bit more money than he did when he started after two years. So you can work your way through it. And that’s what he’s done along the way. I just don’t want people to be scared off by that because, and the fact that he can work his way through doing this, he is at a level of economic survivability already. It’s like somehow he’s making it work. Of course he’s sleeping with extra bedrooms of family or friends when he is in different places. He is really thrifty with his money. But it works. It works. It does produce somebody who is independent and not just financially independent, but independent and they make sound decisions.

Brett McKay:

I mentioned earlier as I was reading through this book, I was thinking, man, I want to do some of this stuff. Do you know any middle-aged men who are doing some of these cycles for themselves?

Matt Smith:

Well, the book just came out two and a half weeks ago. So the formal structure of these has not been out there. But I could definitely tell you a lot of these anchor courses are not done by kids. I mean, they’re done by adults. I mean on this sailing thing that Max did through the straight of Magellan, he was by far the youngest person there by far. Yeah, I would say it’s the same thing with the Shelter Institute. I mean, that is not young people that are doing that. So certainly these are all things that draw in people like our age to do and older. And most of the readers of the book so far, their parents, their parents like you and I who want to help make sure their kids are pointed in the right direction and they have the same response that you did, which is like, this is stuff I want to do.

And I have to tell you, to be honest, writing the book was a challenge to do and to construct it so that it tells people exactly what to do. It took a lot out of me to do it, but I mean, I was just looking for things that sounded like that I wanted to do. Also, things that I knew would inspire my son and other boys around the world. And it tends, I guess it’s true of men my age and older. I mean, we had a 71-year-old write to us the other day. He said, I’m starting, I’m going to start doing this. So, well, I don’t have any examples yet of them doing it, but I have a lot of, if you read the reviews on Amazon, you’ll see a lot of parents saying echoing the same thing they want to do.

Brett McKay:

Well, Matt, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

Matt Smith:

Well go to Amazon to buy the book and currently there’s an audio version coming out, but this is a very physical thing. So even the audio book comes with a PDF that you’ll need or do it because kind of like a workbook in many ways. And there’s a hardcover edition, which if you’re trying to persuade a teen that maybe is unlikely to, sounds like your boy would read a book. He said, this is good for you. And luckily my son is at that stage too. But if you have one who might be a little more reluctant or something like that, the hardcover is designed to be as beautiful as possible within Amazon’s limitations. So it’s full color. And when they hold it in their hands, just open the book a little bit. They’ll know that they’ve not held a book like that before, that there’s something different about it right away.

And I think that it’s designed to be lure for the young man to pay attention a little bit differently to it. So the hard cover is $99. It’s way more expensive than the paperback is just 29. But if you’re looking for good lure, I would definitely get the hard back that’s on Amazon. And then you can go to The Preparation.com, which is a substack that we set up about the book. But also as people go through it, young people start doing, we encourage them to again, put this reflection and accountability to publish it like my son did, and then kind of amplify and connect the people who are doing it. So that, and I have to talk about my son’s substack too, just so you see. It’s maxim smith.com, M-A-X-I-M smith.com because you can see the stuff that he’s done for the last two years. This kind of a proof of work.

Brett McKay:

This is awesome. Well, Matt Smith, thanks so much for your time. It’s been a pleasure.

Matt Smith:

Oh yeah. Thank you very much, Brett.

Brett McKay:

My guest today was Matt Smith. He’s the co-author of the book, The Preparation. It’s available on amazon.com. You can find more information about The Preparation@thepreparation.com. Also, check out our show notes at aom.is/ThePreparation where you can find links to resources. We can delve deeper into this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the AoM Podcast. Make sure to check out our website at artofmanliness.com where you find our podcast archives. And make sure to sign up for a new newsletters called Dying Breed. You can sign up at dyingbreed.net. It’s a great way to support the show directly. As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time, this is Brett McKay, reminding you to not only listen to the podcast, but put what you’ve heard into action.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

When you’re a busy dad, the first day of school can sneak up on you.

One day you’re taking your family on a road trip through the American West, and then — BAM!— it’s the night before the first day of school, and your kids are still going to bed at midnight and you and your wife just realized that all the kids have different school start times, and you haven’t coordinated rides yet.

Kate and I have been sending our kids off to their first day of school after summer vacation for over a decade now. We’ve learned some things along the way to make the transition from vacation mode to school mode a bit smoother. Maybe they’ll help you, too.

Have a Back-to-School Marriage Meeting Two Weeks Before School Starts

We’re big proponents of the weekly marriage meeting. A couple of weeks before school starts, Kate and I will have a longer marriage meeting that’s dedicated to getting us both on the same page for back to school.

In the “To-Dos” section of your marriage meeting, discuss the following:

• Drop-off and pick-up schedules
• Back-to-school forms that need filling out
• School supplies and clothes shopping
• New upcoming bedtimes
• Extracurricular activities that kids need to sign up for
• Calendar sync-up
  • Add all known school events: back-to-school night, parent-teacher conferences, etc.
  • Map out sports practices, music lessons, tutoring, and activity overlaps
• Homework routines for kids
• Any concerns about your kid and the school year ahead

After you discuss this stuff as a couple, have a family meeting where you sync up with your kids and make sure everyone is on the same page regarding schedules and expectations.

Get the School Sleep Schedule Back on Track

When it comes to shifting from a feral, let-it-all-hang-out summer sleep/wake schedule to a structured school-year sleep/wake schedule, there are two philosophies.

You either work to move your kids’ schedules back before school starts so by the time the first day rolls around, they’re on the school schedule, or you don’t do any adjusting and just rip the band-aid off when the alarm clock starts blaring on the first day of the semester.

There is merit to both approaches: one is gentler on the body and mind. The other maximizes the fun summer vibes.

I take something of a moderate tack, having my kids start to push their bedtimes back before school, but not going all the way to the school-year bedtime until school actually begins.

You probably know this already, but kids generally don’t do well with abrupt transitions. Neither do adults, really — we just have more socially acceptable ways to melt down.

So a week before school starts, we gradually move our kids’ bedtimes earlier by around 15 minutes a night until they’re about an hour off from their school-year bedtime. We let them go to bed at that later-than-usual time the night before school starts, since they’re not going to be able to fall asleep earlier. They’ll be a bit more tired on the first day, but that helps them fall asleep at their new school-year bedtime the next night.

Create a Get-Out-the-Door Checklist for Your Kids

One of the recurring friction points we experienced with our kids when they were younger was that they’d forget items they needed to bring to school: snack, water bottle, homework folder. That sort of thing. Because they were six, they’d sometimes have a meltdown in the car about this right when we were dropping them off.

To prevent those 8 AM crashouts from occurring, we wrote a morning checklist on our kitchen whiteboard that our kids had to go through before we got in the car:

• Eat breakfast
• Brush teeth
• Homework folder signed and in backpack
• Snack in backpack
• Water bottle

Meltdowns averted.

When your kids get older, nudge them to create their own morning routines.

Establish a Confidence-Inspiring Back-to-School Ritual

Kids can get a little nervous as they contemplate embarking on the uncertain adventure that is the year to come. So establish a ritual that helps them feel more grounded as they go back to school.

We like to talk to our kids about any concerns they have and what their goals are for the year. Then I say a father’s blessing (a prayer) over them. Create a ritual that works for your family.

There’s a lot going on during back-to-school season. With a bit of planning and gradual, proactive ramp-up efforts, you can create a smoother transition for everyone in the family.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

When my kids were little, I was an involved dad. I changed diapers, did middle-of-the-night feedings, and took the tykes to the doctor.

I wouldn’t say I was inherently drawn to doing these tasks. There wasn’t some paternal urge to nurture our kids when they were newborns and toddlers. I did it because I loved them and Kate, and I didn’t want Kate to carry the entire burden of childcare while also working full-time.

But as my kids have gotten older, into their pre-teen and teenage years, I’ve noticed something interesting happening. I suddenly have an intrinsic impulse to be more involved in my kids’ lives.

I have an instinctual urge to teach them how to do stuff in the adult world.

Here’s an example: A while back, as I was sitting on the couch reading, a thought occurred to me: “I need to help my kids open their own bank accounts.” So I took 14-year-old Gus and 11-year-old Scout to the nearby bank branch and had them talk to the teller about opening a checking account. In the process, I had to teach them about Social Security numbers and had them memorize theirs. I also taught them about debit cards and how to check their balances online.

It turns out that this shift I noticed in my fathering isn’t just anecdotal. In my podcast conversation with anthropologist Anna Machin, she noted that across cultures and throughout history, fathers have had a unique role in preparing their children for life outside the home.

Dad’s Outward Orientation

C.S. Lewis once observed that while a mother fiercely prioritizes the immediate interests of her own family, the father’s role is to consider the family’s connection to the broader community: “The relations of the family to the outer world — what might be called its foreign policy — must depend, in the last resort, upon the man . . . A woman is primarily fighting for her own children and husband against the rest of the world.”

Research backs up Lewis’ observation. Sociologists have consistently found that one of the things that separates moms and dads in how they parent is that dads typically have a more outward-facing orientation. While mothers tend to focus on the intimate, nurturing aspects of home life, fathers think more about their children’s place in the wider world.

Fathers are more likely to encourage risk-taking, independence, and exploration, while mothers are more apt to prioritize safety and caution. For example, fathers are likelier than mothers to push children to engage with strangers. They’re also more likely to nudge kids outside their comfort zones.

This is completely anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt, but I’ve noticed that when parents use those chest baby carriers, moms typically have their baby facing toward them, while dads often have the baby facing out. That’s how I did it with my kids. A father’s outward orientation shows up in a lot of places.

The outward focus also appears in how dads communicate with their children. Fathers tend to use more complex and varied language, often referring to events and ideas beyond the immediate home environment. This serves as what researchers call a “linguistic bridge” to society, expanding children’s vocabulary and worldly knowledge.

The Younger Years: Father-Child Roughhousing Prepares Kids for the Outside World

Research shows that fathers consistently engage in more physical play than mothers, and roughhousing has a positive impact on children’s development. One key benefit is that it helps kids learn emotional regulation, which is essential for successful social interactions. Through roughhousing, kids learn to read cues indicating when someone has had enough and how to calm down if play becomes too intense. Consequently, children who regularly engage in rough-and-tumble play with their dads tend to be more socially adept with their peers. They’ve learned the unwritten rules of getting along with others: taking turns, recognizing limits, and resolving small conflicts.

The Teenage Era: Dads Build the Scaffolding to Independence

As children grow into teenagers, Dad’s role as a bridge builder to the outside world becomes even more critical.

During adolescence, kids naturally seek greater autonomy and begin facing the challenges of adult life. At the same time, anthropologists like Machin have noted that dads often feel a growing impulse to play a bigger role in their children’s lives. During a child’s adolescent years, a father’s job is to teach their children the skills they’ll need to survive and thrive in the world beyond the bounds of the familial home.

The content of this teaching will vary, depending on the environment the dad is sending their kids out into.

In environments where physical survival is the primary concern — say, where hunger or violence are common threats — fathers focus on teaching their children how to hunt and how to defend themselves.

In societies where economic hardship is the main risk, fathers teach practical skills: how to tend livestock, negotiate prices, or build trade relationships.

In the modern West, where physical and economic survival is generally assured, fathers tend to focus on cultural and social survival — helping kids get into good schools, handle “life admin,” make the right connections, and navigate complex social hierarchies.

This explains the sudden urge I have to teach my pre-teen and teenage kids how to do stuff like open banking accounts. I want them to have the skills necessary to be a functional, independent adult in suburban America. My dad-instinct is kicking in, telling me, “You’ve only got a few years to get these kids ready to head out on their own. Get busy teaching them all the skills they’ll need so they don’t end up living in the driveway in a van!”

The Fatherly Art of Launching Kids

You’ve got the instinct to teach your kids to get ready for the outside world — follow it. But if you’re seeking concrete ways to help build the scaffolding that will support your kids’ transition from dependent childhood to independent adulthood, here are some suggestions:

• Bring them along on errands.
• Have them order their own food at restaurants.
• Let them see you confidently talking with strangers.
• Take them to work with you occasionally.
• Include them in conversations about what is going on at work.
• Have them ask store clerks questions.
• Give them pointers on driving as they prepare to get their driver’s license. 
• Let them help you with your weekend chores and expect them to complete age-appropriate chores of their own.
• Start paying them an allowance.
• Teach them basic maintenance for cars and bikes, like how to change flat tires on both.
• Teach them age-appropriate lessons about personal finance.
• Help them open a savings account at the bank, and encourage them to interact directly with the teller when they do so.
• Have them memorize their Social Security number.
• Have them be the one to call a business to ask a question they have.
• Take them to community activities you’re involved in, like church/community service projects.
• Show them how to file their own tax return when they get their first W-2 job.
• Explain how insurance works the next time you have to renew a policy.
• Have them schedule their own haircut appointments.
• Have them fill out their own applications for camps and sports.
• Get them our book Heading Out On Your Own — it covers lots of other life skills they’ll need in adulthood.

Fatherhood is about gradually launching the next generation into the world, equipped with the tools they need to thrive. This guiding role may be more crucial now than ever, given the complexities of our modern world. There’s a lot kids need to learn to manage in order to successfully live on their own.

Thankfully, nature has given dads the fatherly urge to teach their children how to do stuff. Lean into it, and help your kids become capable, confident, functioning adults.

For more insights into dads’ unique and essential role in childrearing, listen to this episode of the AoM podcast:

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

I’ve been doing this dad thing for almost 15 years now. During that time, I’ve read books and articles about how I can be a better parent.

One parenting framework I’ve found helpful in rearing my kiddos comes from a child development researcher named Diana Baumrind.

Back in the 1960s, Baumrind observed how parents and children interacted in their homes. During her studies, she noticed parents typically resorted to different parenting styles, which could be placed along two dimensions: responsiveness and demandingness.

According to Baumrind, varying mixtures of responsiveness and demandingness resulted in several different parenting-style typologies, each of which was associated with a corresponding outcome in child behavior and well-being.

In today’s article, we’ll unpack what these styles look like and which, according to Baumrind (and subsequent childhood researchers), is the best for kids.

The 4 Parenting Styles

First, some definitions of responsiveness and demandingness:

Responsiveness (based on the level of warmth/supportiveness). This is all about how emotionally responsive and attuned a parent is to their children. A parent high in responsiveness is nurturing, affectionate, and accepting. Low-responsive parents are cold, rejecting, and uninvolved.

Demandingness (based on the level of control/expectations). This is about the extent to which parents set rules and expectations and enforce discipline. High-demand parents set high expectations for their children and consistently enforce those expectations. Low-demanding parents place few expectations on their children and rarely enforce the few rules they establish.

These two dimensions can be visualized on an x/y axis, with responsiveness occupying the x-axis and demandingness forming the y-axis.

Let’s unpack each quadrant:

Authoritarian Parenting (Low Responsiveness/High Demand)

The authoritarian parent is low on responsiveness but high on demandingness. This is the “because-I-said-so” parent who expects immediate obedience without explanation. Rules are non-negotiable, consequences are often harsh, and warmth can be in short supply.

Let’s say a kid throws a tantrum because he doesn’t want to stop playing video games to do his homework.

An authoritarian parent’s response to this situation might sound like: “Stop being lazy and do your homework now! We are not going to discuss this! And if I catch you on your Switch before it’s done, you’ll lose it for a month.”

Kids raised with the authoritarian parenting style are more likely to be socially withdrawn, more likely to be anxious or depressed, and might have behavior issues when they hit adolescence. The authoritarian parenting style doesn’t help children develop an internal locus of control. They don’t learn how to govern themselves because they’ve always had a parent to tell them exactly what to do.

Permissive Parenting (High Responsiveness/Low Demand)

The permissive parent flips the script of the authoritarian parent. They’re high on responsiveness but low on demandingness. This parent is warm and nurturing but sets few rules or expectations for their kids. Rules are always negotiable. They avoid confrontation and often treat their child more like a friend than someone they’re responsible for guiding.

To the child who doesn’t want to stop playing video games to do his homework, the permissive parent would say something like, “You don’t feel like doing homework right now? That’s alright, sweetie. Maybe work on it later, okay?”

As might be expected, kids with permissive parents struggle with self-discipline and impulse control, are more likely to be self-centered, and can have a harder time following rules in school or other structured environments.

The children of permissive parents often get the message that their wants should always be accommodated, which doesn’t prepare them well for the real world, where limits and frustrations are inevitable. They tend to flounder in adolescence and young adulthood.

Neglectful Parenting (Low Responsiveness/Low Demand)

Baumrind initially didn’t include neglectful parenting in her typologies. It was added later by child development researcher Eleanor Maccoby.

The neglectful parent is low on both responsiveness and demandingness. This parent offers their kids neither guidance and structure nor emotional support and nurturing. In extreme cases, the neglectful parent may fail to even meet their children’s basic needs.

A neglectful parent doesn’t care if their kid plays video games or does homework. If their child is having a hard time in school, the parent doesn’t even bat an eye. They’re just completely zoned out when it comes to caring for their children.

Not surprisingly, kids raised with this style tend to fare worst of all. Research shows that children who grow up with neglectful parents often develop attachment issues, are at higher risk for behavioral problems, and are more likely to engage in delinquent behavior.

Authoritative Parenting (High Responsiveness/High Demand)

The authoritative parent is high on both responsiveness and demandingness. And according to Baumrind, it’s the parenting style that provides the most benefits to kids.

Authoritative parents blend warmth and firmness. They set clear expectations for their children but explain the reasoning behind them. They’ll consistently enforce the rules, but not rigidly. They’re also warm and responsive to their children’s needs while still expecting an age-appropriate level of maturity from them.

In the video game/homework scenario, the authoritative parent would neither give in and let the kid keep playing video games, nor offer a harsh, “Get off now because I said so!” edict. Instead, they would approach their child with something like, “You know the rules. No video games before homework is finished. If you finish your homework now, you can get back to your Fortnite match. If you need some help with your homework, I’m happy to help.”

Kids raised by authoritative parents tend to have the best outcomes. According to Baumrind and subsequent child development researchers, kids raised with authoritative parents have better emotional regulation, perform better academically, become more self-reliant, and have a higher sense of agency than kids reared with other parenting styles.

Parenting Styles Aren’t Boxes — They’re a Flexible Framework

Like a lot of advice based on psychological research, there’s a tendency to treat parenting styles as rigid categories — as if being the “best” parent means consistently maintaining authoritative mode at all times.

The reality is that parents naturally shift between different styles depending on the situation and their kids’ needs.

If your 5-year-old is about to bolt into traffic, a stern, authoritarian “STOP RIGHT NOW!” works better than a warm, reasoned, authoritative explanation about road safety.

Some kids thrive with more nurturing and fewer demands, while others need firmer boundaries. Even the same child needs different approaches through various developmental stages.

The best parents aren’t parenting-style purists. Instead, they’re the ones who can read their child in the moment and respond effectively, even if that means changing their typical parenting approach.

In my 15 years as a dad, I’ve used authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive parenting styles at different times (I don’t think I’ve ever been neglectful). I’ve had my days when I perfectly balance warmth with clear, firm expectations; I’ve also had days when stress and my kids’ petulance pushed me into authoritarian drill sergeant mode.

While I’m not a perfect dad, having the parenting style framework in the back of my mind as I interact with my kids has helped me aim for the authoritative ideal, while adjusting my approach to family life’s ever-changing dynamics.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

America is facing a “boy crisis.” The statistics are stark: Boys are far more likely than girls to fall behind in school, die by suicide, and end up in jail.

When experts offer solutions to the problems facing the male population, most push for a fundamental reimagining of masculinity — urging boys to reject the supposed stereotypes of manhood. 

A century ago, Progressive reformers faced their own “boy crisis.” Like today, they worried about juvenile delinquency, substance abuse, and poor educational outcomes.

But their solution couldn’t have been more different from our modern approach.

While today’s experts push to make boys less traditionally masculine, these early Progressive reformers believed in working with boys’ natural inclinations rather than against them. Their most surprising conclusion?

Boys need to join gangs.

The Gang Instinct

Progressive reformers of the early 1900s observed that unlike girls, who tended to form one-on-one relationships with their female friends, boys naturally socialized in groups. They ran in packs. They formed gangs. These boy gangs could be found on street corners and in parks, getting up to adventures, games, and all manner of hijinks.

Influenced by John Dewey’s Pragmatist philosophy (which was influenced by Darwinism), these reformers hypothesized that this tendency for boys to form gangs was an innate, evolutionary adaptation.

They called it the “gang instinct.”

In a 1911 article for Lippincott Monthly Magazine, educator Luther Gulick unpacked this idea:

Those possessed of these [gang] feelings would be better fitted to survive than those who were purely selfish, and so, gradually, the egoistic man would be eliminated from the race. The man who could sympathize with the gang feelings, whose life could be molded into conformity with the rest, would have a better opportunity to reproduce himself in the succeeding generation than the individual who was sufficient unto himself.

Through the steady elimination of the more egoistic, and the survival of the more altruistic, the children would inherit social capacity, and be more and more cooperative in their tendencies and actions.

The gang instinct, then, is of evolutionary origin. It expresses itself in the individual boy in those feelings of sympathy and desire for the companionship of others of his own kind, which were elementary factors in the survival of his forefathers. Those early fighters who had not the gang instinct were so effectually eliminated, and the qualities of those with the more social natures were so thoroughly stamped upon the human race through the action of selection, that now the normal boy demands associates of his own kind as naturally as the baby cries, or the bird builds its nest.

Other writers from that time echoed Gulick. In 1912, J. Adam Puffers published a book entitled The Boy and His Gang, where he argued that boys have a “deep seated unconscious need” to join a gang with other boys. According to Puffers, the gang drive in boys begins at around age nine and intensifies through adolescence and into young adulthood. For Puffers, belonging to a gang, or group of boys, was a vital step in the healthy social development of a boy, for it is in the gang that a boy learns the art of camaraderie:

In the gang, then, we find the natural time and place for the somewhat sudden birth and development of that spirit of loyalty which is the foundation of most of our social relations. We must, in short, look upon the gang as nature’s special training-school for the social virtues.

Only by associating himself with other boys can any youth learn the knack of getting on with his fellow men; acquire and practice cooperation, self-sacrifice, loyalty, fidelity, team play; and in general prepare himself to become the politician, the business man, the efficient citizen of a democracy.

Nature, we must believe, has given the boy the gang instinct for the sake of making easy for him the practice of the gang virtues.

The impulses to loyalty, fidelity, cooperation, self-sacrifice, justice, which are at the basis of gang psychology, are powerfully reinforced, as we have already seen, by nearly all the typical gang activities.

Puffers believed that boys who didn’t have the gang experience would end up socially stunted: “they fail to pass through the normal development of human males; they lack a fundamental virtue and their fellows will not trust them, boy or man.”

Gulick argued the same thing, positing that boys who didn’t have the gang experience while growing up may turn out to be “fine individuals, in the main” but often become “incapable of social action. The give and take involved in gang activity was beyond them. . . . The period seemed to have passed for the development of those fundamental traits which make the gang teamwork and cooperative endeavor possible.”

In 1915, Albert Hines wrote in the journal Work With Boys that gangs provided a way for a boy to engage in “muscular action [and] adventure” where he could gain the “approval of his fellows which he finds in his gang.”

For these thinkers and educators, a boy’s pack of friends was the arena in which young men developed the social virtues necessary to be good citizens as well as their sense of manhood. It was the arena in which their more annoying, socially-retarding tendencies were checked and their need to feel valued was affirmed. Through their participation in a gang, Progressive reformers believed, a boy was able to begin the process of proving himself a man, and gaining the confidence that came with it.

The Way of Men Is the Way of the Gang

Modern research has confirmed this century’s-old intuition. Anthropologist Lionel Tiger documented how men across cultures naturally form cooperative groups to achieve common goals, while Harvard psychologist Joyce Benenson’s research shows that boys tend toward socializing in groups while girls prefer dyadic relationships. Both argue this male “gang instinct” evolved because group cooperation helped our ancient male ancestors hunt and fight successfully.

Writer Jack Donovan summed up this research on the male gang instinct in his book The Way of Men when he asserted: “The way of men is the way of the gang.”

For Donovan, masculinity is fundamentally about being “a man among men” — the ability to succeed within male groups is how you figure out if you’re a man. Being a man isn’t an individual task, but one that is done within a small, honor-bound community. You can’t evaluate for yourself whether you’ve achieved the masculine virtues; it’s something that has to be assessed by one’s respected peers.

Donovan’s conclusion aligns with both modern research and the principles of early Progressive reformers: the gang is fundamental to male social development.

Most men intuitively understand what these thinkers were talking about. We remember our own “gangs” — whether it was a sports team, a church group, or just a crew of neighborhood friends. My own fondest teenage memories revolve around these groups: my football teammates pushing one another through brutal summer practices; my church youth group taking on ambitious service projects; my high school friends getting into occasional mischief.

As a grown man who has spent eight years leading church youth groups and coaching boys’ sports, I’ve gained a more birds-eye view of the gang instinct as well. On the flag football team I coached, I watched 12-year-olds transform from individual players into a tight-knit unit, developing their own culture and codes. At church, I’ve seen teenage boys turn scripture memorization into a team sport, their natural competitiveness driving them to achievements they probably wouldn’t have taken on alone. Through my son Gus, I get glimpses of how modern boys still form natural packs, complete with their own rituals, inside jokes, and occasional innocent rebellion against authority.

And I’ve also noticed, just as Puffers did back in 1912, that boys who don’t have the “gang” experience end up socially stunted. Often bright and capable in other ways, these boys never quite catch the gang spirit. Despite their peers’ best efforts to include them, they remain on the periphery, missing crucial opportunities to develop social skills and emotional intelligence. They never develop the capacity for teamwork and “true comradeship.” And they become grown men who often struggle to navigate male social dynamics, keep to themselves, find it difficult to form close bonds with other guys, lean on their wives as their only friends, and have trouble understanding the unwritten rules of group dynamics.

Harnessing the Gang Instinct for Good

I am in the gang business. I believe in the gang spirit. The gang spirit is noble. It is the social spirit, the spirit of one for all. The trouble with the gang spirit is that it is not utilized by the community. —Albert B. Hines, Work with Boys (1916)

The word “gang” has a negative connotation today and is associated with “toxic masculinity.” When we think of gangs, we almost exclusively think of the urban, inner-city variety, which are often the source of violence, crime, and disorder in a community.

The same 20th-century reformers who boosted the value of the gang spirit also recognized that gang life could potentially be destructive. Frederic Thrasher published a comprehensive study in 1927 that highlighted how gangs in Chicago often led young men into criminal behavior and social dysfunction.

However, these same reformers argued that the solution wasn’t to suppress the gang instinct, but rather to channel it in positive directions.

In 1933’s The Building of Boyhood, Frank Cheley argues:

Thus the true gang spirit, which in the past has been heralded as the greatest menace of boy life, can easily be turned into the largest factor for personal growth and development. Gangs need direction, not annihilation, wise guidance, not stupid opposition, a worthwhile stream of activity, not hands-off policy.

Lyman Beecher Stowe made a similar argument about harnessing gang energy for positive ends when he wrote: “The best thing to do with a boy is to put him in a ‘gang’ — and watch the gang. . . . with supervision, even the worst gangs can become helpful agencies.”

These leaders understood and respected the energy of the gang spirit in boys. It’s like electricity. Without a proper channel, it can be dangerous. But give it a conduit, and the power becomes life-giving.

How did these reformers suggest harnessing the gang spirit for good?

Team sports was one way.

Organizations like the Boy Scouts was another.

Some of these reformers were clergymen as well, so they thought churches could also provide an arena where healthy male gangs could form.

In The Building of Boyhood, Cheley urged fathers to encourage their sons and their friends to congregate in their homes and to lead the boys in a semi-structured program of arts, crafts, fitness, character development, and skill-building.

So what would positive gangs look like in the 21st century?

For the most part, I think they can look the same way as they did in 1920.

Team sports still provide opportunities for healthy boy gangs to form, which is why I think every boy should play one.

I don’t think large organizations like the Boy Scouts and the like work in the 21st century. Those organizations were products of their time and aren’t well suited for the ethos of today’s more fragmented society.

I think if parents and teachers want to more effectively reach boys and help nurture positive gangs, it will have to be a grassroots effort. There’s not going to be some large, Progressive-era organization that will save you. Those days are gone.

That’s why I think Cheley’s vision of father-led neighborhood groups is a good one. I’ve done this with my own son and his best friend. My son’s friend’s dad and I took our boys through a modified version of the Strenuous Life Challenge a few years ago with success.

I also think male teachers can play a role in fostering positive gangs. Over the years, I’ve gotten letters from men who are teachers and have used AoM’s content to create edifying school clubs for the young men they mentor.

Your Son Is a Natural Gangster

Your boy is a natural gangster, therefore encourage him to join a clean gang. — Edwin Puller

The modern push to remake boys into less masculine beings and, in some cases, break up boy gangs altogether has largely failed because it works against, rather than with, boys’ natural inclinations. Like the Progressive reformers understood, we need positive realism: boys will form gangs whether we like it or not. Our choice is whether these gangs form in the shadows of Discord servers and unsupervised spaces or in constructive environments with adult guidance.

The goal isn’t to eliminate the gang spirit but to channel it. When properly directed, the same energy that can lead to delinquency can be used to forge strong character, teach social skills, and build future leaders. Your son’s gangster nature isn’t a flaw to be fixed — it’s a force to be harnessed.

The challenge for parents, educators, and community leaders isn’t to make boys less boyish, but to create the positive gangs that modern boys critically need. Whether through sports teams or church groups, we need to give boys what they truly desire in their hearts: the chance to belong, to achieve, and to prove themselves among their peers.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

These days, you hear more and more about parents and adult children being estranged from each other. Some individuals have even decided to go “no contact” with their parents; they don’t want anything to do with their mom and/or dad at all.

To understand what’s behind this phenomenon, today I talk to Joshua Coleman, a psychologist who’s spent 40 years counseling families and the author of Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict. Joshua

goes beyond the typical one-sided narratives around parent-child estrangement that tell the story of parents who got what they deserved or overly entitled adult children who wrongly blame their parents, to unpack the larger cultural context for why these tensions have arisen. We discuss how society has moved from upholding a honor-thy-father-and-mother sense of obligation to prioritizing individuality and optionality, and why despite the fact that we’re more child-focused and psychologically aware than ever, familial estrangements are on the rise. We get into the common reasons for estrangement, the role that expanding ideas of what constitutes abuse and trauma and an adult child’s therapist can play in it, and how much parents can really be blamed for how their kids turn out. And we get into what parents who are estranged from their children can do to reconcile with them. Even if you’re not personally estranged from a family member, the discussion of the underlying dynamics influencing all our modern relationships is a fascinating one.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• AoM Podcast #788: The Dangers of “Concept Creep”
• AoM Podcast #873: The Myths of Trauma

Connect With Joshua Coleman

• Joshua’s website

Listen to the Podcast! (And don’t forget to leave us a review!)

Listen to the episode on a separate page.

Download this episode.

Subscribe to the podcast in the media player of your choice.

Read the Transcript

Brett McKay: Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of The Art of Manliness Podcast. These days, you hear more and more about parents and adult children being estranged from each other. Some individuals have even decided to go no contact with their parents. They don’t want anything to do with their mom and/or dad at all. To understand what’s behind this phenomenon today I talked to Joshua Coleman, a psychologist who spent 40 years counseling families, and the author of Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict.

Joshua goes beyond the typical one-sided narratives around parent-child estrangement that tell the story of parents you’ve got what they deserve, or overly entitled adult children who randomly we blame their parents, to impact the larger cultural context for why these tensions have arisen. We discuss how society is moved from upholding an honor thy father and mother sense of obligation to prioritizing individuality and optionality, and why despite the fact we’re more child-focused and psychologically aware than ever, familial estrangements are on the rise. We get into the common reasons for estrangement, the role that expanding ideas of what constant abuse and trauma and adult child’s therapist can play in it, and how much parents can really be blamed for how their kids turn out. And we get into what parents who are estranged from their children can do to reconcile with them. Even if you’re not personally estranged from a family member, the discussion of the underlying dynamics influencing all our modern relationships is a fascinating one. After the show’s over, check out our show notes at aom.is/estrangement.

Alright, Dr. Joshua Coleman, welcome to the show.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Thanks for having me.

Brett McKay: So, you are a psychologist who specializes in working with parents and adult children who have become estranged from each other, and you were in a book about that called the Rules of Estrangement. We’ll start with the definitions first. What is parent-child estrangement?

Dr. Joshua Coleman: People define it in different ways. The way that I think about it is when there’s been a complete or near complete cut-off between the two. So, there’s little to no contact, maybe there’s the occasional birthday greeting, or Mother’s or Father’s Day greeting, but otherwise there is essentially no relationship.

Brett McKay: Does estrangement have to be explicit, like does either the parent or the child have to say, “I’m done with you. I don’t want anything to do with you,” or can it just be like a silent distancing?

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Yeah. Sometimes it works that way. I’ve had a lot of parents in my practice where all of a sudden the adult child isn’t responding to phone, text, emails, now they’re cut off from social media, sometimes they move and don’t tell the parent. So. That’s probably not the majority of cases, but those cases certainly exist.

Brett McKay: They ghost their parents, is what they’re doing.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Exactly. They ghost the parent, that’s right.

Brett McKay: It seems like more and more adult children are becoming estranged from their parents. It seems like every other week I see an article about this somewhere or something on social media about it. Is this a new phenomenon or is the media just covering it more so we just hear about it more, ’cause you see it on the news or your Instagram feed?

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Yeah, I think the extent of it is new. I think we have to assume that there’s always been strained, distant, or even non-existent relationships between parents and adult children, but I don’t think it’s nearly the numbers that we’re seeing today. A recent study by Rin Reczek in Ohio state and her colleagues found that some 26% of fathers are estranged from an adult child. That same study found that 6% of mothers, but other studies show between 10% and 15% of mothers. I don’t think that those figures have always been the case. One of the problems from a research perspective is that we didn’t really… We don’t have a beginning, a start date to look at estranged with the way that we do other things, say, divorce, for example. But if we just use divorce, for example, as a start date, it’s clear that divorce is a really common pathway to estrangement. In my survey of 1,600 estranged parents that I conducted through the University of Wisconsin Survey Center, we found that 70% of parents who were estranged were divorced from the other biological parent and didn’t become estranged until after the divorce.

So we know that if we just use divorce as a starting point, I would assume that there weren’t nearly the numbers of estrangement that there were once we started making divorce a more common part of our culture. Similarly, if you look at non-marital childbirth in the 1960s, only 5% of children were born outside of marriage. Today, it’s more like 40%, and those families are very high risk for estrangement, particularly for fathers. So just using those as data points, I think those are significant. But then you add on to it this identitarian moment that we’re at currently, where one’s identity has become much more in the foreground, where the moral framework that kind of animated families for millennia, honor thy mother and thy father, respect thy elders, families forever, really in the past century has given way to this much more personal growth, self-esteem, pursuit of happiness framework, where relationships are much more constituted on what the British sociologist, Anthony Giddens, calls “pure relationships”, meaning that the relationships that are purely constituted on the basis of whether or not the relationship is in line with my ideals for happiness and growth and the like.

And if they’re not, then not only can I cut out a parent or family member, I should do it. In some ways, it’s an act of existential cowardice not to do that. And I think that that’s historically new. Social media is absolutely an amplifier. Rising rates of individualism is an amplifier. So there’s a lot of things that I believe are fanning the flames to this.

Brett McKay: Yeah. The sections in the book where you kind of explore what’s driving the increase in estrangement, that was really interesting because you basically bring to the foreground things that have been happening in the background and how it’s affecting families. And so that shift that you talk about from the framework of honor thy father and thy mother, sort of the idea of filial duty, that doesn’t really exist anymore. It seems like the relationship between parents and children is something different.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Right. And particularly in Western societies. I think that that is probably not nearly as much the case in, say, South and East Asian countries, and large, probably the majority of areas in the Middle East. Soo I think that it’s mostly a western phenomenon. I don’t know if you’ve read Joseph Hinrich’s excellent book, The WEIRDest People in the World, where we’re is an acronym for a western, educated, industrialized, rich democracies. And one of the things that he found is that in those societies, people are just much more oriented towards their own happiness and identity and personal expression, and much less oriented towards relationships, and that’s just not the case in large parts of the world. So we don’t have good statistics about estrangement rates in other countries, but in my interviews with people in other countries, I find that it’s far less common.

Brett McKay: And it seems like to the expectation of the parent-child relationship, it’s more like a romantic or a friendship relationship where it’s a voluntary thing. Each party has to work for it and it has to fit for both parties.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Right. And it’s exactly right, that it’s kind of predicated on the same principles as Giddens pure relationship, that if it’s not in line with my ideals for happiness and personal growth and mental health, then not only can I jettison that relationship, but I should do it, and to not do it as an act of self-neglect.

Brett McKay: And one of the points you make throughout the book is that it used to be the children had to earn their parents love and respect, but now it’s the opposite, the parent’s job is to earn their children’s love and respect, and they have to continue to do that throughout their children’s adult lives.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: That’s right. Well, nothing compels an adult child to have a relationship with that parent beyond that adult child’s desire to have that relationship. So if the moral framework has shifted around families away from the parents are sort of owed a certain degree of gratitude and obligation and responsibility and respect, and it’s much more predicated on whether or not the relationship is in line with the adult child’s ideals and standards, that really disempowers the parent in terms of their ability to negotiate the relationship and greatly empowers the adult child. And this is partly a function of smaller family sizes, the role of therapy, that we used to think the difficulties in life would actually make children stronger, but over the 20th century, we began to develop the idea that children are fragile, that they’re vulnerable, that they require a kind of hothouse parenting in order to thrive and succeed.

And in the era of personal rights in the 1960s, children’s rights became very much in the foreground. So the era of children being seen and not heard gave way to children really being the center of family life. And today, I mean, I’m a boomer, and so when I was growing up, my stay-at-home mother spent less time with me than career mothers spend with their children today. So children had moved much more into the front and center of a family life, and that’s really increased their authority to sort of dictate the terms both when they’re young, living in the home, but also when they’re grown.

Brett McKay: Yeah, that’s one of the paradoxes you point out in the book, is that we’re more child-focused and we’re also more psychologically aware than ever, like, everyone’s read the books on how to talk to your kid written by psychologists, they talk to their kids in a very therapeutic way, yet estrangement seem to be rising.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Yeah. I think it’s similar as to the kind of high stable divorce rates, that we’re still at around 50% divorce rates. And on the one hand, the good news about parental-child relationships is that if you look at some of the large surveys, probably the majority of parents raising adult children or having relationships with adult children would say that they feel closer to them than they believe their parents felt to them at a similar age. So in many ways, this much more intensive, psychologically aware, conscientious form of parenting, I think has, in many ways, really increased the quality of relationships between parents and adult children. In the same way, that moral egalitarian psychologically intensive marriages and communication have made for better marriages. But both sides, both marriage and parent-adult child relationships, are based upon this much more kind of unstable quality which is that if it doesn’t feel good, you can leave, and not only can you leave, but you should leave. So it’s really the culture of both kinds of relationships that are based on, framed much less around the more moral old school ideals around family and much more around this identitarian personal happiness, personal growth, personal expression orientation.

Brett McKay: So it sounds like there’s plus and minuses to the shift.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: There are indeed, yeah. And it isn’t my position that nobody should or can never estranged themselves from a parent or any other destructive family member. I think in the same way that the legalization of divorce laws allowed people, women in particular, to be able to leave abusive marriages, I think that our cultural shift that’s more supportive of estrangement has allowed adult children who maybe in other cultures or at other times would have felt obligated to stay in contact with parents who are really destructive to their self-esteem or happiness, they’re allowed to separate from them. That’s the upside. And the downside is that it’s so easy to do it that in the same way that making divorce so easy to obtain means that a lot of people who probably could have and did in fact work their way through difficult issues when they were married, when they really couldn’t get a divorce or couldn’t easily get a divorce, they figured it out, similarly with adult children, to cut off parents that with more time and patience and effort, they might be able to work something through with a parent that they now can easily discard.

Brett McKay: Yeah, I think a big source of contention between parents and children is that parents and children, particularly older parents, like we are boomers, they’re both in two different worlds, like moral worlds, when it comes to parent-child relationships. Like the older parent might think, “Well, no, it’s old school, you honor thy father and thy mother, and you just gotta come see me even if you don’t want to, because that’s what you’re supposed to do.” And then the kid’s like, “No, that’s not how it is,” and then the parent gets upset, and that’s the source of tension.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: No, that’s exactly right. And so much of my work is helping… ‘Cause it’s typically the parent that reaches out to me, ’cause it’s typically the parent is the one who’s been estranged. Parents don’t typically estranged their children, some do for religious reasons, or they disapprove of their child’s gender identity or sexuality or who they married, but that’s the vast minority. Typically, if an estrangement happens, it’s because the adult child has initiated it. And a lot of my work is helping parents kind of navigate the way that guilt no longer works, that ship has sailed, the way that you can sort of guilt trip your child into contact or making them…

Reminding them of all the things that you’ve done for them. And the other part and parcel of that, I know you had Nick Haslam on your show and he wrote, you know, I think, one of the most important articles to explain this moment or the notion of concept creep. And that is the idea of that in the past three decades… Well, he wrote the article, I think in 2016, but there’s been this enormous expansion over what we consider to be harmful, abusive, traumatizing, neglectful behavior. So younger generations have been kind of steeped in this framework, and whether it’s with their own therapist, or self-help, or podcasts, or Instagram influencers, TikTok influencers, ideas about who’s a borderline parent, who’s a narcissist, who’s a gaslighter, etcetera, why you should cut off your parent, the value in doing that…

Whereas older generations, Gen X and boomers, for example, were raised with a much more conservative view of what constitutes harmful, abusive, traumatizing, neglectful behavior. So what often happens is that younger generations are coming to their parents after as a result of being in therapy or some other influence and saying, “Well, you emotionally abused me,” or, “You neglected me,” or, “This was emotional incest,” or any of the other terms that are so popular. And parent’s response is often like, “What are you talking about? That wasn’t abuse, I would have killed to have a childhood like yours. That wasn’t abusive.” And then of course, as you can imagine, then they’re off to the races, then the adult child feels really misunderstood, they feel like they’ve got evidence based on their culture of information, whereas the parent feels completely disrespected and hurt and misunderstood based on their ideals of what good parenting looks like. So a lot of my work is often helping parents to see how much the ground has changed and really learning how to use the language that their children are using, so it’s not so incomprehensible to them.

Brett McKay: As I was reading through that section about the shift between duty-bound to more intentional relationships between parents and children, it forced me to reflect like, what kind of relationship I wanna have with my kids. And I think I’m sort of like the new school, like, I don’t feel like my kids owe me anything, they didn’t ask to be born. Even though I’ve invested a lot of time and energy and money into them, they’ve given me meaning, and joy, and purpose, so it seems like neither of us owe each other anything, we both… Maybe both owe each other equally. And when I think about my kids getting older, and leaving the house, I want them to come back because they want to, and not just out of obligation. ‘Cause I just feel like it wouldn’t feel good if it was begrudging and they were just visiting me because they felt like they had to.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Well, you might not feel that way if that was the only way you could ever see a child or grandchildren again.

Brett McKay: Yeah.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: I mean, the people in my practice, the parents and grandparents in my practice are miserable. I did a retreat for estranged parents last year. There was 15 people in the room, and one of the mothers was talking about feeling suicidal, and I said, “By show of hands, if anybody else felt suicidal as a result of their estrangement,” and every single person raised their hands. Now, those were mostly mothers, I think dads tend to be better at compartmentalizing, but the amount of misery that these parents and grandparents are feeling, to me, I don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world for people to show up out of a sense of duty or obligation.

I mean, obviously, we’d all rather our children spend time with us because they love us or wanna spend time with us or they think that we’re so great, but I think if I have the choice between seeing my kids multiple times a year and they were kind of… I mean, assuming that they weren’t just miserable, acting miserably towards me while I was here, but if I felt like the only way I could get them to come would be out of some sense of duty and obligation, but they could have a reasonable time, they weren’t assholes about it, you know, [0:17:19.7] ____ then I would take that deal because it would be better than the absolute of [0:17:24.0] ____ of never seeing them again, which is the fate that’s facing so many parents and grandparents today. So I actually do think that adult children owe their parents something. They wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the parent, neither would they have children if there’s grandchildren involved.

Now, does that mean that they have to accept abusive behavior. No. Does that mean they have to be as available to the parent as that parent wants them to be, or that the parent can just communicate as crappily as they want to and be difficult or demanding or whatever? Absolutely not. The parent still has to do their part, they have to show up in this 21st century way. They still have to be somewhat conscientious about how they impact of their child, they have to be open to getting feedback about the way that their parenting may have impact on their child. So I think both sides owe, at the very least, they owe each other due diligence. So an adult child owes the parent the opportunity to work through their issues and to give them the time to do that, to do family therapy, to give them a pathway towards doing that, to see that the parent really did do the best they could raising their child as a result of their own genetics or socio-economic class, or their uncharted traumas or experiences, or who they were married to, and then a certain degree of compassion should be brought to bear from both sides. At the same time, parents have to do a lot of work towards taking responsibility and showing empathy towards their children for how they impacted them. They can’t just say, “Hey, I did the best that I could. Too bad.” The parents still has to really be self-reflective and take responsibility, and meet this moment where they do have to be much more psychological.

Brett McKay: In your work, what are the most common issues that cause parent child estrangement?

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Sure. I mean, if you look at the adult child’s perspective, what they will say is, emotional abuse is probably the biggest complaint, values, differences, sometimes physical abuse. And that is certainly one pathway. And I do see that in my practice, but it isn’t the only pathway. Other pathways are divorce, as I mentioned earlier. That’s probably the single most common pathway to estrangement, particularly for fathers. Divorce can cause one parent to alienate the other parent with a child. It may bring in new people that the child has to compete with for emotional or material resources. It could cause the child to not like the new half siblings or step siblings. In a highly individualistic culture like ours, it could cause the child, young or old to see the parents more as individuals with their own strengths and weaknesses unless there’s a family unit that they’re a part of, that’s huge.

When the adult child marries, that can be a trigger point. If the person that the adult child marries doesn’t like the parent or parents and says, “Choose them or me, you can’t have both.” That’s oddly not that uncommon. Mental illness on the part of the parent or addictive issues on the part of the parent, certainly, but also mental illness or addictive issues on the part of the adult child. Therapy, bad therapy or therapists who assume that every symptom that an adult child has comes from bad parenting and they support or encourage an estrangement. And finally, because parents have been investing much more in the past four decades or so, in particular, some adult children don’t know any other way to feel separate from the parent than to cut them off. In some ways, they’ve gotten too much of a good thing.

So, I mean, since I’m a boomer, I mean parents in my parents’ generation probably erred more on the side of being sort of neglectful in a certain way, dads in particular. But parents of my generation and every generation since, I think, if they erred on either side, it was towards being more intrusive, more enmeshed with their children. People have given up on their social, you know, my mother used to play Mahjong with the girls every week, and my dad was at the Y playing squash all weekend or golfing, and none of them worried about us feeling neglected. And that has largely changed, where children have really become front and center and people have given up on time with other people or other interests.

And again, it’s largely a net, again, but it also means that some kids just get too much of the parent, particularly in the age of cell phone use, where there’s kind of no escape. I think a certain percentage of estranges would never happen if the kid could just have had the experience that so many of us had where we move away and maybe we write our a parents two weeks later, maybe we call them collect once in a while. Whereas for my generation of parents and every generation since, you could just reach your child from any point in the world. And I think that can just be somewhat intrusive for some kids.

Brett McKay: Yeah. This kid feels suffocated, and in order to create some boundaries, they’re just like, I gotta cut you off completely.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Yeah, exactly. That’s true. I mean, boundaries is the single most common word I see in every letter from an estranged child. “You need to respect my boundaries.”

Brett McKay: Yeah. Going back to that idea of abuse, you say abuse, whether it’s physical abuse or emotional abuse, that’s a legitimate reason to cut off your parents. But as you mentioned with Nick Haslam’s work, what constitutes abuse has changed, like, it’s expanded. So, things maybe 30 years ago wouldn’t have been considered abuse, now it’s considered abuse and a reason for cutoff.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Yeah. Abuse and trauma. I mean, trauma I think is grossly misused and misunderstood. I mean, the research on trauma by people like, George Bonanno at Columbia or Joel Paris at University of Toronto shows that traumatic experience doesn’t necessarily have the lifelong implications and deformation that we’re sort of made to feel like it has. Not to make light of it, but 25% of people may have lifelong issues as a result of traumatic experiences, but 75% won’t. And I think our culture does a poor job distinguishing between distress and trauma or conflict and abuse. And I think all of those get kind of blended together, which on the one hand I wouldn’t care, except that so many young adults are sort of using that as a reason to estrange the parent saying, “Well, you traumatized me when I was young, and therefore I don’t owe you a relationship.”

And so, the good news again about that is that it sort of provides people with a way to talk about painful experiences and have a social legitimacy in talking about them, that they might not have had in other generations. But the bad news is that yes, it has been so grossly expanded that things that shouldn’t really fall under that rubric get called that. And then with the wrong therapist or the wrong set of information, that person is on the way to cutting off a parent who was very good. I mean, the sociologist Eva Illouz says that today our lives are plotted backwards. What’s a dysfunctional family? It’s a family where your needs weren’t met. How do you know that your needs weren’t met? By looking at your present condition. And I like that quote because so many young adults are coming into therapy or into adulthood and thinking, “Well, I’ve got depression or anxiety or other serious psychological issues. I need to sort of reverse engineer this and look at my childhood and figure out where the traumas were, so I can understand that.”

And a certain percentage of them likely weren’t traumatized, but another percentage aren’t gonna be. I mean, if we look at the research just on cohort effects, the research of Jean Twenge or Jonathan Haidt, who showed that just the fact that you’re a Gen Z, that you’re born between 1995 and 2012 roughly, means you’re at far greater risk for depression, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, anxiety. And it’s not ’cause parents have suddenly become worse parents that are traumatizing their kids left and right. It’s because of the cohort, it’s because of what’s happening generationally with cell phones and social media and the like. So, I think that parents are wrongly, aggressively blamed in our culture. I think my field does a lot of harm in that regard and sort of assuming that every adult psychopathology has a problematic, traumatizing parent at its helm.

Brett McKay: We’re gonna take a quick break for a word from our sponsors. And now back to the show.

Yeah. That idea that you try to make sense of your life backwards. So if your life is messed up and you kind of, “Okay, I’m gonna go to the past and like figure out what happened. Well, it was the way I was parented.”

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Right.

Brett McKay: I’ve seen this instance in families where one kid, adult kid’s like, “Well, my life is terrible and it’s because the way our parents raised us as kids.”

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Right.

Brett McKay: Then they have a sibling who was raised by the same parents largely the same way, and their life is great. And they feel like, “Well, I thought the way our parents raised us was awesome.” [laughter] So, there’s a lot of subjectivity in how people remember their childhood or how they attribute their state in life now to their parents.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Yeah. Absolutely. And also what their experience was. I mean, one of my things I say to parents is you have to have embraced the separate reality’s nature of family life, that you could credibly feel like you did a good job raising your child and your child could credibly feel like they wish you had done something different. I mean, even if people are growing up in the same family, they may have very, very different experiences based on birth order, who temperamentally they’re more alike between the parents, what was going on in the home at the age that it happened to them.

So, constitutionally, somebody’s born with an incredibly sensitive temperament, they’re gonna experience parental irritability or maybe lack of availability, even if it’s within normal limits as far more influential and problematic than say a kid who’s born with a much more robust temperament. So, kids who are growing up in the same home may have very different experiences of the parents more based on the kind of temperaments that they’re born with, than the parents being so different in how they respond.

Brett McKay: Yeah. I mean that could, I can see that that, so temperament’s kind of like personality, right?

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Right.

Brett McKay: I mean, I could see the case where a kid’s personality, sort of inborn temperament, kind of rubs the parent the wrong way and like the parent tries to do their best to work with it. But you know, some kids are just annoying, but people don’t wanna say that. And so [laughter], you know the…

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Right. It’s true.

Brett McKay: Yeah. And so the parent, you know, the kid’s annoying and then the parent responds kind of like, “Ah, Jesus, this kid’s annoying.” And then the kid picks up on that. It’s like, “Oh, my dad thinks I’m annoying,” and then becomes estranged as an adult.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Well, right. And that, it is true. And we look at what researchers called the child to parent effects. It’s like what kind of behaviors induce what from parents? So, we know that, say for example, if a kid has ADD, attention deficit disorder, they’re just harder to parent because they’re harder to organize, they’re more distractible. It’s harder just to keep them on track. So, they may be just much more irritating to raise from the parent’s perspective. And the parent may express more of that irritability and the child may later in life say, “Well, you were always so critical of me growing up.” And the child realistically may not really even be aware of the challenges that they brought temperamentally into the situation. And then they feel that the parent really failed them because they didn’t really provide them with the sort of more ideal kind of parenting that they feel like they needed, wanted or deserved. And then, if a parent responds with, “Well, it’s ’cause you were so difficult then they’re just greenlit to the…

Brett McKay: Oh yeah.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Towards the path of estrangement. And that’s sort of, is another important aspect of this is that if you grow up and you have severe mental problems, that let’s say that they’re not parentally induced, it’s still tempting for people to blame the parent because it’s such a powerful way of directing the shame away from the self. I mean, it’s a powerful story, right? It’s a very appealing way to feel like, “I could have been different than where I’m at now,” if you’re feeling like you’re not very happy with where you are now. It sort of allows you to preserve a sense of oneself is ideal or, you know, of limitless potential if you were given the right set of circumstances.

So, it’s a way of saying, “Well, if you had parented me differently, my life would be so much better.” And clearly sometimes that’s the case, but it’s not always the case. And that’s also another point of concern for parents who believe and objectively seem like they did a really good job and their child still turned out to have significant psychological issues, either because of genetic vulnerabilities, or socioeconomic class, or random bad luck. I mean, there’s so many different influences of adult outcome that have very little to do with parenting that we as a society, again, are way too focused on parents and not on all these other influences.

Brett McKay: You mentioned therapists can play a role in estrangement. Tell me about that.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Well, I think in over attributing causality to childhood experiences and assuming that… That’s what worries me about Gen Z, we’re having all these psychological issues getting into therapy, is that if a therapist isn’t more sophisticated about all the various pathways to adult psycho… To depression, anxiety, et cetera, then if there kind of a one note symphony of everything is due to parental childhood traumas and family dysfunction, then that really just increases the likelihood of an estrangement because then they might say, “Well, you feel triggered when you’re around your parent and this is why, because of these experiences maybe be it’d better for you not to be around them, ’cause we don’t want you to be triggered by them.” And so I just think that too many therapists today are too quick to blame parents, and partly, ’cause of what we were saying earlier, that it can feel sort of empowering to the person who otherwise is gonna blame themselves.

If a therapist says, “Well it’s not your fault, it’s your your parents’ fault that you have these issues,” that can be kind of relieving. And I wouldn’t mind if it didn’t end up cutting off parents who, in many cases, are quite workable and wanna do the right thing, and in many ways were very, very dedicated. So, no, I think therapists and many people in my field are doing an enormous disservice to younger adult, or to adults in general to the extent that they’re blaming parents for these issues. It’s not to say that that never occurs. Of course, there are traumatizing parents, absolutely. But not at the levels that they get blamed to be.

Brett McKay: Yeah. And something else you talk about is when an adult child goes to a therapist and maybe they start carping about their parent, like the therapist only hears the kid’s side of the story. They typically, they don’t have the parent’s. So like sometimes a not good therapist, a bad therapist will start diagnosing the not present parents. “Whoa, it sounds like your parent’s a narcissist and you need to stay away from them.” Like, you can’t diagnose someone you haven’t talked to. And so that’s not good.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Right. Well, you shouldn’t, and and not only that, but diagnosis also provides a kind of moral framework to reject people. It’s sort of like, well, I mean, I’ve seen letters from adult children where they say, “Well, my therapist said that my mother’s a narcissist, and therefore family therapy wouldn’t work.” And that we have become kind of the new high priest that tell people who to be close to, who not to be close to, who’s problematic. We really have replaced religious leaders in our culture in terms of this sort of moral position we put in ourselves, into in terms of who it’s okay to be close to, and what should be considered even abusive behaviors, boundary crossing, what’s gaslighting, all of that. We have too much authority in our society to make these kind of determinations.

And most therapists won’t interview the parent and they shouldn’t be giving a diagnosis if they haven’t actually met the parent. I mean, somebody might sound like a narcissist, but the way somebody presents in therapy and what they tell the therapist isn’t necessarily going to be completely accurate. Which is why when I’m working with a parent, I will always see if I can talk to the adult child, ’cause I wanna get their perspective. I’ll ask for correspondence from the parent and the adult child. Sometimes parents will say, “Well, my kid’s impossible, and they’re a narcissist.” And I’ll see the correspondence and I’ll think, actually your kid is really trying very hard here, and your responses to them are really problematic. So families are systems. If you’re only just looking at one part of it, you’re really not in that good of a position to know… I mean, at least when it comes to something so consequential as cutting off a family member. I mean, we can have opinions, but if you’re wading into something as consequential and serious as encouraging an estrangement, you better know what the hell you’re advising because you have an incredibly sad, lonely, broken parent or grandparent on the other end that has to also be factored into your analysis.

Brett McKay: Are women or men more likely to cut off a parent?

Dr. Joshua Coleman: There aren’t huge differences, but in general, men are. That probably has to do with the sociological concept of kin keeping, that women tend to be more mindful of family relationships and be more motivated to keep track of them, and the like. So statistically, it’s somewhat more likely that a son would than a daughter would, but the numbers aren’t huge.

Brett McKay: Something else you talk about that can contribute to men becoming estranged from their parents more than women are ideas around manhood itself. Can you talk to us about that?

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Yeah. I particularly see this in, if a daughter-in-law doesn’t like the parents, then the son can take the position of it’s what I call performative masculinity. So, I work with a lot of families where the son was close to the parents prior to getting married, then the son marries somebody who’s somewhat troubled and basically says, “Choose them or me.” And the son engages by confronting the parents and saying, “You can’t talk to my wife that way,” or, “This is my family now,” or, “I need to protect my family,” or, “They’re my new priority. You are not.” So, it does all become kind of entangled with this idea of masculinity, which can make the dynamic that much more tricky to unravel.

Brett McKay: Yeah. And also you just see the sort of the cultural change of the relationship between particularly, sons and moms. So, you talk about this, if you go back to civil war times, you’d see these letters from civil war soldiers talking about, “My mom’s my best gal, and I love you so much.” Almost like love letters.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Right.

Brett McKay: And then a shift happened where it was like, “No, if you do that, you’re a mollycoddle. You’re a mama’s boy. So you gotta put some distance between you and mom.” And so now men were like, “Well, I don’t want to be too close to my parents because then that’s kind of, or particularly to my mother, ’cause that’s kind of weird.”

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Right. It’s considered to be like, being a mama’s boy is a real epithet. It’s not considered an act of strength and value. It’s considered like if you’re really close to your mother, then somehow that makes you weak. Like, you’re hiding behind her aprons or something. And you’re right, historically that wasn’t always the case, that the idea that you’re close to your mother or wanna be close to her was considered sort of a strength in earlier periods. So, it really wasn’t until kind of the early 20th century and there became more of a concern about masculinity and, that, so that all began to change with Roosevelt’s Rough Riders and the likes.

Brett McKay: Yeah. And then so yeah, a wife can use that if she doesn’t like her mother-in-law or father-in-law, she can use that as kind of like a screw to turn and be like, “You need to stay away from them,” and the husband’s like, “No, I don’t want to, I wanna have a relationship with my mom,” it’s like, “Well, you’re just a mama’s boy.”

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Yeah. I think it’s very easy to humiliate and shame men around their masculinity. So I think if a wife was motivated to get her husband to either confront his parents or stop talking to them she says, “Well, you’re a mama’s boy,” or, “You’re weak,” or, “We’re your new family now and you need to prioritize us,” or, “I don’t like how your parents talk to me. You need to stand up to them more. How come you’re not standing up to them more?” for many men, that would be a very hard message to resist. I mean, some could, but many couldn’t.

Brett McKay: When you work with parents and adult children who are estranged, who gets hit hardest? Like, I mean, is it harder on the child or the parent?

Dr. Joshua Coleman: I think it’s harder on the parent. I mean, for the adult child, there may be enormous upsides to the estrangement. They can feel like they’re pushing back against authority figures or destructive figures. They’re protecting themselves from more abuse. They’re standing up for themselves. They’re protecting their mental health. So it’s all can be tied to a very powerful narrative of individuation and separation and self-protection and mental health, personal growth, et cetera. So there’s enormous upside for the adult child. For the parent, there’s no upside. It’s all pain, sadness, loss, guilt, anger, regret. So that also influences who’s going to be doing the outreach. I mean, sometimes parents will say to me, “Well, how come… They can reach out to me?” And I’m like, “Well, are they reaching out to you? I mean, yeah, they can reach out to you, but it looks like if anybody’s gonna make a move in anybody’s direction, it’s gonna have to be you because your child wouldn’t be estranged unless they felt like it was had some value to them.”

Brett McKay: Yeah. This is the dynamic in any troubled relationship. It’s the person who doesn’t wanna be in the relationship, they actually, they have the power.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: That’s true. Absolutely. So the person who really wants it more has to be willing to take the initiative. And that’s typically the parent.

Brett McKay: How does it affect grandchildren?

Dr. Joshua Coleman: I think it’s terrible for grandchildren. I mean, particularly for those who are… A lot of the cases that I work with, a grandparent who’s very involved, even by the now estranged adult child’s own reckoning, they were decent grandparents, and that they’re really a casualty of the parent, adult child relationship. I mean, certainly some grandparents get cut off because the adult child doesn’t like how they grandparent. But I don’t think it’s the majority. It certainly isn’t the majority of the cases that I’ve worked with, and I’ve worked with a ton of these cases, typically they’re a casualty. And the way that the adult child often explains it is by saying, “Well, if it’s not good for me and my mental health and it’s not good for my children,” and that’s just not right. I mean, obviously if contact with your parent is so disabling to you that, you know, you absolutely can’t parent, then probably means you need to be spending more time in therapy if they still have that kind of an influence on you.

But you should be able to have conflict with your parent and keep your child’s grandparents in their lives if they’re good grandparents. ‘Cause a lot of parents will say to me, “I could maybe tolerate the estrangement from my child, what I find so intolerable emotionally is not being able to have time with my grandchild who I was so close to. What could they possibly be thinking? Do they think that I abandoned them?” And the grandparent-grandchild relationship is a very unique relationship that offers enormous benefits to both generations. There’s enormous value to grandchildren to having a good close living relationship with their grandparents. And there’s incredible value to grandparents. So this idea that if it’s not good for me, it’s not good for my kids, it sort of reminds me what some people when I used to do a lot of couples therapy would say, “Well, if I’m not happy in my marriage, then my children aren’t happy.” And it depends on how you’re expressing your unhappiness. A lot of people are able to contain their unhappiness in a certain way where it doesn’t have a deleterious effect on their children. Their children much rather they stay together than get divorced. So I think in our culture, we really overemphasize the importance of our own happiness in terms of the way that it radiates and out and affects other people in the family, children in particular.

Brett McKay: You advise the parents who wanna reconcile with their adult child to write an amends letter. What is that?

Dr. Joshua Coleman: An amends letter is getting on the same page as the adult child. It’s putting aside all defensiveness and criticism and blame and obligation and duty and guilt, and really trying to come at it from the perspective that the adult child is doing something that they feel is really important for them to do and has a lot of meaning to them. And so I always tell parents to start the letter with, “I know you wouldn’t have cut off contact unless you felt like it was the healthiest thing for you to do.” Now, from the parents’ perspective, they don’t necessarily feel like it’s the healthiest thing for them to do, but if their adult child wouldn’t be doing it unless they did. So saying that is kind of a way of saying, “Look, I am desirous of entering into your world, having a much deeper understanding.”

If there are things that the parents are aware of that really were problematic about their parenting, they should say it in a very straightforward way. “Yes, I could see how that was really hurtful to you, or I could see how that was traumatizing to you, and I’m really sorry, and I’m willing to work on that in my own therapy or therapy together. You know, or I could see why that might make it feel unsafe to spend time with me or triggering to you or distant, or why you might be mad at me.” I mean, it’s just a really deep dive of empathy into the child’s experience because nothing is gonna happen unless the parent is able to do that. And if they don’t know and parents don’t always know, then they should say something like, “It’s clear that I have significant blind spots as a parent or person, that I don’t have a better understanding, or that I didn’t know that that felt emotionally abusive or hurtful or traumatizing to you. But it’s something that I would like to learn more about and deepen my understanding and learn how to do better in the future.”

Brett McKay: That could be a hard pill to swallow.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Oh, it’s a very hard pill to swallow.

Brett McKay: Yeah. As I was reading that, that you have to like write, “I know that you wouldn’t have come off contact unless it was the healthiest thing for you to do.” I’m like, I don’t know if I could ever like sincerely say that, especially if I saw my kid was just doing something destructive with their life.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Well, yeah, you’re saying that “unless you felt like it was the healthiest thing for you to do,” I mean, normally an apology shouldn’t have “you felt like”, ’cause that sounds like an avoidance, but you’re, again, you’re just sort of trying to get into the child’s state of mind and outside of yours. No, these letters are not easy for parents to write, but they’re also kind of therapeutic for parents to write because we all make mistakes as parents. So being able to… Maybe we don’t feel like we deserve an estrangement as a result of it but we all make mistakes. So being able to kind of get it out on paper and expose yourself to it and come to some degree of acceptance over that, I mean, not only is it, I think, the best tool towards a potential reconciliation, but I think it’s also good for the parents’ mental health as well. You know, they talk about the step of make a fearless and searching moral inventory of your character flaw. So I think that can be really useful for parents as well.

Brett McKay: Okay. So it’s just you, it’s all about empathy. It’s just trying to show that, like, “I want to understand where you’re coming from,” and this may require you to put yourself in therapy speak. You might not be comfortable with that, but you have to see, okay, I understand where you’re coming from, with this. I mean, can you say I disagree? Like, “I don’t see it that way,” and still display empathy.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: I wouldn’t do that in an amends letter. Maybe if you’re into therapy and you’re like in the 10th session or something, there’s a place to do that. But really the advice is predicated on this principle that we were talking about earlier, about the way that family life has changed and it’s a way to telegraph to the adult child, “Look, I’m willing to navigate our relationship and negotiate it from the, this much more 21st century principle that relationships are based on the principles of mental health and personal growth and happiness. And that’s why the parent has to frame it in that kind of language. That’s the way they have to say, “You wouldn’t do this unless you felt like it was the healthiest thing for you to do.” That word is really kind of intentionally coded not in a manipulative way, but just kind of like that’s the basis that the relationship is based upon.

So yeah, it’s all about showing empathy because empathy is the one thing that’s gonna invite the adult child, first of all, to feel cared about, like, the parent’s really grappling with something. Most adult children know that these letters aren’t easy to write and they respect it. Now, that’s not to say that they always work, ’cause there’s really nothing I can say to any parent that I can say, “Oh, you know what, if you just do this, it’s your child’s definitely coming back to you.” There’s a lot of reasons why an adult child might not come back or might not be ready to come back anyway. They may be too negatively influenced by who they’re married to. Their therapist may be telling them it’s a bad idea. They may be too brainwashed by the other parent after divorce. They may still be too hurt or mad at you for things that did happen in the past and they’re just not ready yet to accept an apology. They may need to feel separate from you and aren’t really ready to move off of that position. So there’s… The tools that I recommend are based on a probabilistic model. Probably if you do this, there’s a better chance of a reconciliation than not. But there’s almost nothing in human behavior that we can ever say with certainty, “Yeah, you know what, just do this and your kid will come back into your door tomorrow.”

Brett McKay: Yeah. And again, the amends letter isn’t gonna be the thing that solves it. This is just like the opening bid to a conversation that might take, could take years.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: It could. If it’s well received, it shouldn’t take years because if the parent is sincere in the desire to learn more and to take responsibility and understand why their behavior impacted their child in the way that they did, then both people are able to communicate honestly and openly about it, then it shouldn’t take years. But to your earlier point, that doesn’t mean that the parent necessarily is gonna be able to disagree with the child’s perceptions or say, “Well, think about it, from my perspective, at least not early on.” First of the adult child really needs to feel, seen, heard, cared about and understood. Otherwise, the parent’s voice is just gonna be too big. If they say, “Well, I don’t see it that way,” or, “You’re wrong about that,” or, “That never happened,” that’s just going to shut the door down. And the goal is to open the door and keep it open long enough for some kind of fresh air to go between the rooms.

Brett McKay: And a reminder, going back to what we said if you’re a parent who has an estranged adult child and you know, you feel the words getting stuck in your throat as you try to be like, “I understand… ” ’cause you don’t believe it, you have to re… Just going back to the idea like if you want a relationship with your kids, like it’s up to you to make the first step. Like the kid, it’s probably fine. They got their own family. There’s more upside for them for not having a relationship with you. So they’re in control. So you gotta kind of be the one to make the opening bid.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Right. It’s about humility, not humiliation. I mean, these letters can feel humiliating to the parent, but you know, from my perspective, you’re just taking the high road as a parent. We are the parent. It is true what you were saying earlier, our children didn’t ask to be born. And so it is incumbent on us to take the high road and take responsibility. And if we don’t really understand, to try to work hard to understand. It doesn’t mean you have to agree that you were a terrible, selfish, awful person. It’s more that you’re trying to more deeply understand why your child has the belief or perceptions or memories about you that they do and not get into the right or wrong of it. It’s like couples communication. You know, if you get into the right and wrong of it with your spouse or romantic partner, you’re probably not gonna get very far. But if you seek to understand what they’re saying and show empathy and take responsibility for the kernel, if not the bushel, of truth and their complaints or perceptions, then you’re in a much better position.

Brett McKay: When should a parent or a child give up trying to mend the relationship?

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Well, for parents, what I typically tell parents is, assuming your child is an adult, that they should write one really good amends letter and then maybe do a follow up six to eight weeks later and just see if the adult child got the letter and had reactions. If they get nothing back, then I typically tell parents not to do anything for maybe a year or so because sometimes adult children just really need the time and the space to come back to the parent. And once you’ve written an amends letter, you’re sort of showing and announcing that you’re open to changing and to being more empathic and to seeing it from their perspective. But you should stop right away if any of the following are happening. One is you’re getting the police called on you, or every you’re getting letters or gifts sent back, returned to sender, restraining orders.

And if any of those things happen, you should just stop right now because it means that things are just way too inflamed to try. And then you can try again in a year maybe, to just give your child, your adult child that. For the adult child, I think that adult children should do a certain period of due diligence where they carefully tell their parent what their complaints are. If you come to your parent and say, “Well, I’ve learned in therapy that you’re a narcissist or you’re a borderline,” you’re not gonna get anywhere that way. If your goal is really to have your parent understand you’re better off talking about what you did like or value about them as parents or people, it’s kind of the compliment sandwich. You know, you wanna start out with something [laughter] to just soften the blow because for all parents hearing the ways that they failed their children is really deeply humiliating and scary.

And so if you can say, “I’m telling you this because I wanna have a closer relationship with you, but I need the following to happen and here’s what I need to have happen. If you’d like to do family therapy with me, I would welcome that. Or these are the things I’d like you to work on in your therapy. I hope you’re willing to do that.” And then don’t assume that you’re gonna have one conversation about it. I mean, it may take a while ’cause it’s a big ask, but it’s typically worthwhile for both people if these things can be worked through rather than just ended.

Brett McKay: I’ve seen instances where parents are estranged from their adult child and they they really want that relationship with their kid, but then the kid uses the estrangement kind of as a bludgeon over the parent’s head, where they kind of use it as a weapon almost. And the parent will just keep taking it. They just, they want to have some version of their kid in their life, even if it is just being told that you’re an awful parent and I hate you. They feel like they can’t give up on their kid. So I imagine too, like the parent who’s wanting to reconcile, they have to take care of themselves as well through this process. Yeah.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Right. Yeah. I know it’s true that, I mean, particularly if a kid is mentally ill, then they’re much more likely to be disrespectful and abusive to the parent, and parents whose kids are mentally ill, if they’re not in contact, that’s torturous for the parent because they’re worried about them. Not only do they have the estrangement, but they’re worried about where they are, whether they’re suicidal or whether they’re on the street or living in a car, or whether they’ll ever hear from them again. But if they’re in contact but abusive, that’s tormenting as well because they want the contact, but they have to sort of drink from this poison well in order to have the contact. It isn’t my position that anybody should tolerate somebody being disrespectful to them. So I think that parents can certainly try to set limits on the adult child’s abusive or disrespectful behavior, but it’s typically if somebody is more troubled, it’s a matter of love and limits. Love because it really ultimately isn’t their fault that they have the mental illness, or whatever it is that’s causing them to behave that way, but limits because some people, children or parents can be really destructive in how they interact with the other, and that has to be dealt with.

Brett McKay: Last question. Parental estrangement is part of a larger trend of just cutting people off in your life, toxic people, you gotta cut out the toxic people from your life. But is there a downside to leaning too much into this approach to relationships? I mean, are there benefits to learning how to deal with difficult people in your life?

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Well, there’s enormous benefit to it. You know, in cognitive behavior therapy, what we teach is that you wanna be sort of go toward the things that cause you stress and anxiety. And what I often see in the letters from adult children is, “Well I’ve worked hard to get to where I am today psychologically, and if I see you or talk to you, that’s gonna undo my years of how hard I’ve worked on myself.” You know? And my feeling is like, well, it really shouldn’t, you should be able to, if you’ve worked on these issues for years, you should be able to at least start to engage your parent. I mean, obviously if they’re completely unrepentant and they’re abusive and they yell at you and they shame you and humiliate you every time you see them, then, you know, I get it. I couldn’t ethically support an adult child continuing to get into the ring with a parent who’s just gonna bloody them psychologically every time they’re together.

But I don’t think that those constitute the majority of these kinds of dynamics. So I think there’s enormous value. I mean, there’s no other path towards getting more resilient than to sort of face ourselves with the people who are difficult in our lives. And typically the people in our families may be the most difficult because there’s just this whole reservoir of memories of hurt and disappointment and conflict. But I, it sort of goes back to our earlier question of what do we owe each other as generations? And I think that there is real value in just being engaged with people that you have this history with, and working on things and working to improve them, or then learning if they can improve, learning how to tolerate the parts of them that are more difficult. And also taking responsibility for your own, the ways that you may be difficult, whether you’re the parent or the adult child and learning from that.

Brett McKay: Well, Joshua, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Sure. They can go to my website, www.drjoshuacoleman.com. I do webinars every Tuesday night for estranged parents and a free Q&A every other Monday at 11:30 AM Pacific. And they can get my book there as well on the website o, r you know, at bookstores and etcetera.

Brett McKay: Fantastic. Joshua Coleman, thanks for your time. It’s been a pleasure.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: Yeah, thank you. It was.

Brett McKay: My guest here is Joshua Coleman. He’s the author of the book Rules of Estrangement. It’s available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find more information about his work at his website, drjoshuacoleman.com. Also, check out our show notes at aom.is/estrangement where you’ll find links to resources and we delve deeper into this topic.

Well, that wraps up another edition of the AoM podcast. Make sure you check out our website at artofmanliness.com, where you’ll find our podcast archives. And while you’re there, sign up for our newsletter. We got a daily option and a weekly option. They’re both free. It’s the best way to stay on top of what’s going on at AoM. And if you’ve done this already, I’d appreciate it if you take one minute to give to give a review of the podcast on Spotify. It helps out a lot. If you’ve done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think would get something out of it. As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time, it’s Brett McKay reminding you to not only listen to the AoM podcast, but put what you’ve heard into action.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Note: The following is an excerpt from The Building of Boyhood: A Manual for Parents, published in 1933.

“Some Reasons Why Some Men Are Successful Fathers”

By Frank H. Cheley

They Believe that being a father is the greatest privilege given any man, and so take their fatherhood seriously.

They Believe that all boys are mostly good, but realize they often get bad handling — especially by fathers.

They Are Convinced that it is worth while to study boy-behavior, as well as the stock market, the baseball score, or the trend of politics. They have become convinced that they need such study in their business of being fathers.

In Addition to Providing their families well with the creature comforts, they give them generously of themselves also — often at great personal inconvenience and cost of time and money, but always counting such cost as among their very best investments.

They Strive Always to Make the Right Thing pleasurable and the wrong thing costly, and thereby teach their boys that character is not only desirable, but that it also pays.

They Have Conceived the Idea that, in addition to being comrades with their boys, they must also serve as instructors, interpreters, and guides — even when they find it a life-sized job.

They Never Try to Bluff their boys — they know it is useless, for as boys themselves they were always shrewd detectors of all hypocrisy, and despised it.

They Recognize that even boys have rights and that they should be respected by elders. For this consideration, the boys are always most grateful.

The Realize Fully That No One, no matter how good his intentions, can satisfactorily interpret the Fatherhood of God to boys as a good father, or make plain to them the real message of their Elder Brother, the Man of Galilee, and so set their best selves to the challenging task of religious education.

They Always Try to see the funny side of every situation, and know that their sense of humor saves many a needless tragedy — for the boy himself — and for his mother.

They Graciously Recognize, nevertheless, the fact that Mother can accomplish certain things with the boys that they cannot — so consistently refuse to unload their own rightful responsibilities onto her.

They Have a Clear Conception of what they are trying to accomplish with the boys, by way of training, so that every day’s activity is used to good advantage as definite construction material.

They Believe That Directed Fun is the most effective antidote for evil thoughts and temptations, so help the boys to keep everlastingly busy and happy at something all the time.

They Are Wise Enough to Know That a Few Tools and a place to work are more of a home attraction than temporary rewards, and more desirable than going to the circus or the movies.

They Are Profoundly Impressed with their duty to the boys as well as their responsibility to society, and, as good citizens, try to earnestly discharge both obligations.

They Abhor Weakness in any form whatsoever and refuse to excuse it. “Victory is to the strong,” is their slogan, whether referring to mental, physical, spiritual, or social life and activity.

They Count It Their Sacred Privilege to give the boys, step by step, the intimate information that they need. Best of all, they themselves practice physical fitness and have no patience with a double standard of morals for anyone.

They Recognize, too, the fact that a boy’s books are his “Silent Comrades,” and so take as much pains in seeing that they are as carefully chosen as are their new clothes, that they fit as well, wear as well, and make the boys as self-respecting.

They Are Real Sports, these fathers, and play the old “Game of Life” for all that is in them, but always according to the rules that every boy understands as “being square.”

They Believe in Team Games as an educator in sportsmanship and social living, and insist that the bleachers are rarely the place for real boys, but rather “Every Boy in the Game” is their watchword.

They Are Friendly With Everybody, rich and poor alike. All the boys and dogs in the neighborhood know them and like to hang around them. Boys often want them for “umps” and to be “IT,” because they have confidence in them and enjoy them.

Their Instructions are always of the positive sort — and backed up by personal demonstration too. They despise “Don’ts,” while “nagging” is strictly against their principles. “Let’s do ‘so and so’” is magic medicine.

They Are Invariably Interested in Dogs and chickens and stamps and stars and electricity. They believe that a boy without a hobby is likely to be no boy at all, and that the making of collections is one of the chief joys of being a boy.

They Believe It Is Worth While to know how to build a campfire, and to cook an appetizing meal over the glowing embers, but when it comes to roasting corn or making flapjacks they endeavor to be “real prize winners.”

They Believe in Boy Gangs and, instead of forbidding their sons the privilege of such experience, they keep themselves worthy to be elected honorary members of the bunch, rewarded with the “password,” the “secret grip,” and even the “whistle.”

They Believe That Cleanliness is next to godliness, and practice it consistently themselves — inside and out, to their mutual benefit.

They Abhor Cheap and Vulgar Things, but keenly appreciate harmony wherever they find it; in tone, in movement, line, or color, and in so far as possible, surround their boys with the best of such influences.

They Study to be Good Listeners and are always given to generous appreciation of real merit in whatever realm it presents itself, whether it be in batting up flies, making good examination grades, the winning of a debate, or the exhibition of real character.

They Maintain a Live Acquaintance with “birds and bugs and things,” and love nothing better than to introduce their boys to such simple secrets of Old Dame Nature as they themselves know, and, through such an acquaintance, lead them on to a finer, larger appreciation of God.

They Constantly Remind Themselves that their sons came, honestly enough, by certain “peculiar traits of character,” which they occasionally exhibit, and endeavor to crowd these traits out by strong cultivation of the more desirable ones, rather than the usual process of “repression.”

They Are Convinced That Vital Character is as contagious as the measles, and never lose an opportunity to “expose” the boys, or themselves, to it.

They Do Not Blame the Boys for falling in love with the girls. They did it themselves once, and are convinced that comradeship with the right sort of girls, under reasonable supervision, is the greatest tonic in the world to right living.

They Do Not Compel Respect of their boys, but rather strive to be eminently worthy of it. Consequently, it never occurs to such boys to even think of their father as “the old man,” or “the old gent,” or “the governor.”

They Believe that boys must actually both earn and spend money in order to learn practical thrift; so take pains to provide them with ample opportunity for both, not forgetting to have them give, too, in keeping with their means.

Their Supply of Stories Is Endless. They seek them like precious jewels, with discrimination, of course; but keep them forever their own by often giving them away to their boy friends.

They Understand Perfectly that a broken will is a greater misfortune than a crippled body to a boy, and that directed will is the greatest of all boy possessions, making possible the only real success, so guide instead of drive.

They Believe That the Practice of brutal thrashing belongs to the savage past; that reason and self-control, if started early and followed consistently, are much more efficacious in producing quality boyhood.

They Believe that it is a far greater thing for a boy to make a life than to make a living, and that what a boy is, is after all his only just claim to greatness — and train accordingly.

They Would Rather Be Known any time as a successful father than as a successful business or professional man, because to be so known is to be measured by much the larger “measuring stick.”

These Are but a Few of the Reasons why many boys, grown tall and straight and true, declare that they wish to be men “just like their dear old dads.”

Is Not That Better by Far than having a whole column in “Who’s Who in America,” a cigar named after you, or even a statue erected to your memory in the City Park?

Such Men Are Real Fathers, true to themselves, true to their son, true to their country and their God.

Are You Such a Man?

The Boys Know!

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

One of my favorite pictures — me, Rick, and Gus fishing in Vermont.

When your kid marries, you not only gain another family member, you gain a new role: father-in-law.

It’s not a role that gets much celebration or attention. If we culturally mention in-laws at all, it tends to be in terms of unwanted meddling.

But a father-in-law can play a positive, supportive role in the life of his son- or daughter-in-law, which enriches their connected families.

I’ve had a great example of this in my own father-in-law, Kate’s dad, Rick Surwilo.

Here are some things I’ve picked up from him in the twenty years we’ve had a father-in-law/son-in-law relationship that I hope to carry forward when I become a FIL someday.

Be an Ally, Not an Adversary

When I asked a friend who recently became a father-in-law what he thinks makes for a good one, the first thing he told me was, “Drop that ‘you’re taking my kid away, and I’m polishing my shotgun sh*t. It’s dumb. D-U-M-B. Dumb. You should see this person as an ally.”

While the trope my friend mentioned is typically focused on the dads of daughters, it’s also applicable to the fathers of boys. Instead of seeing your child’s spouse as a rival or threat, consider them an ally in nurturing your family’s growth and legacy. This perspective shift can dramatically improve your relationship with your child’s husband or wife and contribute to a healthy family dynamic.

I felt nothing but welcome in Kate’s family. I never felt like I was an outsider or intruder. I still remember when I asked Rick for Kate’s hand in marriage; he didn’t make me feel like I was some dubious dude trying to steal his dear daughter away by giving me the third degree. Instead, he warmly made me feel like I was becoming a part of his family.

Offer Wisdom (When Solicited)

What’s nice about getting married is that you gain an additional set of parents from which to get counsel. Even though your child and their spouse are all grown up, they’ll still face times when they’re unsure of what to do and are in need of some guidance. You likely possess knowledge on various aspects of life – from financial management to household maintenance to raising kids — that your son- or daughter-in-law may sometimes want to draw upon.

The key to sharing this wisdom is to only do so when asked. Don’t offer unsolicited advice! Your kid and their spouse have to live their own lives.

And when your advice is asked for, be judicious with it. Don’t tell your child and their spouse that they have to do things a certain way. Just offer your insights and then let them make their own decisions. The goal is to be helpful, not overbearing.

Respect Boundaries

Relatedly, while a good father-in-law is involved with his adult child’s family in a healthy way, he also respects their boundaries and autonomy. Don’t be too enmeshed in their lives. You’ve got to let your kid go and let them live their own life. Allow the couple to establish their own traditions and household dynamics without interfering. I’ve appreciated the way Rick has been supportive of our family without ever being intrusive.

Forge Your Own Bond With Your Child-In-Law

One often overlooked aspect of being a father-in-law is the opportunity to build a unique relationship with your daughter-in-law and especially your son-in-law. Your connection with them doesn’t have to be exclusively mediated through your child. Take initiative in fostering an independent relationship. Suggest activities you can do together – trying out a new restaurant, attending a sporting event, or sharing a hobby.

Over the years, Rick and I have gone to sporting events and restaurants where it’s just me, him, and my brother-in-law. I enjoy chatting with him even when Kate’s not around. We’ve developed our own friendship.

Lend a Helping Hand

One thing I appreciate about Rick is how he’s willing to help me with DIY home maintenance stuff around the house. The guy is super handy! Whenever I’ve had an issue with my home, I go to Rick first since he usually knows how to fix it or who I need to call to fix it. He’s fixed blinds, done paint jobs, and even helped me organize my garage.

Rick picked up the tradition of helping his sons-in-law with home maintenance from his own father-in-law, Kate’s grandfather, George Novak. George would help Rick with jobs around the house when he was newly married. He appreciated it and wanted to do the same for his sons-in-law. He not only enjoys helping out, he likes that it keeps him spry.

I’ve learned a lot from Rick and really appreciate the help. Now I just need to get handier around the house so I can do the same for my future children-in-law. I sometimes wonder if Rick-level handiness will die out with my generation; I hope not.

Be Involved With Your Grandchildren’s Lives

If and when grandchildren enter the picture, be the best darned grandpa you can be.

Rick and my mother-in-law, Sandy, have been deeply engaged in their grandchildren’s lives since the time they entered the world. We actually live in the same neighborhood as them, and Gus and Scout go over their house every day after school to have a snack and watch Jeopardy. Gus will sometimes walk over on a Saturday to watch a football game with Rick, and they’ve built birdhouses and model airplanes together. Sandy and Rick come to our kids’ sports games and have even taken Gus and Scout on trips with them. And while grandmothers are often more at the interactive forefront with their grandkids, while grandfathers reticently retreat to the background, Rick is just as likely to get in the mix and spearhead the fun. It’s been really touching to see how over the moon he is about our kids.

Because of dispositional differences, not every father-in-law is going to desire to have the same level of interactions with his grandkids, but strive to be as involved as you’re comfortable with.

Instead of thinking that becoming a father-in-law means you’re losing a child, think of it as gaining a new family member. That stance towards the relationship and some of the actionable advice above will help you smoothly step into what can be a richly rewarding role.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.