All right, chat. Today we're going to

talk about postpartum depression and

postpartum parenting. So, if you have a

partner who's just had a kid, what

should you do to support them in the

best way? Now, if you're a dad out

there, I think this is tricky because

we're often times blamed as dads and men

and all men are trash and all that good

stuff which we see on social media for

not being supportive enough. But I think

there are a couple of important things

to remember. The first is that most of

what we learn how to do, we learn from

our parents. And let's say 40, 50 years

ago, dads were not nearly as active as

they need to be today and as

expectations are high today. So

oftentimes men are blamed for not

providing something that no one ever

taught them how to do. And that's what

we're going to try to correct here

today. So in the United States, there's

a pretty controversial trial that's

going on right now. A woman named

Lindsay Clansancy is on trial for murder

after killing her three children. And

her defense, which there's ample

evidence for, is that she had severe

postpartum depression that turned into

postpartum psychosis. And psychosis is

when you have like a break from reality.

And during her psychotic period, she

actually killed her three children and

then jumped out of a window on some high

story and is now paralyzed from the

sternum down. And so I think like, you

know, we have this legal defense of

like, yeah, I'm not responsible because

I'm insane. And I think postpartum

psychosis is like one of those diagnosis

that that defense is kind of for because

we know then in psychosis you literally

have a break from reality. You think

that you know you've been possessed by

the devil and you really believe that

and you act accordingly. And this has

created a lot of problems on the

internet. People are breaking up over

it. Like women are supporting Lindsey

Clansancy. A lot of men are like really

confused by this. I think a lot of

people don't understand what psychosis

really is and they sort of think about

it as like depression or anxiety where

you're still tethered to reality. The

really scary thing about this is also

that she was in psychiatric treatment.

So she was declining and getting worse.

She saw I think seven health care

providers, was hospitalized at some

point, was prescribed 13 medications. So

she was trying to get help. People were

trying to help her and this still

happened. And that's kind of why I'm

making this video today because I think

the postpartum period is like really

hard to manage. And part of the reason

it's hard to manage is because if you're

a dude, you were never taught how to

take care of your wife in the postpartum

period because there's a really good

chance that your dad was not super

active in the postpartum period or maybe

you were a little baby so you didn't

really observe it. And so it's like

really hard to know what to do as a dad.

It's a really scary situation. And what

I see most dads do is they try their

best and they actually do try but they

actually don't know what the goal is. So

parents, you need to do two basic

things. One is support self-efficacy,

which is kind of like interesting. So,

it's not just that you need to do work,

but the primary mental health goal is to

help your partner feel like a good

mother. So, it's not to like assuage her

her concerns about appearance and things

like that. Like, if she asks you like,

"Hey, is the baby weight gone?" That's

like a jabbait, right? There's no right

answer to that. And so, there's all this

stuff that we're kind of like scared as

dudes, like, "Oh my god, like what do I

say? Like, the baby weight isn't gone.

Like, how do I proceed with So, this is

where the the main goal is to support

her self-efficacy. The best protective

factor for her to not get depressed,

which we'll talk about in a second, is

for her to feel like she's doing a good

job, and that's our goal. The second

thing is that we want to actually do

some of the work, which we will get to,

which will then help our partner feel

self-efficacious. But often times, what

I find is that most dads do like one or

the other, right? So, a dad shows up,

says, "I'm going to be an active parent.

I'm going to change diapers. I'm going

to do all this stuff." and that's where

all of their focus and energy goes and

they don't provide the right kind of

support or what they try to do is

provide moral support and be supportive

and and things like that and say nice

things to their partner but they're not

supporting self-efficacy so it doesn't

work as as effectively as it could. So

these are the two things that we're

going to really focus on today. Now

let's start with some statistics cuz

this is scary AF. Okay. So on a given

day 10,000 live births about 1,000 to

2,000 women are going to end up with

postpartum depression. This is a

staggeringly high number. What's even

scarier is about two per thousand women

will end up with postpartum psychosis.

So this is the situation that Lindsay

Clancy is presumably in. I think there's

ample like medical evidence for that.

Like I mean she was in care. There's

lots of notes. This is not like I showed

up in court and by the way I'm insane.

There's just piles of evidence that she

was really moving towards postpartum

psychosis. And so it's two per thousand.

So that means that every day in the

United States about 20 women will enter

into postpartum psychosis. And then this

is also kind of scary, arguably

reassuring. About 6% of people who wind

up in postpartum psychosis will have a

serious suicide attempt or commit

suicide. About 5% will be violent or

homicidal to other people. So on the one

hand, these numbers are really low,

right? 10,000 live births, 20 people are

psychotic, 5%, so one of those women

will try to kill themselves or kill

somebody else. So that's like pretty

small, like one per 10,000. But it's

also like scarily large because that

means it's kind of happening every day

and it could be happening in your

situation. So, how do you detect

postpartum depression and postpartum

psychosis? This is not really your job

as a partner. This is the job of a

medical professional. Here's an example

of the standard that people use. It's

called the Edinburg depression scale.

There are some criticisms that this

depression scale doesn't really pick up

psychosis, but basically like the

features of postpartum depression are

the same features as regular depression

or unipolar depression. So we'll see

changes in appetite, changes in

interest, feeling guilty, having a lower

energy level, difficulty concentrating,

feeling sluggish, slow or even

activated, and potentially suicidal

ideations. Now the tricky thing about

this is that many of these things are a

normal part of postpartum, right? So,

difficulty sleeping cuz you've got a

newborn. Low energy levels because your

body just pushed out and grew a whole

new child. You lost a lot of blood from

the uterus. There's necrosis going on in

the uterus. Like, there's all kinds of

weird stuff going on. So, that's what

makes things like really tricky is that

if we look at the features of depression

and we look at the normal course of

delivering a baby, there's a lot of

overlap. There are a couple of things

that I want you all to be specifically

on the lookout for, but generally

speaking, this should be the

responsibility of your partner's

pediatrician or obstitrician to to

screen for this. Like everyone kind of

looks out for it. Key things for you to

keep an eye out for. First of all,

sleep. So, if there is a sense of lack

of fatigue despite not sleeping, that's

a huge warning sign. So, this is what's

kind of interesting. For a lot of women,

the first time they get diagnosed as

bipolar instead of unipolar depression

is in the postpartum period. So women

can have a history of depressive

episodes and then after they have a kid,

they like convert to bipolar. It's not

that they convert to bipolar, they've

always been bipolar. One of the key risk

factors for a manic episode is disturbed

sleep. So this is where like once their

sleep gets messed up, their underlying

vulnerability for bipolarity like kind

of comes out. Okay? So you really want

to be paying attention to sleep. You

want to be paying attention to the an

inability to sleep, disturbances in

sleep. If their sleep is really messed

up, that's a very concerning sign.

Second thing to look out for, this is

highly specific, is something called

anhidonia. So this is the inability to

experience pleasure from activities that

you normally find pleasurable. So energy

levels will be low. You may have

difficulty concentrating. You may not be

sleeping great. But one of the key

things about the postpartum period is

that fun stuff should still be somewhat

fun. People should be able to derive,

sure, you're exhausted, but you should

be able to derive some joy, you know, a

month. And remember, we're talking this

is like up to 12 months after delivery,

right? So like a month in, your partner

should be able to enjoy certain things,

whether it's watching a movie, whether

it's spending time with the baby,

whether it's spending time with you, fun

stuff should still on some level be fun.

So anhidonia is highly concerning. A

couple of other things to look out for

are extreme versions of persistent

emotions. Okay? So, it's normal for

women to be irritable, for women to be

sad, tearful. There's like this thing

that we call postpartum blues, which

lasts about 2 weeks. So, like that kind

of stuff is normal. But if the emotion

feels really really large or is

persistent, so they're like they're

super irritable 1 month in, 6 months, 6

weeks in, 6 months in, then that's kind

of a red flag. if they're extremely sad,

tearful, crying for weeks, you know,

some of that stuff is like normal in the

postpartum period is your hormones

reccalibrate and things like that. But

if that really persists, that's a

concern. And then the other two things

that are really scary, this is kind of

touching on the road to postpartum

psychosis, is disorganization. So this

is number one. So when we when people

become psychotic, this is something we

don't quite realize, is that they become

highly disorganized. So they're not able

to like function because their mind is

not like operating correctly. So they

may try to do a bunch of things, but

like the stuff just doesn't click. Like

you'll go to the grocery store, but

you'll forget your wallet. And then you

kind of you buy some groceries, but the

groceries that you bought don't actually

like make a meal. So we start to see

like if you're feeling like your partner

is getting disorganized, that is

absolutely something to look out for.

And the last thing to really look out

for is what we call mood cycling. So

this is where like there are rapid

fluctuations in mood. So persistent

extreme sadness, irritability is a is a

concern, but also like extreme sadness

being okay for a couple of days, extreme

sadness, being okay for a couple of

days, being extreme sad, being extremely

irritable. The intensity of mood

fluctuations is also something to look

out for. If you detect any kind of

suicidality, homicidality, those are

like huge red flags definitely

warranting emergency services. Once

again, this is something that really

should be handled by clinicians, but as

a partner, you should be on the lookout

for this stuff. Now, let's take a look

at what's the best way to support your

partner. So, here's what's really

shocking. So, if we look at the risk

factors for postpartum depression, what

we find is that intimate partner

violence increases the odds of

postpartum depression by like 2.5,

right? So, it's like a 250% increase.

Like, that's pretty big. What's really

interesting is poor social support

increases the risk by like 350%. So

what's really insane about this is that

a good partner proper social support is

actually more impactful than like

violence in the relationship. Like this

is insane, right? So this is how

important your role in the postpartum

period is. If you navigate this right,

you are like more impactful. The weight

of your intervention is worth more than

intimate partner violence. And here's a

list of other risk factors with their

relative sizes just for y'all to take

take a look at. Let's talk about how to

provide that good social support. So,

two tasks. The first task, how do you

support your partner in preventing

depression is build their sense of

self-efficacy? So, number one thing that

and this is we're going to kind of talk

about this for just a second. Like what

do women experience, right? So, they're

socialized in a way where like

motherhood is everything. This is

changing a little bit now with like the

current generation, but still they've

like grown up, right? if they're having

kids today, they still grew up in a

period where motherhood is sort of

everything. Even on social media, we

have all these like trad wives and

things like that. And like motherhood is

a huge part of being a woman. And some

women may not want to be mothers, like

that's fine. But if if you know, if

you're having a child with one, there's

a decent chance that she wants to be a

mother and she wants to be a good

mother. What most people don't realize

is being a good mother is like a skill.

We talk about it like it's like just

this natural thing, right? like you just

have this baby and you feel all these

feelings and then you're just like, "Oh

my god, I'm a mother and everything is

great and everything's wonderful and

we're taking pictures and we're

uploading them to Instagram and like, oh

my god, oh my god, oh my god." But what

we know is that something like

breastfeeding requires like potentially

intervention. So breastfeeding support

is a highly protective factor against

depression. And why is that? That's

because if you can breastfeed properly,

you feel like a good mom. You feel like

an efficacious mom. You've got a child

who knows how to latch. There's like

positioning going on, there's like

latching going on, there's training your

body, training the child, and like the

child is also like a day old, so they

don't really know how to do much, right?

So, there's all kinds of weird stuff

that goes into this that people don't

really understand, don't appreciate. And

so, then if you don't learn properly or

your biology is just such that like you

don't produce enough milk and so the

child really doesn't like, you know,

doesn't get enough because this is the

first time that your body is doing this.

then you switch to bottle feeding and

then you feel like a failure as a mother

and like basically all this stuff is a

confluence towards being a failure as a

mother. That's the primary thing that

we're going to try to prevent. That's

where we really come in, right? We're

going to help our partner be a good mom.

So that involves a couple of different

things. The first is support her

self-efficacy and think about yourself

like a coach. Like so think about you've

got like an Olympic athlete. What are

the things that you can do to help your

Olympic athlete win the Olympics? Right?

That involves things like making sure

they get good sleep. It involves things

like cooking meals for them. Like let

them focus on the task of learning how

to be a mom and you are going to be the

coach for your partner. And that also

involves some concrete skills. So here

are a couple of studies that look at

programs. So here's a program that is

psychoeducational randomized control

trial that basically were like okay

we're going to teach people we're going

to educate them about problems in

motherhood, problems in postpartum

period. We're going to teach people what

they should do. Okay, that's what we do

over here. And what we find from this

trial, it's small, is that this

basically has no impact. And this is

also what I think like a lot of dudes

get blamed for. Everyone is like, here's

what you should do. Look, I'm going to

give you a list of all the things that

you should do, right? So, if you want to

dance, put your right leg in, put your

right leg out, put your left leg in,

shake it all about, do the hoke poke,

turn yourself around, and that's what

it's all about, right? Like that. That's

what we tell people. This is how you

dance. I'm going to give you a list of

instructions. Now, go do it. That's very

different from skills building. So,

here's another trial that did find

efficacy, but this trial is looking at

or this intervention is actually a

10-week skills building program that

involves things like gratitude and

mindfulness and all this kind of stuff.

So, those are skills that need to be

built over time. That's why we have

stuff over here on our our on the

membership side where we like dig into

these things and we have these things

like meditation tracks and stuff like

that where it's it's about skills

building. Information is not necessarily

sufficient for change. If it was all you

need is one motivation video on YouTube

and everyone would be motivated. So

skills building is different from

education. So education is important but

it is not sufficient. So you should

support your partner. That's actually

going to go a long way. And then another

part of self-efficacy is kind of

emotional support, right? So when she is

feeling down or sad or whatever,

validating that, offering her some

emotional support of like, hey, your

Olympic athlete just she didn't win the

gold in this Olympics or didn't even get

a medal. How would you talk to that

Olympic athlete? So your your partner is

frustrated because the baby isn't

latching. She feels ugly and and you can

validate that. So one of the key skills

is validation. And so like yeah, I I

know that there's a lot of changes that

go on in your body and I'm I'm amazed

at, you know, how [ __ ] man I don't even

[laughter] know. That's one that I

haven't figured out, man. The body

changes and body image issues. Dude, I'm

a [ __ ] Harvard trained psychiatrist.

I still don't know what to say. So what

I do is just kiss my wife when she's

feeling that way. And this is like

really like I don't know if this really

works. She feels flustered. Like that's

her response to it is like she gets like

really flustered, but like I'm

indicating love. So I'm indicating

support. Sometimes I'll say things like,

"Yeah, you like obviously I won't say

that. I never say that. I still haven't

figured that. That's a bad example. That

one is arguably unsolvable." And if you

guys have figured it out, let me know.

What you can do though is like physical

touch is really important, right? So my

solution is when she believes she is

grotesque. There are no words. It's

debated. Like I haven't figured that

out. But what I can do is demonstrate to

her that she's not grotesque by coming

in, giving her a kiss, giving her a hug.

You know, like my thought is like,

"Yeah, you'll get there one day." Like,

but that it you can't do that. You can't

say that. Like, yeah, like your baby

weight's there, but like you'll get

there one day. I think telling her that

she's beautiful goes a long way. Like, I

I still believe that and I've always

thought she's beautiful, you know? So,

like there's like some of that stuff

going on, but I and I think the other

big thing that really works well in

terms of self-efficacy is praise when

things go well. So, my favorite example

of this is like my wife struggled with

breastfeeding and then there were times

that like, you know, it worked well and

when it worked well, you have a milk

drunk baby. And I don't know if you guys

have ever seen a milk drunk baby, but

milk drunk babies are like cute, right?

So like this is the kind of thing where

there's a lot of small positive

reinforcement stuff that is not falling

into the jab. It's like snapping a

picture of your milk drunk baby or

telling your wife, you know, partner,

man, that milk drunk baby like she slept

like a rock, right? So like positive

encouragement on the things that your

partner does do well, right? So like

being like, "Wow, this is awesome." Like

look at this look at this fat little

baby. Like look at this look at this

chub. Look at this chicken wang. Like

this this look at this thigh, dude. Look

at this well-fed baby. like look at this

fat little chunky little monkey. And so

that kind of stuff, the positive

reinforcement really supports

self-efficacy. Like I've said, one of

the most frustrating things about OCD is

how often it gets misdiagnosed. People

can spend years trying to manage

anxiety, depression, or even something

else entirely without realizing that

underneath it all, it might actually be

OCD. And because it's so misunderstood,

it gets missed. Another study showed

something like 50% of people with OCD

get misdiagnosed at first, which means

they don't get the right kind of support

early on. And even when it is diagnosed,

not every therapist is trained in the

specific treatment that is effective for

OCD, like exposure and response

prevention or ERP. But here's the real

challenge. There's a shortage of OCD

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CD using the link in the description

below. And so, we also want to support

things like sleep, which is where we get

to the second part, which is moral

support is not nearly as effective as

actual support. So, I know that we're

managing some emotions over there. And

this is why it's so hard for dads, and

this is like like no one teaches us this

stuff. I don't even think most women

know this, but they sort of like some

dads are like, "I'm going to change

diapers." And some dads are, "I'm going

to tell her she's pretty." And neither

of those is really sufficient. And

what's really frustrating about this is

that if you're a dude, you can see that

you're like partner is struggling, that

she's emotional. And so, you're like, "I

love you. You're beautiful to me.

That'll never change." And it's somehow

not enough. And then what's really scary

about this is like other side, right, is

like I'm changing diapers. I'm doing all

of the things, but it's like not enough.

And so you really need to do both. And

the super scary thing about this, and

this is what's really terrifying, is you

can do everything right as a dad and

your partner can still have a bad

experience for one of two reasons. One

is that this is the way that mental

illness and postpartum depression work.

They're not necessarily preventable,

right? And going back to the Lindsey

Clansancy trial, I think if we look at

the statistics, one person is homicidal

or suicidal every day in the US

postpartum. Like this happens to people.

And Lindsay Clancy is super scary

because she was in treatment. People

arguably did the majority of the things

right. I don't think her husband was

particularly absent. I mean, it seems

like people on social media think that

he killed her or whatever, but like

that's I think that's internet brain

rotally. No offense. Um there just

doesn't seem to be any evidence to

support that. And this is what's really

scary about this is like you can do

everything right and things can go

wrong. The other reason that things can

go wrong is that your partner who is a

new mother may not do things right.

Shocking. Is it possible for new mothers

to not be perfect? Absolutely. Is it

possible for some of them to be good?

Absolutely. Is it possible for some of

them to be bad? Ooh, because we don't

blame new mothers, right? Like we never

like accountability for new mothers is

like a big no no in our society. But

some of the men that I've worked with,

I've seen this. I've worked with some of

these female patients as well. Like

sometimes there's mental illness

involved, but sometimes there's also

like mistakes. So a really good example

of this is social media use postpartum.

So this is a study that found that

basically the more likely you are to

compare. The more you use social media,

the more damaging it will be for your

mental. So this is where there is

absolutely responsibility on the part of

the mother. And that is not something

that you can necessarily control as a

dad. Okay? So we want to try to help you

do everything right. But the really

scary thing about life and medicine is

you can still do everything right and

still have a bad outcome. So going back

to what kind of practical support should

you provide? So this is where the most

important thing in my opinion is sleep.

So sleep is medicine especially in the

postpartum period in depression in

things like bipolar disorder. Sleep is

literally medicine in bipolar disorder.

And postpartum psychosis is often times

linked to bipolar disorder. So this is

where like letting your partner sleep as

much as you can is going to be really

good. Now you need rest too, but that

means watching the kid overnight. That

means doing things like pumping and

doing a bottle feed with breast milk or

formula or whatever. Or it's waking up

with the kid. I mean it's amazing how

much you can do. Like even if your

partner is breastfeeding overnight,

waking up, pulling the kid out of the

crib, bringing them to your partner,

having your partner feed them. They're

just basically sleeping while there's

some amount of latch. They're awake for

maybe 15 20 minutes picking up the

child, changing the diaper, settling

them down, burping them, all this kind

of stuff. So like what would be like an

hour and a half endeavor of feeding them

twice overnight now becomes a 15 to 20

minute load twice overnight for your

partner while you're doing the majority

of it. Okay? So this kind of practical

support is really important. Changing

diapers, things like that. Other big

things to do are household related stuff

and cognitive load stuff, right? So this

is like what is really exhausting is in

addition to you know having grown a

human and birthed it things like

groceries, things like meals, the more

of that stuff that you can take care of

so that your partner can focus on the

job of becoming a new mother and

becoming an efficacious mother, the

better the outcomes will be. So then we

get to a really tricky thing which is

like masculinity. So a lot of the things

that I'm advocating for people will call

like being a beta cuck, right? like this

is not a man's job, things like that.

And we got to talk about this for a

second. So I think it's fine personally.

So like these are the values that I hold

was my my experience is I want to be

independent. I want to be able to do

stuff. I don't want to rely on anyone

for anything. It's not that I don't

enjoy people doing things for me and I

have to rely on people doing things for

me. But when it comes to my kid, I want

to be a good dad. And for me, being a

good dad is providing everything that my

child may need. So I think if we look at

masculinity like independence and

self-reliance are really good values.

Like I think those are healthy forms of

masculinity. And so I think it's totally

fine to learn this stuff. Like I was

like okay like I'm going to learn how to

you know I'm going to learn how to

change a diaper. And even now like

people are blown away when like if my

wife wants to leave town for a couple

days and I have a 2-year-old and

four-year-old at home. They're like,

"How are you going to survive on your

own?" It's like what do you mean how am

I going to survive? Like I can feed my

children and I can change a diaper. I

can put them to sleep. Like I can do

these things. I derive a lot of pride in

this. I also derive a lot of pleasure

and I derive a lot of frustration and

angst and resentment at my wife on day

two for abandoning me with our children.

Not really. But there's a lot of

resentment for all kinds of other

things. Okay. So, I think it's like okay

like you have to decide for yourself

like what feels right to you in terms of

like is this turning you into a beta

cuck? Is this doing women's work? Which

I think there's some interesting

research around. So, one really

fascinating thing that we talk about in

in the guide to love, sex, and

relationships, which if you guys are,

you know, trying to figure out how to

have a healthy relationship, if you're

trying to build some of these

communication skills and stuff like

that, there's a lot of good stuff in

there, but one really interesting thing,

I was doing research for the guide, and

what I found is that rate of infidelity

climbs for both parties with well

segregated gender roles. So, when the

man goes out and works and the woman

stays home and and takes care of the

stuff or vice versa, the woman is more

likely to cheat and the man is more

likely to cheat. So, what we know about

healthy long-term relationships is that

they are partnerships. And there can

absolutely be a division of labor and

specialization. But I'd be really

careful about assuming that these things

are like not male behaviors, which

you're welcome to do. And this is where

we get to something else that kind of

pisses me off. Like I'm going to piss

everybody off today. Here's my favorite

thing to do nowadays. Is I think a lot

of people don't understand that toxic

masculinity, like we blame people for

toxic masculinity. I don't think that's

really fair. Toxic masculinity is the

response is the coping mechanism to not

knowing how to do something right. I'm a

Harvard trained psychiatrist and I had

an intact family with a largely present

father somewhat and it was still really

hard for me to learn how to be a good

dad. Like this is insane. What I had to

learn, the gap that I had to fill was

like night and day. And I think when a

dude is faced with something that they

can't solve, they don't they have no

idea how to solve. they resort to the

tools that they have, right? And one of

the tools that we have is like, I don't

know how to do this, therefore it's not

my problem. And like we should be really

careful about blaming specifically men

for this because this happens all the

time, right? This is why we have

division of labor. I don't know how to

change a transistor plug in my car so I

take it to a mechanic, right? This isn't

my job. CEOs have lots of things that

are not their job. I don't know how to

do this. You know, lots of people who

don't know how to use technology.

They're like all these examples of this

stuff. So, I think a lot of that toxic

masculinity response actually melts away

once you give the men self-efficacy. So,

this is where like if you're like, "This

doesn't feel right. This is not, you

know, men's work and things like that."

I want you to think about, ask yourself

like this question. Do you even know how

to do this? Are you capable of doing

this? Are you terrified on some

subconscious level that you don't know

how to do this? And that you feel

powerless. And your response to

powerless is the tools that you were

taught about being a man, which is

overly isolating and all this other

weird kinds of emotional stuff,

displacement and things like that. This

isn't my problem. Often times what men

will do is they'll throw themselves into

what they know how to do, right? So, I'm

going to let my wife change the diapers

and I'm going to double down at work.

I'm going to do more at work. I'm going

to be a provider for my family, right?

So, so it's kind of interesting because

like this is the direction that you

move, but it's because you don't know

how to do the other thing. And I think

just blaming it on toxic masculinity is

like not helpful. And I I I think it's

actually harmful in many ways. Last

thing that I'm going to say, and this is

like as a dude speaking to you other

dudes. What y'all got to understand is

that fatherhood is a new childhood. This

is the way I understand it. Like you're

learning this whole new set of things

society has woefully unprepared you for.

Your parents have woefully unprepared

you for. The internet has woefully

unprepared you for. Being a dad, I

think, is one of the least resourced

developmental changes on the planet

because at least we know there's all

kinds of like moms groups and things

like that. We've known like that it

takes a village, women will fly in,

right? Like when your partner is having

a kid, her mom will come, your mom will

come, that causes problems, whatever.

But there's this sort of this idea like

paternity leave is a recent thing. And

whose dad is flying in to support you in

the postpartum period? Nobody. So this

is one of the scary things. People blame

people for being deadbeat dads or not

supportive fathers or things like that

which they're not being but like there's

also if this is a systemic problem like

it's a systemic problem. So understand

that fatherhood is a second childhood

for you. Second thing that I I got to be

like straight with y'all right so this

is like my masculine energy is like your

life is [ __ ] jo done. So the moment

that you have a kid the life that you

have and your partner I think needs to

understand this as well. Y'all's life is

over. That life is gone man. No more

rating on on nights and things like

that. So, and it's not like you're beta

[ __ ] It's like literally, I want you

guys to think about this. In your

previous life, let's say you work for 40

hours and then you have 40 hours of

recreation, right? Like that's how your

distribution is. Once a child enters the

picture, that 40 hours is gone. Like

there's whatever amount of child there's

like there's just this whole other pile

of work that is like constant in every

day for the next part remainder of your

life arguably, right? So all of the

things that you used to rely on need to

go back to the drawing board. And a

really good example of this is I need to

do something to relax. Like I I need my

time. And this is this is going to maybe

piss a bunch of people off, but like

yeah, like I get that you need your

time. I do need my time. It's caused

endless fights between me and my wife

that she needs her time. I need my time.

The whole point is that like the total

amount of time is no longer sufficient.

We're used to a certain amount of

relaxation. We're used to a certain

amount of sleep. We no longer have that

amount of time. there's just there are

not resources to provide you with the

way that you used to live life. So, how

do you navigate that? This is also what

we don't teach people, right? So, when a

man has no emotional regulation skills

outside of playing video games because

that he was never taught, now you're in

the postpartum period and like you're

feeling stressed out, your wife is sad,

you're carrying a lot of emotional load,

which by the way, men do a lot of

uncredited emotional labor, which is the

labor of emotional contentment. I mean,

containment. So, men hold the emotions

of the people around them. we're we

become punching bags and we become

absorbing blocks and then the way that

we cope is by going off and doing things

by ourselves. That's no longer possible.

So this is where there's a huge thing

that you need to learn how to do which

is to derive emotional regulation,

emotional relief, joy, fun in ways that

you've never done before. And this is

the hardest thing about becoming a new

dad because no one teaches you this

stuff. So if we look at the trial that

is successful, this is a lot of those

mindfulness skills to be able to derive

satisfaction and peace in life from

serotonin instead of dopamine from a

sense of peace and contentment instead

of pleasure and using video games,

pornography or whatever for emotional

regulation. And not to even touch the

mess that is the sexual relationship in

the postpartum period, which just is

just a whole conversation for a

different day. Okay? So your life is

over and this is like a skill issue,

bro, but we're here to help you. Right?

So, this is where like you don't need to

continue to do the things that you used

to do in order to meet your needs in the

way that need to be met. And I'm not

saying that you shouldn't meet those

needs, right? We want you to be

peaceful. We want you to be happy. We

want you to be healthy. But you will

have to change your approach to getting

those things. You're going to have to

learn how to derive peace and enjoyment

from spending time with your child. And

if you guys want some of these practical

skills, we have a 2 and a half hour deep

dive over on the membership side all

about sleep and how to get a good

night's sleep and what forms a good

night's sleep. So, thanks for watching

the video today and hopefully we will

help you be a better