Darby Saxbe (on Dad Brain)

Summary

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard — “Darby Saxbe (on Dad Brain)” Episode Date: June 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this engaging conversation, Dax Shepard and Monica Padman welcome Dr. Darby Saxbe, a clinical psychologist and professor at USC, to discuss her new book, "Dad: The New Science of Fatherhood and How It Shapes Men's Lives." The episode explores the evolving landscape of fatherhood, delving into the overlooked biological, psychological, and cultural changes men undergo as they become parents. Saxbe draws from cutting-edge research, her own upbringing, evolutionary theory, and contemporary social dynamics to challenge long-held assumptions about fathering, offering a nuanced look at how involved dads reshape their brains, bodies, and lives.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Darby Saxbe’s Background and the Path to Studying Fatherhood

• Darby reflects on her upbringing and family dynamics, describing her parents’ divorce and her evolving relationships with her physician father and stepfather (06:13–11:11).
• She jokes about “all research is me-search,” noting that her personal experiences with parent dynamics inspired her academic research (13:10; [Darby Saxbe, 13:10] "All research is me-search").
• Her initial research at UCLA focused on everyday family life, which evolved into studying fathers as a result of both convenience and scientific curiosity (13:50–15:45).

2. The Evolutionary and Cross-Cultural Context of Fatherhood

• Dax and Darby discuss how, contrary to popular belief, hands-on fathering is rare in mammals—but quite prevalent (and variable) in human societies, especially among hunter-gatherers (16:29–21:32).
• Explanation of terms like “cooperative breeding” and “alloparenting,” emphasizing the communal and flexible nature of human child-rearing (17:28–18:38).
• Variability of father involvement in different societies (e.g., the Aka and Kipsigis peoples), influenced by ecological roles and cultural norms (20:34–21:54).

Quote:

“Humans are pretty unusual because we do have human fathers who are actually involved in day-to-day care.”
– Darby Saxbe, 16:44

3. Modern Parenting, Culture, and Policy

• Discussion on how contemporary Western, especially American, parenting is isolated and stressful, diverging from our evolutionary context where communal support was the norm (23:19–24:05).
• Examples from Spain, Sweden, and Germany highlight how supportive policies (e.g., paid paternity leave) influence the involvement and visibility of fathers (24:33–26:59).
• The stigma against paternity leave in the U.S. and its detrimental effects on families (27:07–27:46).

Quote:

“You have these kind of paternity leave incentive programs that are designed to normalize and de-stigmatize dads taking leave...it’s just like a very normalized thing that men are going to be very hands on because it’s baked into their policy.”
– Darby Saxbe, 26:09

4. Biological and Psychological Changes in Fathers

• Saxbe details hormonal changes in men during their partner’s pregnancy and after birth: testosterone and prolactin drop, oxytocin fluctuates, and these changes are linked to increased bonding and caregiving (28:35–31:41).
• “Dad bod” is legit—testosterone drop contributes to weight gain and physical changes (36:09–37:42).
• New dads experience elevated risk for mood disorders, doubling the rate of depression compared to the general male population (37:52–38:37).

Memorable Exchange:

Dax: “So dad bod, we get a scientific explanation of dad bod.”
Darby: “Dad bod is a thing. It’s like this humorous trope...but it’s a real thing.” (36:09–36:29)

5. The Father’s Brain: Neuroscientific Findings

• MRI studies reveal that men’s brains—like women’s—undergo significant changes after childbirth, especially in regions tied to empathy and social cognition, indicating increased efficiency rather than loss of function (43:09–45:37).
• The amount of brain change correlates with how much hands-on care the dad provides (45:27–45:55).

Quote:

“As men engage in parenthood, they’re kind of building this parenting brain.”
– Darby Saxbe, 45:27

6. Challenging Gendered Assumptions in Parenting

• Both hosts and guest dismantle the myth that women are naturally better nurturers, arguing that caregiving skills are acquired through active engagement (46:09–46:28).
• Studies of adoptive and non-biological fathers (including gay couples) show that caregiving brains are the result of parenting behavior, not just biology (53:06–54:01).

7. Relationship Dynamics and the “Parenting Crisis”

• The arrival of a child statistically decreases relationship satisfaction in 60–80% of couples (51:04–51:04; 106:55–107:00).
• Egalitarian divisions of childcare benefit all parties, but parents tend to overestimate how equally they’ll split tasks (54:16–56:16).
• Increased father involvement leads to happier dads and more satisfied moms (57:06).

Quote:

“If you want a say in this, you gotta earn the say.”
– Dax Shepard, 58:07

8. Role Flexibility, Play, and Stepparenting

• The healthiest outcome for kids appears when each parent (or caregiver) develops a unique relationship style with the child; research shows secure attachment is not exclusive to mothers (61:07–63:01).
• Positive stepfather relationships can be highly valuable, aligning with the evolutionary theme of alloparenting (64:51–67:28).

9. Fatherhood as a Public Good & Long-Term Benefits

• Societies and workplaces benefit from supporting involved fathering—paternity leave correlates with better retention, employee wellbeing, couple relationships, and child outcomes (67:28–69:50).
• Fatherhood is neuroprotective; parents have “younger-looking” brains in later life, and men with strong family ties avoid the loneliness that’s a leading risk factor for mortality (69:57–71:03).
• Fascinating studies link having daughters with significantly increased male lifespan (72:11–108:19).

10. Letting Kids Be Free: Lessons from Anthropology

• Saxbe advocates resisting the modern trend of hyper-child-centered parenting, suggesting we should reintroduce boredom, patience, and indirect adult modeling for healthier child development (75:13–77:28).

Quote:

“If everything is crafted around the kid, how are you not gonna produce a narcissist if you are the center of the world?”
– Dax Shepard, 76:54

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Notable Quotes and Moments

• [13:10] Darby Saxbe: "All research is me-search."
• [16:44] Darby Saxbe: “Humans are pretty unusual because we do have human fathers who are actually involved in day-to-day care.”
• [26:09] Darby Saxbe: About Sweden: “You've got really generous year-plus long maternity leaves...and you also have really affordable early childcare...lot of men take [leave] because that's a free benefit.”
• [28:54] Darby Saxbe: "Prolactin...promotes lactation. In men, higher prolactin levels prenatally predicted dad's bonding and motivation to parent postpartum."
• [36:29] Darby Saxbe: “Men actually do often gain weight across the transition to fatherhood...that normative change in testosterone is one of the drivers.”
• [45:27] Darby Saxbe: “As men engage in parenthood, they’re kind of building this parenting brain.”
• [46:13] Darby Saxbe: “[Women are not] built to parent instinctively...as we engage in parenting, we learn, and then we sort of build a neurobiology that supports that.”
• [58:07] Dax Shepard: “If you want a say in this, you gotta earn the say.”
• [62:06] Darby Saxbe: “What works best for kids is when each parent has their own relationship and the kid gets exposed to different styles.”
• [69:05] Darby Saxbe: “The research is finding that when companies have parental leave, paternity leave, it's good for retention, it's good for employee well being.”
• [71:26] Darby Saxbe: “We have this manosphere idea that men need to be making lots of money, dating lots of women, driving lots of Lamborghinis...that is not really what's good for men or anyone.”
• [76:54] Dax Shepard: “If everything is crafted around the kid, how are you not gonna produce a narcissist if you are the center of the world?”

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:40–01:09: Setting up the gap in parenthood research, and excitement about finally discussing dad science.
• 06:13–11:11: Saxbe’s family background and its effect on her research interests.
• 13:10–15:45: “Me-search” and how Saxbe’s own journey led to studying the transition to parenthood.
• 16:29–21:32: Evolutionary and anthropological context for active fatherhood; global cross-cultural comparisons.
• 24:33–27:07: Modern parenting in Spain, Sweden, Germany, and the role of policy.
• 28:35–31:41: Hormonal changes in new fathers and evolutionary explanations for “dad bod.”
• 36:09–37:42: “Dad bod” in primates and humans.
• 43:09–45:55: Brain changes in mothers and fathers—neural ‘pruning’ and efficiency.
• 51:04: The “parenting crisis”—statistical drop in relationship satisfaction post-children.
• 54:16–58:36: Division of childcare, expectations vs. reality, and the benefits of father participation.
• 62:06–67:28: Play, attachment, step-parenting, and the importance of unique caregiver relationships.
• 67:28–69:50: Fatherhood as a public good—workplace policy, cross-national models.
• 69:57–71:26: Long-term health and brain benefits of fatherhood.
• 72:11–108:19: Research on daughters’ impact on father longevity; parent gender differences in lifespan and adaptation.
• 75:13–77:28: Letting kids be kids—restoring balance in child-centric American parenting.

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Summary Takeaways

• Biological Adaptability: Fatherhood brings significant biological changes like hormone shifts and even brain structure adaptations, paralleling and complementing well-documented changes in mothers.
• Cultural Change: From ancient hunter-gatherer societies to Scandinavian policy today, hands-on fathering has always depended on context; supportive policy and societal acceptance are key to involved dads.
• Mental Health: New fathers are at increased risk for depression and stress, not unlike mothers, challenging the stereotype of unaffected dads.
• Shared Parenting Is Best: Couples with more equitable distribution of parenting duties fare better, though most initially overestimate their intended balance.
• Securing Attachment: Children benefit when both parents (or caregivers) actively engage, and anyone—regardless of gender or biology—can develop the neural “parenting brain.”
• Wider Social Benefits: Societies and companies are healthier (by multiple measures) when they support father involvement, which also yields long-term cognitive and emotional benefits for men.
• Reclaiming Communal Parenting: The drive to over-structure and over-attend children is historically and culturally atypical; some lessons from our ancestors about free play and communal support are worth revisiting.

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For Listeners Who Haven’t Tuned In

This episode is a must for anyone interested in family psychology, parenting culture, or gender roles. It debunks myths about fatherhood, highlights fascinating new science, and offers actionable ideas for families and communities seeking more balanced, resilient, and rewarding parenting partnerships.

Transcript

[Dax Shepard]

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert Experts on Expert. I'm Dax Randall Shepherd. I'm joined by Monica, Lily Padman. This was a big exception. As you know, UCLA and USC are rivals.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

They're the enemy. If you went to ucla. But I got over that. So that we could host our guest who is a professor at the University of Southern California, clinical psychologist and tenured full professor at the University of Southern California, Darby Saxby. Also my favorite name of a guest I think we've had.

[Monica Padman]

Great name.

[Dax Shepard]

Darby Saxby. What a fun, fun name. She has a new book out called dad the New Science of Fatherhood and how it Shapes Men's Lives.

[Monica Padman]

This is really important stuff.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. As she will tell us in this Although historically only men have been researched for medicine, which is an atrocity, mostly only women have been researched for parenthood.

[Monica Padman]

Correct.

[Dax Shepard]

So that's the counterbalancing disparity. And so she has studied men. Thank Go. Studied dads. And now we've learned a lot about it and it's very exciting.

[Monica Padman]

It's really fascinating chemically, like what goes on.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Dad bod. We get a scientific explanation of dad bod.

[Monica Padman]

We sure do.

[Dax Shepard]

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[Dax Shepard]

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[Dax Shepard]

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[Darby Saxbe]

He's an object expert.

[Dax Shepard]

He's an object expert.

[Darby Saxbe]

Nice to meet you.

[Monica Padman]

Very nice to have you. Hey.

[Darby Saxbe]

Oh, my pleasure.

[Monica Padman]

Hi.

[Dax Shepard]

Look how many items you have.

[Darby Saxbe]

I really brought a lot of stuff.

[Dax Shepard]

Hi, Bags. Nice to meet you. Yeah, yeah.

[Darby Saxbe]

You know, you never know how much downtime you'll have, so I figured I could do some grading.

[Monica Padman]

I'm thinking ahead.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure, sure, sure. We're in Ohio. Cause, you know, I'm right up the street from you. I think you'll be the guest. We had this.

[Darby Saxbe]

Michigan.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. And were you in the shadow of Cedar Point?

[Darby Saxbe]

Oh, of course. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Well, how close to Sandusky were you?

[Monica Padman]

So.

[Darby Saxbe]

So I'm from Oberlin, so it's like a college town. It's between Toledo and Cleveland.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. As is Sandusky.

[Darby Saxbe]

As is Sandusky.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Darby Saxbe]

And yeah, you know your Cedar Point Well.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, come on. It's my religion.

[Darby Saxbe]

Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you have a season's pass because you were so close?

[Darby Saxbe]

You know, my parents were nerds, so we actually didn't go there that often, even though it's really close. But my mom now has a house on Lake Erie.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wonderful.

[Darby Saxbe]

And so we go every summer for like a month. And it's like one of the only things to do with the kids is take them to Cedar Point.

[Dax Shepard]

How old are your kids?

[Darby Saxbe]

They're 14 and 17.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, deal. They run wild there.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. Oh, they love it.

[Dax Shepard]

Cheese on a stick. The cable ride. I'm so happy for them. I'm ashamed that I haven't brought my kids to Cedar Point yet. Honestly, it crosses my mind. I'm like, I'm not doing a good job as a parent.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. You're failing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Last year, we went to Dollywood for the first time.

[Darby Saxbe]

We're going in June.

[Dax Shepard]

You are?

[Darby Saxbe]

Yes. So my book tour is a road trip to Dollywood. Oh, so it's a book tour, college tour, road trip to Dollywood. It's like a triple purpose book tour.

[Dax Shepard]

This is fun.

[Darby Saxbe]

So we're gonna drive from New York down to Tennessee.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Darby Saxbe]

And stop along the way in D.C. i'll do some book stuff there. My daughter's gonna look at some colleges, tour Mount Vernon. Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. We're gonna go to Charlottesville, look at uva.

[Monica Padman]

Nice.

[Darby Saxbe]

Which is where my husband went.

[Monica Padman]

Great school.

[Darby Saxbe]

Totally great school. And then we culminate at Dollywood.

[Dax Shepard]

This is the huge upside of being a professor, is you have a summer man. Lucky kids. Okay, so mom and dad, both doctors. One's a surgeon, one's a internist. Okay. So as a kid, they were married to what age for you?

[Darby Saxbe]

I was nine when they got divorced.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. How many siblings?

[Darby Saxbe]

So I have an older half sister and then two brothers who are my full brothers. So my dad has four children altogether. My mom has three.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so when they met, he had already been married and had a child.

[Darby Saxbe]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, now this is very scandalous by all accounts.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Your mother had a patient.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, please tell us.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yes. So she treated a patient who was dying of cancer. And cancer treatment often takes a long time. And she fell in love with the patient's husband during that process.

[Dax Shepard]

David.

[Darby Saxbe]

And I think that was with the sort of awareness and consent. I don't know the full story. Cause I was a kid when all of this happen. Oh, this is wild. But so they fall in love, and my mom ultimately marries David.

[Dax Shepard]

Left your father for David, by the way. I have to imagine that's not an insanely uncommon thing in that situation, because you are seeing a man at potentially his best or worst.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Caring for a dying spouse, you're going like, wow, this person's very loving. They're committed. You're showing a very nice side to yourself.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. And I think he truly did love his who died. You know, it was tragic. So it wasn't like he was looking to move on. And she just happened to be there. It was a process.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Monica Padman]

How old was everyone in this situation? You were 9.

[Darby Saxbe]

I was 9. My brother Beau was 6, and my brother Tom was 3.

[Monica Padman]

And how old was your mom?

[Darby Saxbe]

Oh, gosh. She had me when she was 31, so she was 40.

[Monica Padman]

Ooh. Okay. Yeah.

[Darby Saxbe]

Now I'm 49, so that seems young to me.

[Monica Padman]

Right, right.

[Darby Saxbe]

But at the time, she was super old.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, yeah. Did they tell you right away what happened?

[Darby Saxbe]

We knew that my mom was moving out, and it was sort of a process. Like, she moved to an apartment down the street, and then later that year moved across town. Oberlin is a small, small town. So across town is like, two miles. I could ride my bike between their houses. Yeah. And so then we did this joint custody thing. So every other week, I would switch between my mom's house and my dad's house. But at first, my dad just got sole custody because my mom was the one who left. And the courts in Ohio were like, whore.

[Dax Shepard]

The kids divorced.

[Darby Saxbe]

Woman.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, we're of a similar age, and so I'm a child of divorce. Certainly in my neighborhood. I want to say it was like, one in every 15 houses. Not half. It was still like, I wasn't allowed to hang out with certain kids because they didn't like that I had a single mom.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. Like, I felt like the first kid I knew whose parents were divorced.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Darby Saxbe]

Even though. Yeah. Statistically, it wasn't that uncommon.

[Dax Shepard]

How much does your dad fall into the surgeon stereotype? Because your dad's a surgeon and there's a stereotype, and we've interviewed a bunch of them, and it's pretty fucking consistent, I'm going to have to acknowledge.

[Darby Saxbe]

So you're going to say the stereotype is what, like, power hungry?

[Dax Shepard]

I don't even know. Power hungry, but a little bit arrogant.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yep.

[Dax Shepard]

A little. I don't want to say narcissist. I have the wrong word. But there's this true confidence and a bit of. They feel like they've mastered something that is almost godlike.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I think some myopic thinking a little bit.

[Darby Saxbe]

It's crazy. So I helped my dad do surgery. We did these sort of charity trips to the Dominican Republic when I was a teenager, and I was allowed to scrub in and kind of assist.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Darby Saxbe]

I know. Which is, like, probably really unprofessional, actually. I think there was one time I almost passed out, but it was the first time I ever saw my dad in that role. And I Was like. It's like a superpower.

[Dax Shepard]

It is.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, it is.

[Darby Saxbe]

Like you are literally cutting into a human body, saving them, and then you're moving things around. It's like a crazy.

[Dax Shepard]

And they work.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Darby Saxbe]

And they worked. So I was kind of blown away.

[Dax Shepard]

It's worthy of some confidence.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Darby Saxbe]

And I always thought my dad was like a pretty humble, low key guy, but in the or, you have to be like the king.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So that's the other factor that I don't even blame them so much is the role is such that you are at the top of the decision making. This is the same as a director. Like, if you've been directing movies for 25 years, guess what? You start kind of thinking everyone should value your opinion a little more than they should. It's just kind of inevitable.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. As a professor running a lab, I work with my grad students and I'm like, they have to listen to me.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Darby Saxbe]

It's a powerful narcotic, dad.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Then you go home and you're like, oh, right. No one here gives a shit.

[Darby Saxbe]

Oh, no. My kids could not be less impressed. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So suffice to say, dad had virtually zero experience daddying, even though he was your father until this divorce. And he had quite a rocky road. But he did figure it out. So just tell us what the experience was like once mom was out of the picture.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. And I will say that my dad, having read the book, thinks that he was very involved when we were little. So in his defense.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure.

[Darby Saxbe]

And when I tried to qualify it, the book didn't make it, so. But he was, I think, an 80s dad. He was pretty hands off. He was not super involved in our daily routines, our bedtimes.

[Dax Shepard]

He didn't know what time you went to school, probably. He didn't know what time your school ended.

[Darby Saxbe]

He was doing his own thing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Darby Saxbe]

He was going to the Masonic Lodge. So my mom left. All of a sudden, he is the sol parent and he had to figure a lot of stuff out. Like, he made dinner for us. He cleaned the kitchen.

[Dax Shepard]

You guys need lunch for school.

[Darby Saxbe]

He woke us up. He packed our lunches. He actually made really good lunches. He was good at it. I think the meticulousness that you need to have where you're scrubbing in as a surgeon made him like a very natural cleaner of the kitchen.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure, sure, sure.

[Darby Saxbe]

I think he kind of leaned into it. He was tracking our routines. He was driving us to school. He became the parent, but.

[Dax Shepard]

And he also had moments where he like threw TV sets out in the snow and stuff. Right.

[Darby Saxbe]

He had a temper.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's overwhelming.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Especially if you haven't been doing it.

[Darby Saxbe]

Exactly. And I think he was like, what is happening here?

[Monica Padman]

His life has really fallen apart.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. And he was depressed and. Yeah. Like my brothers one morning wouldn't wake up to go to church and he took the TV set out of the wall and was like, oh gosh.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Darby Saxbe]

Into a snowboard.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

It might shock people to know how often those types of solutions cross your mind.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Like when you're a dad, you're just kind of like, okay, so the problem is these iPads. Easy fix. I'll throw these fuckers in the trash. We have these impulses. I can eliminate the problem entirely. It's not the move. But I have to fight through a lot of these urges.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yes. I've made the threat to throw my kids phones out the window. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Many, many times.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah. You then go on to get a PhD in psychology.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yes. In clinical psych.

[Dax Shepard]

What's so funny is in your book you say that all research is me search. I had never heard that term. And we heard it yesterday.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Or Monday.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Weird.

[Dax Shepard]

It is. And you guys all know that as standard. But I'm like, how could we have interviewed this many social scientists and not

[Monica Padman]

learn two in one week?

[Darby Saxbe]

Every time you interview one, you should be like, what's wrong with you?

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I do that anyway. And someone finally said when I asked that question, like, you don't see study something on accident. We're all trying to answer some weird question that irked us since childhood.

[Darby Saxbe]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

And that person said, yeah, well all research is me search. And then you said it. So you were drawn into studying parenting. Does it start specifically with fathering or is just general parenting?

[Darby Saxbe]

So originally transitioned into parenthood and I was curious about couples and how they navigated relationships and roles. And I worked on this big study at ucla, which was called the center for the Everyday Lives of Families, where we basically camped out in families homes.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh boy. Like anthropologists.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, and there were a bunch of anthropologists on the study team. So it was this cool collaborative study and we tracked them around their houses. We borrowed this technique that you use for primate research called scan sampling, where we were recording their movements like every 10 minutes. Where is everybody? What are they doing? And, and so we had this really cool corpus of data and I worked with the cortisol data, which is stress hormone data, to see how are their physiological stress levels tracking with their relationship Quality and how they feel about their homes. And so that kind of got me interested in family stress. And then I wanted to kind of go to the source, which is, you know, when does a couple become like a triad? When do they start a family, basically? And so when I had the chance to start my own lab at usc, I knew I wanted to do a transition to parenthood study. And I got interested in fathers, actually in part out of convenience, which was that I knew I wanted to do a brain scanning component. And as a postdoc who was starting to plan this study, I was not allowed to go into the scanner because I was pregnant. So I was working on a neuroimaging study and they were keeping me out of the neuroimaging suite. And you can scan pregnant women, but it's just like a couple layers of extra care. And so I was like, how am I gonna study women's brains? Well, why don't I scan the dads? And then as soon as I thought of that, I got really interested. Cause I kind of dug into the research on fatherhood and there's so much it's scant. And I got fascinated with that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So historically, medical research has been extremely asymmetric. And we've studied men, you know, at a really high rate to the detriment of a lot of women's health. But this is completely reversed. Right. I think in the book it says 1 in 10 journals on this topic are about fathers. The rest are about mothers.

[Darby Saxbe]

Exactly. So our parenting research, research on the parent child bond, research on the transition to parenthood, it's completely mother centric.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Darby Saxbe]

So we just don't really understand men's experiences of parenting as well. And I think there are emerging research programs that are attempting to answer these questions. And that was one reason I was excited to write the book.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so let's start with just mammals. How frequent do mammals father their offspring? And maybe we should pick some terms. Right, because you can father offspring, but we're gonna talk about the process of raising or being involved. So what should we call that? Fatherhood.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. So in the book, I kept calling it hands on fatherhood. And then I was like, I'm talking about mammals. So should it be like paws on fatherhood, you know, like tendrils on fatherhood, depending on. So I guess active fatherhood is a good term. Right. So you can sire offspring, but to be involved in their actual rearing. Turns out humans are pretty unusual because we do have human fathers who are actually involved in day to day care. And so Actually, if you look across all the species, fish males are primary parents. Birds, biparental males do a ton of parenting. Frogs, lots of male parenting. But in mammals, it's fairly unusual to have biparental.

[Dax Shepard]

Is that because of mammary glands? Is that because we have a unique style of feeding our young?

[Darby Saxbe]

Exactly. Which is where the term mammal comes from. Right. So it comes from milk. So literally it's baked into the term that this is a mother centric animal.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Darby Saxbe]

And I mean, you do have some examples of primates and rodents where males are participating in rearing. But what makes humans unusual is the sort of flex and the fact that we raise children kind of collectively. And so that's called cooperative breeding or alloparenting. And that's sort of our signature style of how we raise kids.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. We only kind of see this in primates. You see this in primates to varying degrees, right?

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Really social group animals where you're gonna have aunties helping and you're gonna have wet nursing and you're gonna have a lot of different things.

[Darby Saxbe]

Exactly. Like a lot of shared care. So you kind of need a complex social brain that can track who's safe. And the reason I think that style originates is just because our babies require so much care. Like, our human babies are so half baked when they emerge. And so you really need this tag team. And then fathers become really important.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so now let's talk about hunting and gathering groups or societies or whatever you want to call it. First, we must point out the vast majority of time we've been here. We've been here for 300,000 years as a species, give or take. And agriculture comes around 16,000 years ago. So we're talking about 95% of the time we have been here. We lived a certain way, which I think we regularly underestimate. Monica and I get in some debates sometimes, and I'm like, you have to accept that we were designed and wired to function in a certain dynamic that we no longer do. And there's a ton of challenges that come with having left that design.

[Darby Saxbe]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

Rather left that context with the same design.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

So let's talk about what parenting looks like for hunting and gathering groups.

[Darby Saxbe]

Hunter gatherers live in these small, sort of mobile bands of 20 to 30 people. There isn't a lot of private, enclosed space. We don't have our big houses and our backyards. So everybody is helping everybody. And parenting looks pretty collective, and that can include fathers. So there's all this cultural variability in how much men are doing. But in hunter gatherer societies, you sort of have these egalitarian social structures because you sort of don't want to compete for resources because everything is shared. And you have some flexibility around gender roles because women actually are bringing in as many calories as men.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, way, way more. They're responsible for like 90% of the calories.

[Darby Saxbe]

They are really important resource gatherers, which is why it's funny when people are like, women shouldn't work, they should just mother.

[Monica Padman]

They've been working since the beginning of time.

[Dax Shepard]

No, what's very weird is that they didn't work for a few hundred years. That's what's really weird.

[Darby Saxbe]

Like we had this strange blip where women sort of stayed home and were specialized to the domestic realm.

[Dax Shepard]

But again, they lost their whole support system. So kind of they had to.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. So going back though to I talked to an anthropologist who studied this hunter gatherer tribe called the aka and the men are super hands on with the babies. They're holding babies. I think they're within arm's reach of their babies. About 47% of the time they let

[Dax Shepard]

a baby suckle from their nipple that's not even giving milk.

[Darby Saxbe]

Exactly. Like, you'll see a group of men hanging out and they're drinking wine and they're all holding babies.

[Monica Padman]

Cute.

[Darby Saxbe]

You know, I know it's adorable.

[Dax Shepard]

But there's huge variation within hunting and gathering groups. So then the other one is, what is it? The Kingspiggy. Pronounce it for me.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, it's the Kipsiggis. And if you think about how much fathering are men doing, it's like, well, how does the culture make its living in the Cypsigas, which is a different tribe where there's this totally different style of fathering. There are all these prohibitions against men picking up babies and interacting with babies too much in the first year after birth.

[Dax Shepard]

It's emasculating, it's unmanly.

[Darby Saxbe]

Exactly.

[Monica Padman]

But how did that even evolve?

[Darby Saxbe]

So there the resource gathering is more risky, it's more hazardous and so you end up just getting more specialization.

[Dax Shepard]

You're not bringing a two year old along on this hunt.

[Darby Saxbe]

Exactly. So you might be involved as a father with older kids. Right. Going to take older kids along to show them how to hunt. But you are not carrying babies around the way the AKA are.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, think of the Inuit. Only the males are hunting whale and other fish and they're out in these canoes. You're not bringing one or two or three. You know, you're not bringing out a young boy until they're pretty self sufficient. So in that case it would make total sense that that's how they would function.

[Darby Saxbe]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

I think there's a lot of dynamics that are worth thinking about from that hunting, gathering, and we kind of already talked about it, but. But I often say in my own experience, parenting, I feel so blessed that I studied anthro because many new parents talk about the moment they drive home from the hospital with the baby in the backseat and they're like, oh, Jesus, we don't know what we're doing. But I've watched hundreds of hours of video of children in hunting and gathering societies. They rear themselves. A nine year old's in charge of like 12 kids. Everyone's climbing a tree, many are falling out, people are breaking bones. They're so fucking resilient. It's crazy if you get to see, see how we actually live for so long. So I kind of didn't have that panic just because I got to observe how we're really designed to do it. We're pretty resilient.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. Kids are designed to, I think, be somewhat free range. Having a parent who's on top of a kid at all times is actually not always the best.

[Dax Shepard]

Minimally, it's not how we live for most of the time.

[Darby Saxbe]

We've been exactly. You got mixed age. Playgroups is like the classic kind of configuration for how kids are learning. They're learning from their peers.

[Dax Shepard]

Even if we had stayed egalitarian in sharing the parenting duties, it still would have become much, much different. Because to your earlier point, we lived in long houses. There was always someone around to help. Everything was communal. And then we ultimately evolved into like single house dwelling with just two people. And even if both people had split it, which they didn't, it would have been infinitely more stressful. This is a uniquely stressful way to rear kids. The way we do it.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. This is not how we evolved as humans. We need community support. And yet we live in suburbs. We're car dependent. We don't have our extended family nearby. We don't have those multi generational networks.

[Dax Shepard]

If you knocked on your neighbor's door in any apartment la and said, I need you to watch my baby for three hours while I go to sleep. They would panic. Right.

[Monica Padman]

Or you'd be like, something's wrong with them.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Who would trust me with their baby? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's a very bizarre way we're living in some regards.

[Monica Padman]

It's like money driven. Really?

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I mean that's Part of why we live away from our parents and stuff. It's like we're gonna go chase success. And even your house is an example of success.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, totally. It's this kind of late capitalist way to live.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

So you had a Fulbright fellowship and you went to Spain in 2019, and you got to kind of observe how they do parenting there. So what did you gather from? Because obviously there's huge cultural differences in how we're all doing it around the globe. So tell us a bit about different places and how they're doing it.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, it was super fun. So my kids were pretty young when we did that. They were 8 and 10. It was right before the pandemic, so it was good timing. And we did like the playground tour of Barcelona, just like every playground. And there were a lot of young parents out and about. And I think it's because, like most countries, except for the us There is really generous maternity and paternity leave. So your home, you have flexibility in those early years. And so the whole society just feels a little more oriented to what young kids need. Public places, like our apartments on a square where, you know, you have the cafe where people are smoking and eating tapas, and you have the old guys on the bench gossiping. And then there was always a play structure. All the squares have a little play structure. So there are just a lot of public spaces for kids, and so it feels more integrated.

[Dax Shepard]

And what were you observing about fathering there?

[Darby Saxbe]

I would see men outside our apartment window pushing strollers around and hanging out with each other. And there was more of a sense, I think, of connectedness and a kind of society of fathers that you just don't see as much in the States when you're kind of more isolated in your home.

[Dax Shepard]

What happens in Sweden? What's going on in Germany?

[Darby Saxbe]

So my husband's sister lives in Sweden and raised her kids there. And you've got really generous year plus long maternity leaves. And you also have really affordable early childcare that's high quality. So the stress level there for parents, I think, looks really different. And for fathers in particular, because you have these kind of paternity leave incentive programs that are designed to normalize and destigmatize dads taking leave. So basically, the couple gets a certain amount of leave, some of it earmarked for dad. If he doesn't take it, it goes away. They lose that benefit. So a lot of men take it because that's a free benefit.

[Dax Shepard]

It's like vacation days. Yeah, you got to use them totally.

[Darby Saxbe]

So you have. It's called the Latte Papas, which is like this society of guys who are like holding the little to go cup and just walking around the cities with

[Dax Shepard]

Bjorns on and stuff.

[Darby Saxbe]

Exactly. So again, it's just like a very normalized thing that men are going to be very hands on because it's baked into their policy.

[Monica Padman]

It is so weird because I feel like even here, even when there are paternity leaves, a lot of men don't take the full thing.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, again, it's emasculating here. It's like your buddies at work and be like, you're fucking going up. You know, like, there's a stigma about it.

[Darby Saxbe]

And there are studies on this that men are really reluctant and they think they're gonna get punished at work. And I think we still have this ideal worker idea that you sacrifice everything for your job. And if you take time off after a baby's born, you're a slacker, or

[Dax Shepard]

minimally, you are removing yourself from advancement. You're not out competing a coworker. Someone else will get the account. There's a lot of different pressures.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. So when you started studying this in your lab, we had some stereotypes, right? We had this notion that mothers are natural parents and mothers and nurturers. And then we know all these physiological changes that happen to them both when pregnant. We know about their hormones changing. We all accept this and know this. And then just the general assumption is like, probably nothing happens to dad even. I think when we first had kids, I was susceptible to that, where I was like, I think this crying is at a different volume to me than it is to her. I think she has better chemistry than I have currently for this. So let's talk about first what you started finding when you would look at what happens to dad between conception and birth. Cause there's all these documented changes for mom. What happens to dad in that period.

[Darby Saxbe]

With mom, you can literally visibly see her body changing. Right. If it's a biological pregnancy. And with dad, there's a lot going on under the hood. So there's research that suggests that testosterone levels drop, oxytocin levels change. A hormone called prolactin changes as well.

[Dax Shepard]

What does prolactin do?

[Darby Saxbe]

You can tell from the name. It promotes lactation.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Darby Saxbe]

So it's very good for breastfeeding, which obviously is not that helpful for dads and in men. Surprisingly, prolactin levels before birth seemed to predict. At least this is what we found in our lab predicted Dad's kind of bonding and Motivation to parent in the early postpartum period. So we found that guys with higher prolactin levels prenatally had more enjoyment of the infant postpartum. We're spending more time with the infant postpartum. And it's interesting because in fish, and I mentioned that fish are primary caregiver fathers, if you dump prolactin into the water, fish will start acting really paternal. So it's actually a hormone that kind of turns on fatherhood in fish. And it turns out it might work in a similar way in humans.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow. Well, the testosterone thing is fascinating. I'd like to hear what the current theory is on why that drops. To me, it seems quite obvious. It's like you're gonna need maximum patience and minimized aggression. Yeah, all right.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, exactly.

[Monica Padman]

They don't want you to squeeze and pop the baby.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Like, we just don't need a ton of testosterone.

[Darby Saxbe]

You don't need that grip strength.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

When you're scared and there's a baby crying, you know how to solve it. Do we think that's why it lowers?

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. We need high testosterone. If we're competing for mates. It will help us to be competitive, to focus on our status, to be aggressive. And it's not that useful when we have a new baby. It's not as adaptive to sustain high testosterone levels. And testosterone comes at an immune cost for the body. So having jacked up testosterone is not that helpful to us when we're in a context that doesn't require that competition.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, it doesn't reward it.

[Darby Saxbe]

Exactly. And so even in birds, you see higher testosterone at the start of breeding season, when birds are, like, trying to find a chick. I mean. Yep, a female.

[Dax Shepard]

That's where we got it.

[Darby Saxbe]

Testosterone levels will drop once a male has sort of completed mating and needs to take care of hatchlings. So it's like this normative change that's occurring over the transition to fatherhood, and then there's probably a rebound. Right. And then dad maybe knocks up a new bird. But it looks like you see kind of similar patterns in humans, rats, and primates as well. So testosterone levels sort of fluctuate with your reproductive demands and also with your reproductive strategy. So if you want to maximize your number of offspring, you probably want high tea. But if you want to actually do a good job of parenting, you want.

[Dax Shepard]

Want lower t. And also, you're not as prone to create more progeny that you would have to then care for but be divided, because you've just had this one. It's almost like going out estrus a little bit for a primate.

[Darby Saxbe]

Right. There's like this life history theory that sort of determines when does it make sense for our hormones to change to support our different roles?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare. We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. Not checking your gas gauge before hitting the road. You genuinely thought you could make it, you were wrong. That's a very long stretch of highway where you learned exactly how far fumes can take you and it's not far enough. Yeah, checking first is an excellent plan. So check Allstate first for an auto quote. It could save you hundreds. And for fast, reliable help when you need it, add an Allstate roadside plan. Today you're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary. Insurance and roadside assistance plans are subject to terms, conditions and availability. Insurance provided by Allstate North America Insurance Company, Northbrook, Illinois. Roadside assistance plans provided by Allstate Motor Club Incorporated and Allstate affiliate. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. I feel like spring always does this thing where you realize you've been thinking about something for a long time, and suddenly it feels like, okay, maybe I actually do something with it.

[Monica Padman]

Totally. It's less pressure, but more like readiness.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Like you've been sitting on an idea or a project or even just a perspective you care about, and now you're like, maybe this deserves to exist somewhere outside of my own head.

[Monica Padman]

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[Dax Shepard]

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[Monica Padman]

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[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, and Wabiwab is not trying to spend 40 hours figuring out web design.

[Monica Padman]

It just worked, which is kind of the point.

[Dax Shepard]

So if you've been sitting on something and waiting for the right moment, this might be it. Head to squarespace.comdax for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use offer code DAX to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. This episode is sponsored by Better Help. Summer's one of those seasons where there's this pressure to be on all the time. Say yes to everything, pack the calendar, and then you end up more burnt out than when it started.

[Monica Padman]

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[Dax Shepard]

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[Monica Padman]

And, yeah, it gets a little stressful, stressing you out. Well, it really helps to have someone else in the game to help you get through it.

[Dax Shepard]

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[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Now, until this book, I would have thought I was, well, not terribly unique because I did get some anecdotal information. But we were one time at an ultrasound appointment at the ob, and they're measuring Kristin's weight, and I decide to hop on that scale. And I just simply hadn't been on a scale in, I think, four or five months. And I just looked at it and I go, holy shit, I've gained, like £20 and I didn't even notice. That's never happened in my life where I just gained 20 pounds without noticing. And I've talked to other dads who have done that as well. Have you observed that? What's happening there?

[Darby Saxbe]

Totally. So dad bod is a thing. It's like this humorous trope. Yeah, exactly. But it's a real thing. Men actually do often gain weight across the transition to fatherhood, and it kind of connects back to what we were just talking about. Like that normative change in testosterone is one of the drivers of sort of adiposity or weight Changes.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Reduction of muscle mass, which is burning less calories. So there's that element working. I was more thinking of it in a nurture context, which is like, she's eating like crazy, so I'm just joining her. Like, is that what's going on?

[Darby Saxbe]

You see it in primates too. So they increase in body size across a mate's pregnancy. It might be because a larger body is more imposing, they can more easily pick up offspring. And it's also like, you want some reserve in case there's scarcity.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. You might have to be giving your resources to another. That's really evolutionarily poignant. Right. Is I need a little buffer because I'm about to share now.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. Which is true, I think, for why women gain weight. Right. Because we gain more weight than our babies are gonna weigh. Like, I was super bummed when I realized that.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh yeah, like 4x. Yeah, 5x.

[Darby Saxbe]

This baby is not 35 pounds. Where does the extra weight go? But it's like you actually need some reserve because who knows, there could be a famine.

[Dax Shepard]

Well. And you're going to be burning 2,000 extra calories a day to produce milk. If you breastfeed or whatever the number is. It's something very high.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. It's a high calorie demand. So it's like your body actually has to be sort of beefed up. So it might be that there's a similar process happening for dads.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah. What other things are happening in that window before baby arrives? So there's the body, there's the hormonal drop. What's going on psychologically and behaviorally?

[Darby Saxbe]

So the hormones are changing. So psychologically we can see mood disorder risk. Postpartum depression is something we think of as like a mom only phenomenon. It can totally emerge in dads. There's evidence that new dads have about twice the prevalence of. Of depression as just men in the general population.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow.

[Dax Shepard]

While mom's pregnant.

[Darby Saxbe]

It can be before birth, it can be after birth. Yeah. So it's like we call it postpartum depression, but it's really perinatal. It's like across that transition. And if you think about it, it's like a lot of the same risk factors that moms experience, like sleep deprivation, increased stress, identity conflict, role confusion, relationship stress and hormone changes. It's like that perfect storm. So that's affecting men too.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God, the moms are gonna hate this. They love that they can claim the hormone changes.

[Darby Saxbe]

I talked to a perinatal psychologist and we actually Talked about this exact thing. She said she's gotten a lot of pushback. Cause she's tried to get postpartum depression in men more recognized. And some of the advocacy groups are like, can't moms just have this one thing right? And she's like, yes, but also, if men are struggling, that's not great for mom either.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

No, it's helping moms to understand dads.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, it's.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Again, this is very anecdotal, but this is what I've observed. I've seen a lot of people trying to get sober who tell themselves, I'm gonna get sober when I have a child. And then you watch them. And I've watched addiction ramp up, not decrease in a very unmanageable way as that date approaches. It's over then, so cram it in now. And I'll even admit that that during the first pregnancy, there is a new finality on the table that is very unique. I can't un. Dad. It's permanent.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And I think that creates some angst and some fear, and you feel like, oh, shit. Truly. Now I'm an adult, I see a lot of antsy behavior in expecting fathers.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. It's like getting a face tattoo.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

But even that, you could get removed. You could. It's maybe the only permanent thing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. You're gonna be a dad for the rest of your life, no matter what. Now, you might not be a husband for the rest of your life.

[Monica Padman]

You might be show up or not. Maybe you don't raise them or whatever, but you've created.

[Darby Saxbe]

But that still exists.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. I think it's terrifying to a lot of men.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. It's quite a ride.

[Darby Saxbe]

And women.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Everyone.

[Monica Padman]

Scary.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. How do dads experience childbirth?

[Darby Saxbe]

It's interesting because if you think about it, men have not been present at childbirth for most of our human history. Childbirth has been this participatory experience where human women need a lot of help. But it hasn't typically been that the helpers have been men. And so we are kind of doing this experiment in just this last, like, 150 years. Right. Where you have males as part of the birthing experience, either as doctors or as fathers. And stereotypically, men were kept out of.

[Dax Shepard]

Or they would tell you, don't go in there.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Like, it's better for your marriage if you don't see that.

[Darby Saxbe]

Totally.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Like in the 50s.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, in the 50s.

[Dax Shepard]

If you say that.

[Darby Saxbe]

If you see the dad is handing out cigars right in the waiting room, he meets the baby once it's been washed, right?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. And her makeup's on.

[Darby Saxbe]

Exactly.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Darby Saxbe]

She's brushed her hair. Seeing birth, I think, really rocks a lot of dad's worlds. Right. It's like both in, I think, really good ways, and also in ways that can be hard because it's this powerful experience. There's nothing like it. It can be scary for mom, it can be scary for dad. Things can go wrong. Things can also go beautifully well. So there's just a lot of variability.

[Dax Shepard]

It's a very heightened experience. And increasingly, people have emergency C sections, which is the way it happens. Certainly in la, it's like almost everyone you meet with children our age is the same story. It's like I was in labor for 14 hours, the heart rate, crash, emergency. So that was my experience. Right. I'm not only seeing that, I'm also seeing my wife get operated on. I saw my wife opened up and her organs being moved. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, this is terrifying. I'd say. The beauty of it. And I just want to flag. I'm just going to tell my real experience. I'm really paranoid. It's going to sound like virtue signaling, like I'm an ideal. I don't want that to be. I'm just going to tell you the truth.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

The amount of respect and admiration you have for your wife, when you see what they go through, in my opinion, is not to be missed. You go, whoa, whoa, whoa. Well, first of all, you might have the moment I had, which is like, you're so afraid you're going to lose her. So that's its own experience. And then to see what they go through, you're gonna minimally be grateful to that person for the rest of your life because they went through that for this thing you love. It's very powerful.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, it is very powerful. My first birth was pretty straightforward, but the second one, I lost a lot of blood. It got complicated, and my husband was terrified. And I still hold that against our son, you know, every so often.

[Dax Shepard]

I'll be right. He should

[Darby Saxbe]

clean your room.

[Dax Shepard]

If he wins a Nobel Peace Prize, you can go like, okay, you're now eating.

[Darby Saxbe]

That's right.

[Dax Shepard]

You're just. Now even. You're out of the hole.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yes. You've made up the debt.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so once the baby's there, Dad's brain changes.

[Darby Saxbe]

We in our lab scanned men whose partner was midway through pregnancy. We then scanned the men again about six months after birth, and we found that men's brains were Losing gray matter volume, which is probably reflecting a process of streamlining and pruning and becoming more efficient.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, it sounds, it's kind of counterintuitive because mom's brain shrinks too. That's a little more well documented. And you think, oh, my brain shrinks was like, no, but it weirdly is working more efficiently now.

[Darby Saxbe]

Exactly. And the brain shrinks at other windows in the lifespan too. So in early childhood, we're in this kind of stage of lots of exploration and tons of inputs. And then as the child kind of gets ready for school age, the brain is actually losing gray matter volume and it's becoming more streamlined and kind of canalized along certain pathways, ways. So it reflects a process of learning. It's like you're consolidating.

[Dax Shepard]

It's almost like if you think about refining a product, an engineer, one of their main tasks is like, which of these components is redundant I can get rid of. Your whole goal is to keep getting it smaller and smaller and smaller. And I guess that's what's happening in your brain.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, exactly. You want like an efficient brain. And the parts of the brain that seem to shrink are the social cognition regions which are linked with empathy, responsive caregiving. So that sort of supports the theory that it's not like a deficit model. Something isn't getting taken away, but it's rather this adaptive plasticity.

[Dax Shepard]

You presumably have sample groups where it's like there's varying levels of participation. Are you seeing more shrinkage and increased participation? What's happening there?

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, exactly. So as men are spending more time with babies, we see more gray matter volume decrease. So it was the men in our study who said they wanted to take more time off after birth. They were spending more day to day time with infants. They told us they enjoyed interacting more with infants. They had stronger bonding with the babies even before birth, and then they had stronger bonding after birth. Those were the dads that seemed to show the greatest changes, like the greatest reductions in gray matter volume. So those dads looked the most like previous studies that have focused on moms transitioning to parenthood. As men engage in parenthood, they're kind of building this parenting brain.

[Dax Shepard]

I just love how flexible the human is. I know, yeah, it's really wild. And if he doesn't do that, his brain will be perfectly set up to do whatever occupation he's doing.

[Darby Saxbe]

We often think of the brain as like this fixed organ, but it is reshaped by our social experiences. And parenthood is one example of a window of plasticity. Where we want a brain that can mold itself to serve the functions of a parent.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. This incredibly new and novel experience we're all having.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

It kind of goes against this idea that women are natural nurturers. That's why I think you say we debate. But I'm saying this. I think anyone can be a nurturer.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Not just a woman.

[Darby Saxbe]

And that's exactly one of the reasons I wanted to write this book.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Darby Saxbe]

Because we sort of assume, like, women are built to parent instinctively, and it's really the opposite. It's as we engage in parenting, we learn, and then we sort of build a neurobiology that supports that.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Humans are built to nurture.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Darby Saxbe]

Like, we all have this sort of parenting brain that's ready to go when we are ready to deploy it.

[Dax Shepard]

What happens to dad's hormones once baby has arrived? It's a continuation of that lowered testosterone and stuff.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

And you have a beef with oxytocin.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

You lay out your beef with oxytocin.

[Darby Saxbe]

I love it and I hate it.

[Dax Shepard]

It. Okay, tell us.

[Darby Saxbe]

And it's because the research literature is a mess on oxytocin, because it's super hard to sample it. Well, so you've probably heard, it's the cuddle hormone. It's the love hormone.

[Dax Shepard]

Women get a dump of it after an orgasm.

[Darby Saxbe]

Exactly.

[Monica Padman]

If you hug for 20 seconds, you get a really blast massage.

[Darby Saxbe]

And all of that has a grain of truth. But it's hard to sample it because by the time it gets to your bloodstream, it's already moved on like it's an organ that's active in the brain. So if you really want to sample it accurately, you need to take cerebral spinal fluid, which, you know, not a.

[Dax Shepard]

No one's signing up for.

[Darby Saxbe]

No one wants to come into the lab and do a spinal tap. It's hard to sample it accurately. And then the way that you assay it in the lab, this gets kind of in the weeds. But there are different ways to look at it, and those ways don't always track well with each other.

[Dax Shepard]

I think another fair way to also look at it is we really have only diagnosed, I don't know, six neurotransmitters. Like, we only have a chemistry set of five, six hormones, and we have behavior that's in the tens of billions of permutations. So at best, you're looking at some ratio of many different hormones acting in concert to produce an outcome. Right.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

We're so attracted to a singular cause, and we'll go boom. That's it. Dopamine. It's causing all this. Well, it's like in conjunction with a lot of things, Right?

[Darby Saxbe]

Exactly. We are filled with all these different inputs, and we sort of glorify oxytocin or. I often hear, as a cortisol research people say, my cortisol is too high. I have to treat my cortisol. It's like, no, you want high cortisol in certain contexts. And I think this is true with testosterone, too. You want to be flexible. You want to have a biology that can adapt to your context. And so there's no such thing as overly high this or overly low that. It's like, how flexible are you?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I think what they mean is that this system has been hijacked, which does happen all the time, and your cortisol levels are responding as if you're being chased by a lion, but you have a deadline due. Some hijacking of the system.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Darby Saxbe]

Because we live in these complex worlds that don't reflect what we need to survive. When I teach this to my undergrads, I always say, if I'm having a fight orf flight response because I'm stuck in traffic, what am I going to do? Like, run across the freeway? Not adaptive. So it's like having all the blood go to my large muscles is not helping.

[Dax Shepard]

You hit your brake pedal extra hard.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, yeah. It makes me yell at the other drivers. But that's not super adaptive either.

[Dax Shepard]

Right, but it's like the cortisol's not the problem. It's the situation that hijacked the cortisol response.

[Darby Saxbe]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

It's our interpretation that's what's happening to dad's cortisol once the babies arrive.

[Darby Saxbe]

So the cortisol literature, also a bit of a mixed bag. Some studies find higher cortisol in new dads, some studies find lower cortisol. It's very situational. But we do know, and I found this in my lab, that hormones like cortisol, prolactin, and testosterone track within couples. So it may be that dads are kind of in training with a pregnant partner or with a new mom to sort of help jumpstart their own process of whether it's neurobiological remodeling or behavioral repertoire. It's like there's something about proximity to the.

[Dax Shepard]

There's a mirroring.

[Darby Saxbe]

Right, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Dad's and mom's hormones are fluctuating, if not at the same levels, in the same pattern. Ish.

[Darby Saxbe]

Exactly. So there's like a Synchrony within cohabiting

[Dax Shepard]

couples, which is dangerous and beneficial.

[Darby Saxbe]

Right. And actually I've found that when cortisol patterns get too strongly linked, that's a risk factor that makes couples report more dissatisfaction.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, yes, yes. Someone should be resetting their cortisol at all times. Probably.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. You need to be balancing.

[Dax Shepard]

I feel very blessed in that we read this. So we got this book, Brain Rules for Babies, in anticipation of our first child arriving. And in maybe the introduction, it says quite starkly, I'll forget the number, but it was either 60 or 70%. A child will make 60 or 70% of relationships worse. That is the data, right?

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And I was like, just helpful to know going into this. This isn't going to make us happier with one another per se. Odds are it's going to make us less satisfied with our relationship. So, like, gotta be extra aware of that high probability. So let's talk about what you call the parenting crisis.

[Darby Saxbe]

I often say to people, like, if you think that having a baby will save your relationship, bad idea. Right. If anything, it's gonna make it harder.

[Dax Shepard]

It's gonna shine a magnifying glass.

[Darby Saxbe]

Exactly. This was true for my husband and I. Like, you go from being fun time friends who can go catch a movie or go out to eat to like, you're running a small business and your product is the care and feeding of your baby.

[Monica Padman]

It's the of all time.

[Darby Saxbe]

Right. But you have to strategize and trade off. And in the middle of the night, maybe neither of you feels like getting up. There is so much more of a breeding ground for conflict. When you're both tired, you're both kind of figuring out these new identities. You don't really have the same opportunities for fun. So it is a real challenge for a lot of couples.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I would even add too. It's like the general pattern. There's lots of exceptions. But also, also, you've probably chosen to have a child at the moment where you felt most stable and kind of financially sorted and all these other things you were waiting to gel before you commit to that. So it's like you're probably going from the high watermark of the relationship. For Kristen, I was like, oh, we were starting to travel a lot financially where we're good. So it's gonna be a huge swing.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. And you're like, how can I screw this up?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, let's see if you can fuck this whole thing up.

[Darby Saxbe]

This is like just when my husband and I got to a place where our kids were older and could take care of themselves. We started getting pets.

[Monica Padman]

You're like, you just can't. Oh, my gosh.

[Darby Saxbe]

Why do we have more things to take care of?

[Monica Padman]

Have there been any studies? This would be so interesting. Studies of couples where the father is not the biological dad.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Do they still experience all these hormonal changes and things like that?

[Darby Saxbe]

Totally. Yeah. So I talk about. There's one study where they looked at adoptive parents, and it was gay male couples who had adopted a baby. And then they compared them to heterosexual

[Dax Shepard]

couples with adopted children.

[Darby Saxbe]

I think they were all biological parents.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, great.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. You had this adoptive sample, and they had, in the heterosexual couples, like a primary caregiver and a secondary caregiver. I think they basically treated mom as primary, dad as secondary. And then in the gay male couples, they said, who's the primary caregiver? Who's the secondary caregiver? And what was cool was that the primary caregiver, gay male dads looked just like moms if you looked at their brain responses to baby. And the secondary caregiver dads looked like heterosexual dad.

[Monica Padman]

Whoa.

[Darby Saxbe]

So it kind of shows you how, again, adaptable the brain can be, right, that men can build these primary caregiver brains.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so part of this crisis in you said is like, you have this whole new list of chores. So when you're observing outcomes, is this crisis less or more when things are split, more equitable?

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. So it seems like couples fare better when they have a more egalitarian balance. But what's interesting is that parents are pretty bad predictors of what that's gonna look like. We did a study where we brought couples into the lab. These were the couples in our longitudinal sample. And we said, what's your plan for splitting up baby care? We gave them a worksheet. We asked them to sort of estimate on a scale for each of 10 different baby care tasks. And then we brought them back six months after birth and said, well, who's doing what? And in every case, they had overestimated how much dad was going to do before birth.

[Dax Shepard]

And my guess, too, did they even agree about how much mom and dad were doing when asked six months later,

[Darby Saxbe]

dad thought that he was going to do more, and then after birth, he thought that he was doing more.

[Dax Shepard]

That's right. Yeah.

[Darby Saxbe]

So dads were sort of estimating a higher contribution at both time points, but the couple was also just overestimating how much of an even split they were going to achieve.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So this is tricky, and I think it's like, it's so generational. Right. So when I compare my parenting to my father's, I mean, a he split when I was three, but even when he was there for my Brother up till 8, I'm doing a thousand X of what he did. It's really hard to quantify what's happening happening. There are these markers that seemed obvious. Like, my goals were like, I want to do half the feedings. So at night, we both have to wake up four times. I want to do two of those diapers. I was hell bent on every other one. I'm gonna do it. There's some aspect the kids do go to mom. There is something primitive going on that needs to be acknowledged. Even though I'm very progressive and I want all this to happen, there's some realities to once you have a kid, it's like we were both present nonstop. But in the car, Lincoln would be like, mama. Yes, honey, Mama. Yeah, hon, Mama. She just loves saying mama over and over again. There is a pull on mom. Even if all the chores are split evenly.

[Darby Saxbe]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

There's an emotional drain that is really hard to right size.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yes. And I think it's hard to optimize a balance ahead of time. We were not surprised, actually, that moms ended up doing more after birth because there are a lot of reasons for that. If she's breastfeeding, the baby gets more comfortable with her early on. Moms also have this head start of pregnancy to kind of develop that bond. And moms may even just have more time off from work. And so moms themselves may want to be the primary parent. It doesn't necessarily mean that there's something wrong, but we did find that the more dads were doing, the happier they actually were with parenting. So dads who were participating more had lower parenting stress, and moms had better relationship satisfaction.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. This is where I'll say that this will go against any fear. I have a virtue signaling I reverse engineered selfishly why I wanted to do, in my mind, half I didn't do half. I'm sure I didn't do half. And I'm sure I overestimated what I did. And I'm sure she has a better account of what I did. But my reasoning was I'm very opinionated. I care a lot about what decisions we make about. About the school and the sleep schedule and all the stuff. I can't sit idly by and just have my partner make all those decisions. It felt very important, and I knew I needed to earn my seat at the table. I'm like there's no way I can blow in at night and kiss them good night and then tell them what approach I think we need to use. Because she'll go, bullshit. You don't even know them. You don't know what they're like when they melt down over this. And so I just selfishly, initially, very much wanted to make decisions together. And I just knew you don't get that right if you're sitting it out. So that would be my call to dads. It's like, if you want to say in this, you gotta earn the say.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. And I think a lot of men increasingly, because you flagged a really important thing when you said you're doing so much more than your dad did or than your grandfather did. Contemporary men are doing way more hands on child care than men of previous generations in the US And I think men themselves, if you say, what are the most meaningful things you do in your life? Being a parent is up there. And it's a similar number of men will rate that as their highest priority as women.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Darby Saxbe]

So it's also like not only do men want to be involved, it's like there's a value, the pride.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, I know we live in LA and we send our kids to a charter school that's pretty progressive. But, but, and I might be misevaluating it, but I do drop off every morning. And if it's not 50, 50, it's probably 30, 70. There's dads everywhere. When I was a kid in elementary school, I never saw a child's dad once in my life, you know, unless mom was in the hospital or something. So relative. I can a little bit understand why guys of this generation are overestimating our outputs. It's like, it's so drastically different.

[Monica Padman]

Well, women are also working so much more that you have to decide who's taking the kid to school. It's not a given, but my parents both worked, so it was a split. Whoever could do it often was my dad because she also was gone. So I think as women have become much more in a breadwinner position, it's helped with a lot of this egalitarian nature of parenting.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, exactly.

[Monica Padman]

The funniest thing happened when I was home in Georgia. I was with all my friends. They all have kids.

[Dax Shepard]

Last year, weekend.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, last weekend, all the kids are running around and these two, their dad and their mom were sitting next to each other. They came up to the table, they said, mom, can dad take us to the grocery store? And I started laughing. So Hard and even. He said, why aren't you just asking me? He was sitting right next to her. It was so funny. That was the instinct was to ask mom's permission. It just made me really?

[Darby Saxbe]

That's the default? Yeah, a lot of the time.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, also, it might be game theory. So they know mom says yes more than dad. If they ask dad to go to the store, he's gonna say no. But if they ask mom, they're used to getting a yes. So maybe mom will be able to get dad to say yes. There's a lot of strategy going on.

[Monica Padman]

Maybe if they were separated. But the fact that they were right next to each other, it was such a stark. Clearly, that's the person to ask.

[Dax Shepard]

But in our house, we have domains. Right. There's stuff that's no problem for me to say no to. There's stuff for her that's no problem to say no. And they just know if they want this thing, they go to me. If they want that thing, they go to her.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, they're.

[Dax Shepard]

They're clever little monkeys.

[Darby Saxbe]

They know who to ask. Yeah, my kids know who to ask for takeout. My husband is much more likely to order.

[Dax Shepard]

Are there ideal roles for dad in regards to parenting? I'm thinking about, like, play and sports. And I know for my girls, like, wrestling, they just love to wrestle Me, mom did not want to fucking wrestle. I love to wrestle. Are there roles that we are more geared to take on?

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, the kind of roughhousing parents, the play parent. So dads do a lot of what's called proprioceptive touch, which is like moving babies around in space. Right. If we're moving a child around, like, picking them up, throwing them, chasing them, tickling them. And so there's a lot of evidence that dads just gravitate to that style of play, and that that style of play is really rewarding for kids. Kids seek it out, they benefit from. Builds their confidence. It builds their risk tolerance, their balance, their agility. Yeah. And I think the sports dad is kind of a continuation of that. It's a domain that a lot of dads feel comfortable kind of having mastery of.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I think we always get into these murky waters of what we're supposed to be doing versus what kind of yields better outcomes. Are there domains that are best served by mom or dad? I mean, play's one of them, but can you think of others?

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. And I think even with play, like, I'm always careful to not be too gender essentialist. Right. Because there are totally moms that love to wrestle and are physical and they're totally dads that are the more cerebral parent or the more affectionate parent. But I think what works best for kids is when each parent has their own relationship and the kid gets exposed to different styles. Right. You can have a really secure attachment to more than one parent. And the research suggests that. That dads and moms don't actually have dramatically different levels of attachment to their kids. So it's healthy for kids to realize there are safe, secure caregivers that I can depend on. And if this person isn't available, I can go to this person. Sometimes that's a child care provider, sometimes that's mom or a grandparent or a dad. Different people have their own style. And kids again, learn to be adaptable. They learn to be flexible.

[Dax Shepard]

But there's no dead end streets. Or are there? And we're just afraid to admit that.

[Darby Saxbe]

Like, what would a dead end street be?

[Dax Shepard]

I don't know. I just think of this imperative someone said and it's just proven to be true, which is like, you should not teach your kids to do stuff. If you want to take them skiing, bring in an outsider. They don't do well listening to you for that kind of thing. Or if you want to teach them piano lessons, get someone else that doesn't have all this murky. So I just wonder if we're trying to encourage men or women to do things that like, it's not really going to bear the outcome we want.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. I do think because we don't have the collective network of caregivers that maybe we evolved to have. A lot of pressure is on mom and dad, the nuclear family. And they're trying to play all roles in a kid's life. And I think as to whether parents can be good teachers, I know for my kids, definitely not. They don't want to listen to me. My son is in a phase where he wants to make hip hop beats all day long. My husband is a music producer.

[Monica Padman]

Perfect.

[Darby Saxbe]

And you think it's like, you know, dad does this for a living. He could advise on your beats. Like no interest. I think it's good for kids to have their own things again.

[Dax Shepard]

A brand new concept. With the exception of when someone's partner died, the step parent is like an entirely new construct. Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare error. You yourself had a kind of a fun arc with Dave that I'd like to hear about and tell me what the role of a step parent is. A father. I've had only bad well, the last one was good, but I've had really bad experiences.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, I had a sort of bad experience that became good. I did not want my parents to get divorced. I blamed my stepfather. And we had a really combative relationship when I was a teenager. Lots of fighting, tears, yelling. And he was a really good cook. So that was actually one thing that helped me forge a connection with him. But beyond that, if you had asked me when I was like, a 14 year old, I would have said, my stepdad sucks. And it was really only as I got older that I appreciated. He was a poet, he was a writer, he was a translator. He was an English professor at Oberlin, where I grew up, and was this, like, source of wisdom. He loved to travel.

[Dax Shepard]

It sounds like the antithesis of your father who's a surgeon in many ways.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, true. Different vibes. And I think I got a lot from both of those relationships. When I became an academic, it was partially because I had seen David. I mean, basically his job just seemed fun. He could come home early after teaching a class and play Nintendo baseball. And he just seemed like he had a really chill job. And my parents were always working, so I was like, well, obviously being a professor is great. Yeah, that's my plan.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah, I think you were right.

[Darby Saxbe]

I think I was. But little did I know how hard it would actually be to get there. But now it's great. But he really inspired me. I think I learned a lot from him.

[Dax Shepard]

It's a tough role.

[Darby Saxbe]

It's totally hard. You both don't wanna supplant the parent, but then also you are acting as a parent. So it's just a breeding ground.

[Dax Shepard]

You're like a perpetual substitute teacher.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, totally.

[Dax Shepard]

But the rewards for stepfathers, do we observe those in the same way we see the biological fathers?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Darby Saxbe]

I think our framing around stepparenthood has been so negative that people see the bad stepfather, the bad stepmother, and even in fairy tales, like the evil stepmother.

[Monica Padman]

And.

[Darby Saxbe]

And if you look at the research, a lot of kids who grow up with step parents say this relationship is really valuable. And so to whatever extent a real bond can form, it can serve a lot of the same positive functions that a biological parent bond can form. Right. Like, we don't need to be biologically related to a kid in order to take care of a kid. That kind of goes with the whole alloparenting idea. We evolve to sort of know how to take care of each other. And that could be through adoption, through step parenting, or through biological parenthood.

[Dax Shepard]

Tell me how fatherhood would best be seen as a public good. How would we all benefit from that?

[Darby Saxbe]

The more we can kind of empower men to participate fully in care, the more we can value care as something that isn't just the domain of one gender. That requires some investment. I think it requires really smart policy and it requires kind of cultural change. Right. To kind of see men as natural caregivers. I think it's interesting we're living in this era where it feels like there's a resurgence of neo traditional gender roles. The trad wife and the sort of breadwinner male. To me, that runs a little counter to our evolutionary history, which is about flexibility and not about getting locked in to. This is the job of moms and this is the job of dads. So I really think that if we were a society that really valued the welfare of young kids. Kids, we would be a society that champions fathers. Not to the exclusion of mothers, but fathers are really important for mothers well being too. And we would be a society that really puts its resources into how do we nurture the next generation of humans.

[Dax Shepard]

Do we have any proof of concept elsewhere that we can say this is a worthy investment, that it yields some kind of. Of a result we all want or benefit from?

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, definitely.

[Dax Shepard]

Because like you're an employer and you don't have kids, you don't care about kids and you're not thinking about kids. It's like I don't want, you know, I can see that being a tough sell unless we have some data that would say somehow the whole tide lifts. But. Yeah. What do we have to demonstrate?

[Darby Saxbe]

The research is finding that when companies have parental leave, paternity leave, it's good for retention, it's good for employee well being. It's actually unfortunate. Just in the last few weeks there have been some headlines that some big companies are actually cutting their parental leave programs. Sort of a cost cutting thing. But it's really good for worker loyalty and for worker productivity. And then we have these international models where we have more generous leaves in other countries. And you do see that as dads are getting more access to federally funded paid paternity leave, they're getting more involved. It's better for the couple relationship, it's better for mom's health outcome, it's better for the kids health outcomes and it's better for the father himself.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So let's talk about the fun benefits, the kind of long term impact that fathering has on men in the short term.

[Darby Saxbe]

Right. You're losing gray matter volume. Your Hormones are changing. It's this set of challenges in the long term. The evidence is that becoming a parent is neuroprotective. So work on both fathers and mothers finds that if you look at how the brain is aging, you have markers of a younger looking brain when you have children. And so these are big scan studies that look at thousands of people in later life and they find you can use like a computer machine learning algorithm to basically gauge the age of a brain. And people's brains look younger relative to chronological age if they are parents. And you see that for fathers as well as for mothers, which tells me it's not just a pregnancy hormone thing. It's about about caregiving, it's about social integration. And we also know from longitudinal work that the quality of a man's relationships is what's really important for his health and well being.

[Dax Shepard]

In late life, men tend to be lonely.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Darby Saxbe]

Men are at risk for social isolation, which we know is a factor in all cause mortality.

[Dax Shepard]

Worse than smoking?

[Darby Saxbe]

Yep. It is super bad for you. And we know this from the longest running longitudinal study, which was done at Harvard. They recruited men who were under criminal grads and a comparison sample of inner city Boston teens. They followed them through the ends of their lives and are now following their grandkids. So this is like a hundred year study.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow.

[Darby Saxbe]

And they found that more than your income, your job, prestige, it was the quality of your relationships with people close to you that predicted a longer, healthier life. So the more I think we can encourage men to invest in relationships, the more we can benefit their health. We have this manosphere idea that men need to be making lots of money,

[Dax Shepard]

dating lots of women, driving lots of Lamborghinis.

[Darby Saxbe]

Lots of Lamborghinis. That is not really what's good for men or anyone.

[Monica Padman]

Or anyone.

[Darby Saxbe]

Or for society.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. What?

[Dax Shepard]

Women should try it out before we decide we tried it.

[Darby Saxbe]

I guess it's worth a shot.

[Monica Padman]

I'm trying it.

[Darby Saxbe]

How many Lamborghinis can you drive?

[Monica Padman]

Right, Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

One study that came out that made headlines last year that thrilled me to no end was this impact on men having daughters specifically. Are you aware of this one? It's cumulative as well. And so on average it was like 1.7 years longer a man lives per daughter. And there doesn't seem to be an end to that. So if the man has five daughters, he's looking at like eight and a half years extra life.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, Well, I think it's that social connection. Do you have a support system in later life? Do you Feel like you're part of a community. And we know that that is so important for human health.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. This would definitely be kind of more of a psychological analysis of it, but I think men interacting with little girls allows them to. Who embrace a whole side of themselves that has been excluded to them.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

For lack of a better word, the sweetness of the exchange has to be restorative. It's just such a beautiful feeling. I could cry thinking about, like, just what my little girls give me, what they allow me to experience. I don't know where else I go get that.

[Darby Saxbe]

Right. We don't really let men have a lot of variability in how they express themselves. We have very strong opinions culturally about what makes a man masculine. And dressing up like a princess and doing a tea party usually is not part of that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Darby Saxbe]

But I think a lot of men enjoy playing with different sides of themselves, and that's totally healthy and fun.

[Dax Shepard]

I also think when you have a son and you're a man in this country in 2026, you still have this notion, like, I've gotta toughen this kid up. Right. Like, that's my role here, is to present him to the world capable of taking on any challeng. The funnest way to parent. Like making a kid tough. It doesn't feel good. No one enjoys it. Whereas you don't walk in with that ridiculous notion with your daughter. I have to make them both savvy and aware of the world, But I don't think they need to punch other guys out at the bar at any point. You know?

[Darby Saxbe]

Let's hope not.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Or tell a coworker to fuck up. Like all these things we think we have to pass on to men that we don't necessarily think we have to pass on to girls.

[Darby Saxbe]

Right. Like, we're tough on our sons in a way that we're not.

[Dax Shepard]

I hate that.

[Darby Saxbe]

Which then leads to the.

[Dax Shepard]

You just gotta go to a playground. Watch how parents handle boys versus girls. It's like a lot more grabbing them by the arm. We're still pretty rough on boys.

[Darby Saxbe]

Boys need a lot of love and care and nurturing maybe the most. Yeah. Maybe the most.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Their instinct is to smash everything with a stick. You gotta be like, extra on them to show them a different way. I just want to finish on this because I read your New York Times article that I really, really liked. It was just kind of a general call to ignore your kids to some degree. So just tell us a little bit about what's happening and what we could Adopt, maybe from hunting and gathering.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, totally. And the idea for that op ed came actually from research for the dad Brain book.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, did.

[Darby Saxbe]

Which was that I was interviewing this guy, Barry Hewlett, who was the anthropologist that studies the hunter gatherer fathers, and he was just telling me about childhood. In this society, the model of parenting is just different because it's about learning less through direct instruction, like you're in a classroom, and more about modeling, like you're following adults around and you're emulating what they do. And I think we've got it totally backwards in contemporary society where we parents follow our kids around and create our lives that are molded around their interests. We're taking our kids to tons of activities, we're putting our kids in special classes. Kids actually aren't getting the opportunity to watch adults work. Our jobs are so atomized and hard for kids to grasp because they're happening on screen, that kids aren't moving around the adult world very often with this sense of here's what I can imitate and what I can be. So my argument was that parents should just do boring things with kids because actually it's good for kids to learn how to be patient and watch other people. And maybe that means taking them on social calls or to the gym or to the bank. I remember going to the hardware store with my parents as a kid, being bored out of my mind.

[Dax Shepard]

It was so talking to a neighbor, you being stuck with your mom, talking with a neighbor for 100%. When is this gonna end?

[Darby Saxbe]

Yes. Like having tea with the 90 year old woman down the street, having to sit there. That's how you learn how to talk to other people, how to take turns in a conversation. And so if everything is crafted around

[Dax Shepard]

the kid, how are you not gonna produce a narcissist if you are the center of the world? Literally. And then you leave the house and you find out very abruptly, oh, no, no, you're not the center of the world world. You have to join other people's worlds.

[Darby Saxbe]

Right. Like it's actually better for kids to learn how to go along with a group, how to be an observer, how to integrate yourself. And I think we sort of do try to create these kids who just. The whole universe is revolving around them. And it's not normal in the grand scope of human history.

[Dax Shepard]

No.

[Darby Saxbe]

And despite being a parent who, as I wrote in that op ed, thinks that parents should let their kids. Children, I somehow have gotten sucked into the team. Sports. Baseball. Club. Team.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, if they love it, they love it.

[Monica Padman]

That's fine.

[Darby Saxbe]

And it's like my husband's thing. He loves it. He plays baseball. He's a coach.

[Dax Shepard]

I got no problem with someone whose kid desires to do something. And you support that. That's not my issue at all. My issue is the kid doesn't like soccer. Half the people there. I see it, when our kids were in soccer, ours hated it. And then half the other kids hate it. I'm like, what do we all. Why are we insisting that this is something that has to be done? No one here is enjoying this except for the ones that are into it.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I know, but then that becomes a finish, what you start. I mean, there's so many layers to all of this. Like, I do think a lot of kids are like, I want to play soccer. Johnny's playing soccer. We're going to do it together. They start and they're like, I hate it. But I do see a value in, well, you're a part of this team and you got to see this through. You don't ever have to do this again. But we're seeing it through. I understand that.

[Dax Shepard]

That's how we handled it all. We just didn't come back for the second season.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, that's fine. But it's like team sports are real. They Te teach you things and they teach you that you've committed to this.

[Dax Shepard]

But we had a great expert on it, might have been a childhood psychologist who was saying, it's also important to figure out what it is your kid likes about it because you could not be diagnosing the right thing. Like, a lot of kids that like soccer, they like being outside or they like being with friends. It might not be soccer they like. You gotta actually figure out what is the thing that they are craving. It might not be the obvious.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah. In another cultural context, that could just be them running wild with a band of kids.

[Dax Shepard]

That's right. With some hammers and some nails, Saws they shouldn't have.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, machetes.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I had access to all that stuff. Well, Darby, this has been delightful. This is a great book. I'm really glad you're studying this. I think, to your point, the more we appreciate that dads are designed to do this too, I think that'll help further an expectation that they should do it. Yeah. I can't see an outcome that's worse with dads being more and more involved and taking on more things and feeling like, no, they're designed to as well.

[Darby Saxbe]

I agree. I think dads can feel empowered that they actually do know what they're doing and can learn.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. So the book is called dad the New Science of Fatherhood and How It Shapes Men's Lives. Thank you so much for coming in, and I look forward to reading all the work you do in the future.

[Darby Saxbe]

Thanks. This was super fun.

[Dax Shepard]

Hi there. This is Hermion permium. If you like that, you're gonna love the fact check. Ms. Monica, cute shirt.

[Monica Padman]

Thank you. I'm wearing one of our new merch items.

[Dax Shepard]

It's very cute.

[Monica Padman]

It's so cute. It's like a butter. Like a very light yellow. And it has a really cute graphic.

[Dax Shepard]

It's very 80s.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it has like an 80s graphic. And it's. It's. It fits really well. I really like the fit on it.

[Dax Shepard]

It's got a nice, nice fit.

[Monica Padman]

Kind of cool.

[Darby Saxbe]

Cropped.

[Monica Padman]

Not really, but just.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I think it's a little shrunken. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

It's very cute. Something crazy happened yesterday night for both of us.

[Dax Shepard]

You don't even know yet.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow. Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, this is gonna be a. No, you go. Just letting you know this. It got more eventful.

[Monica Padman]

Wow. Yeah. There was a huge crash from. I was. I was working or. Yeah, I was. I was in my office doing some work, and then there was this huge. I had made dinner, so it felt like this was coming from the kitchen and it was this enormous crash.

[Dax Shepard]

And did you think at any moment there had been a vehicle crash outside your house?

[Monica Padman]

No, no, it was definitely in my house.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

It just was so loud and thunderous. Yes. And then I went out there and I. There's a full mirror in my bathroom.

[Dax Shepard]

Like, size of the whole wall.

[Monica Padman]

Size of the entire wall mirror completely crashed all over the ground.

[Dax Shepard]

I didn't say it last night, but there's gotta be a couple hundred years of bad luck. I mean, that's a. That's an enormous mirror. If One little mirror.

[Monica Padman]

Why would you say that? That's a crazy thing to say to me.

[Dax Shepard]

I was looking at it. I was like, oh, there's so many broken shards. There's so much broken mirror.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. So that sucked.

[Dax Shepard]

It's because. Right. You had a sink.

[Monica Padman]

A temporary sink.

[Dax Shepard]

A temporary sink.

[Monica Padman]

I had a temporary sink in. And they had taken it out yesterday to put in the new. The real sink. Prepare it for that, like today or tomorrow or Monday or whatever. And that sink was.

[Dax Shepard]

They underestimated how much that sink was holding up the mirror.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. I have a really interesting pickle. I. I have to go really quickly to sign something.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Is that okay? Yeah.

[Darby Saxbe]

Or I won't get it.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I didn't have to sign it, actually.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, you didn't.

[Monica Padman]

Oh. But I caught him.

[Dax Shepard]

What was it?

[Monica Padman]

A DHL package.

[Dax Shepard]

But what was in the packy boots

[Monica Padman]

that I got from an auction? The auction.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay. You were involved in a boudox.

[Monica Padman]

Well, I went to Lake's auction.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, right, right, right, right.

[Monica Padman]

And I won these boots I just got delivered. And you normally have to sign for dhl.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, they are strict about that. But not.

[Monica Padman]

He started running. He was already in his. The van was on. He had to do this.

[Dax Shepard]

You were waving your arms.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

You're like, I am. Here, I can sign.

[Darby Saxbe]

You didn't need it.

[Monica Padman]

He said, I left it at the door.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So it's been delivered.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't want to interact with you. It's already delivered.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Back to your mirror.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

You took it really well.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Oh, I. As I said, I'm privileged. I'm very privileged because I. Well, first I called or I texted my dad Bill, and my Uncle Joe, and I said, well, this just happened. Think. Must have been doing more than given water. Exactly. And Bill called. He's just like, oh, my God. You know, he was. And he was very sorry. And. And same with Joe. And I was just laughing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, good.

[Monica Padman]

It just really. But again, that is very privileged. I mean, at first I looked at it and I was like, oh, what? How do I do this? How do I clean this up?

[Dax Shepard]

Exactly. Exactly. You know, you're. You're in the sweet spot of. They just finished your house, so they're gonna respond. Yeah. They're finishing it.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Where it gets dicey is like, in one year, if that mirror falls off. Right. Or in three years, like, at what point do these builders are no longer responsible?

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, in 15 years. And that's. That's where my story takes place.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. So, yes. I thought, well, I wish I had a husband here who would deal with this, but I don't. So I just told Joe. I was like, I'm just leaving it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I'm just gonna leave it. He said, yes, leave it. We'll take care of it tomorrow.

[Dax Shepard]

Perfect.

[Monica Padman]

And so, yeah, that's extremely privileged. I had. I knew I really wasn't gonna have to deal with it. I, of course, am having to deal with it in other ways. Now we need new mirror. Now we need. You know, it's. That's a whole annoying to do. He just texted me, very sim.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my gosh.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

It was just very startling. Very Loud, Scary. Very scary.

[Dax Shepard]

Thank God you weren't in there popping a zit or.

[Monica Padman]

Right. Or even on the toilet.

[Darby Saxbe]

It.

[Monica Padman]

I mean, it was. It was.

[Dax Shepard]

Glass was everywhere.

[Monica Padman]

Everywhere. And your child and her friends had come over like, 20 minutes before this,

[Dax Shepard]

that they might have caused it with their energy.

[Monica Padman]

They had crazy energy.

[Dax Shepard]

Sleepover. Three of them, teenagers. They fucking all got in these crazy outfits. They painted their whole face. And I so relate to this. This was me at this age. They just wanted to go out and make a little noise, you know, they wanted to stir up the war in

[Monica Padman]

trouble, but really not. Not really.

[Dax Shepard]

They're not ready to. Yeah, they got a response that they should get.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, they didn't.

[Dax Shepard]

And then they were like, these boys are crazy. I'm like, girls, look at yourself.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you think.

[Monica Padman]

Would you think you were just going to.

[Dax Shepard]

Like, people were going to just not notice?

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. They all look, like, rainbow bright or something.

[Monica Padman]

They look nuts. It was really cute and fun. They came over, and I did think, oh, my God, what if one of those kids was in the bathroom when that happened? And then I get sued.

[Dax Shepard]

What if I sued you? Yeah, you sued me, but you took yours. Well, I was really impressed with how chill you were about it. Yeah, I.

[Monica Padman]

Again, that's privilege.

[Dax Shepard]

It is privilege. In my journal this morning, I wrote, I am dying under the weight of my possessions because we were in Nashville last weekend, and I really went there because I had a boat lift installed in my dock so that I can get my boat out of the water and it doesn't get all gunked and fucked up. Yeah, they put it in. It's too shallow. Boat got stuck on the thing. Going to my bus to get something. The bus inverters have collapsed. This is huge. The inverters have stopped. All the batteries have now collapsed. That's a huge project and not cheap. The whole weekend was like, I came to just fix one thing, and I left with, like, eight things I had to fix the fucking. Yeah. I'm not gonna bore you with the list, but while we were there, the sprinkler fire suppression system in Kristen's office started leaking.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

And it's hardwood. Right in front of that.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

It warped. All the wood ran down. The plaster wall fucked that all up. It's all pushed out. Out. They had to tear out all the wood. You know, it sucks. It's.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it sucks.

[Dax Shepard]

And then it gives you this anxiety. It's like, I don't know. The fucking thing leaked that time. What? It's only a year old. Or two years old. Is it going to leak again in two years? Where we'll be out, you know, whatever. So I'm already like stressed to the max.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Go to bed last night I was up pretty late researching our guests. Today 3:00am Kristen. No, maybe Delta got sent upstairs. Dad, come downstairs, there's water leaking out of the sink ceiling at 3am, go down into the bedroom they're sleeping in. Sure enough There's a like 36 inch slice in the drywall in the ceiling and it's just leaking water out. I'm like, where the fuck is that water coming from? I like step outside, I'm looking. Oh, my room's above it, but it's is my bathroom. No, I think my dresser's above that. Pull a panel out of the ceiling, realize, oh, the air conditioned coil system is in there. Oh, it has sprung a leak and it's spraying water. Water. And it's three in the morning and you're like, okay, how do I shut all this down? Like turning the air off. It's still not shutting off. Then I'm hitting the breaker. Now the whole, all the air is off and it's still leaking. And we buckets under the thing and it's three and I'm like, I gotta wake up at six to drive Delta to school. And I got back in bed, I was like, listen, it's a dream known a home.

[Monica Padman]

It is.

[Dax Shepard]

And it's also, it's stressful. By the time I laid down at 4:30 in the morning to go back to sleep, I was like, I'm gonna move into a one bedroom apartment the second these girls are out of school and I'm gonna have no worries.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

But that's not true.

[Monica Padman]

Nope.

[Dax Shepard]

Because I want all the upside. But sometimes when it rains, it pours.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Two ceiling leaks.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

In a week with massive damage.

[Monica Padman]

That sucks.

[Dax Shepard]

I wouldn't feel bad for me, I have too much. That's what I was kind of saying this morning. I was like, yeah, you got, you have too much.

[Monica Padman]

I know. Yeah, it is. You know, I just, I so rarely feel like, oh, I wish. And not even necessarily like I wish I had a husband. I mean that was the joke. That's a joke I made on Instagram. But like, I wish somebody else was here right now. I don't feel that all that often, but I did in, in moments like that you do wish somebody else was around.

[Dax Shepard]

Uh huh. That's what it activates.

[Monica Padman]

I mean a little nothing crazy. I texted Jess, but he's, he would have Come over. But he's in Texas.

[Dax Shepard]

Uh huh. And also, what's he gonna do?

[Monica Padman]

I know. It's not about that.

[Dax Shepard]

It's not about that.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it's not.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm back in my male way of thinking, like, what can I fix?

[Monica Padman]

Not about that. It's just about sharing the experience.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, you ready for this? This was from commenter CB912077, MD. Here, the women. The reason women often have diarrhea when they are starting their periods is due to the release of progesterone. No prostaglandins.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Which cause smooth muscle contraction in the uterus, but also cause smooth muscle in the intestines to contract.

[Monica Padman]

Interesting.

[Dax Shepard]

So we got an MD answering your belly issues every time you're on your periax.

[Monica Padman]

Wow. Then how come everyone doesn't have it? Not everyone has that.

[Dax Shepard]

Maybe they're being secretive about it and they're too shy. Maybe they're embarrassed that they have bottom issues when they have their.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

Thought you'd want that update. It's not you, it's the protagonist. Yeah, that's causing it.

[Monica Padman]

It's still in me though, you know?

[Dax Shepard]

I mean, it's still happening to you, but I know it's nothing to happen me.

[Monica Padman]

It's still me who's gross. It's still me who's gonna poop in my car. I can't just be like, well, it's the prolactin.

[Dax Shepard]

That's what I just tell people. Like if you were in your car doing it and someone saw you, like, oh girl. You're like, wait, it's a prolactin.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

What?

[Dax Shepard]

Blame them.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Judgmental.

[Monica Padman]

I think the first time it happened was also around that. I do think it was sort of connected to my period.

[Dax Shepard]

So you just want to. I think you want to be mindful of your calendar for your flies and not do a lot of big cross time appointments. Like just try to on those three days, just go like, I never am more num. The PMS symptoms are for a full week.

[Monica Padman]

Mine are.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so for that week we never. We never get more than a mile away from home.

[Monica Padman]

No, I can't.

[Dax Shepard]

You can't live like that.

[Monica Padman]

I can't live like that.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, then put a trash bag in your car. Are you excited for summer? Kids are getting out of school. Not mine, but many kids are out.

[Monica Padman]

Well, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Lincoln got out. Delta still in you.

[Monica Padman]

I am so excited for summer. When I was this morning, your child, as previously mentioned, was wrapping up her sleepover. It was so cute. And they were playing outside Summertime for them. And Anna was there and I was like, man, I'm so jealous. I'm so jealous of them right now.

[Dax Shepard]

But what specifically?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it's the. It's the level of carefree. You are never gonna have it again.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah. The kids know the ceiling's all fucked up, but they're not worried about that. They have.

[Monica Padman]

It's not on their plate to worry about for two months.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, you know what they do have to worry about? That'd be easy to like under. To misremember how powerful it is. The amount of angst and preoccupation they have about who's going to whose birthday party and what rung of that ladder matter. Like, I got to drive everyone to dinner last. Not everyone. I got to drive the three teens to dinner and I was hearing them in the backseat. My favorite thing in the world is to drive them places with their friends because they forget I'm there and I stomach round.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, it wasn't a fart. Oh, yeah. I sent you a picture of the mirror and you said, what happened? Did you finally fart? And I did laugh really hard. That was very funny. Okay. Anyway, they were in your back seat.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And just. You do forget the amount of anxiety that, that you were carrying about all the social pressure.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, that is true.

[Dax Shepard]

That's at a peak. And you and I aren't sit. Like this just happened. Right. You were like, oh, you're going to the Hansen's Memorial Day party. I'm like, oh, I wasn't invited. And you're like, I'm sure you were. And then we both. We both looked and we, we hadn't been sent the invite. That. That never happened. Kristen didn't have it and I didn't have it. It was just a mix up.

[Monica Padman]

But it's not because your name was showed up on my. On. On the list. You can see who's been invited. And both of you were invited.

[Dax Shepard]

Was it through Evite?

[Monica Padman]

I don't know.

[Dax Shepard]

Where did you see my name? Like on the group email or on Evite?

[Monica Padman]

On the. On the paperless post, Whatever.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So that never. That never got to me.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. It might be in your spam.

[Dax Shepard]

No, no, I looked. I looked everywhere. I. I don't. It did not get to me. For whatever reason.

[Monica Padman]

You're going to have to take this up with Amy because she's like, yeah, I sent it to them.

[Dax Shepard]

I believe that.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

All the, all of it's true. She sent it. It didn't come. So maybe I've blocked paperless post or.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Whatever the reason is, I didn't have it. And I searched everywhere.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

And. And Kristen didn't have it.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

So neither of us had it. And I was like, oh, maybe we weren't invited. And literally we're like, okay, that's fine. Truck along. If I was 13.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And we hadn't been invited, it would rattle me. And now I'm like, yeah, if I'm not, someone doesn't want me at a party. Fine.

[Monica Padman]

That's still rare.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure. I'm only saying I used to be plagued by, where am I? Who invited me? What am I missing out on? So that's an anxiety I had.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And although we don't have playing on the trampoline. What I have that offset that was like, it doesn't bother me if I'm not invited to the Hanson party. For whatever reason they thought there's too many people or whatever they thought. I'm fine with it.

[Monica Padman]

But don't you think, like, this is interesting, but I guess I feel like maybe I wish you did care. Like, I mean, you were invited, so this is why I can. I can do this thought experiment is like, if all of a sudden they stopped inviting you to things. If they stopped inviting me to things, I would. I would be like, what ha. What happened? These are my close friends that I used to be invited to all of their things. If they decided to stop, that means something has happened. I've done something. Or they. Something's gone on, and I care about these people, so I'd like to figure out what it is.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And I'm at a place in life where I don't have the thought of, like, what happened? What did I do? My all. My only thought is, like, whatever reason they didn't want to invite me is kind of. I don't care. It's none of my business. They decided for whatever reason, not to invite me. I know we haven't had a falling out. I know nothing weird's happened. I'm sure I'm going to see him next. Next week. I'm not. I'm not doing any of that stuff where I think, like, something must be wrong. I'm just like, oh, whatever, you have a party. You didn't invite me. I have parties. I invite some people, and I don't invite all people. There's no comment on whether I want to be friends with those people or not. It's just like on that day, I had these four people over And I don't know if you saw it on Instagram and you're upset and you're filling in all these blanks that there's issues now, that's the all on you.

[Monica Padman]

Well. Well, again, that's where I disagree. But, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I guess all I'm saying is I now, at 51, have the internal security of. I'm not really worried about thinking about what I'm not invited to. And if someone doesn't want me to be at their party, that's totally fine with me. I don't want to be at someone's party that didn't want me.

[Monica Padman]

But it's deeper than just being at the party.

[Darby Saxbe]

It's.

[Monica Padman]

Is this relationship good? And if you value the relationship, I would think you'd want it to be good.

[Dax Shepard]

If I text Amy and she didn't get back to me, and then I text her again and she didn't get back to me. Now I'd be concerned because we have a personal relationship that we. We respond to each other. If I don't go to one of her parties, that's not how I'm evaluating whether we're connected or not or we have a good friendship. It's more when I reach out to you, do you respond? Do we reciprocate? Are we good? Whether I'm at your birthday party or your Halloween party, I don't know. That's not what I came for.

[Monica Padman]

All right. Right. Right. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So, anyways, I'm just saying I think I have other concerns and worries, but I've also been completely liberated from a big bunch of concerns that used to bother me.

[Monica Padman]

Well, I just thought, like, oh, man, they just have nothing. They have nothing to think about for two months. Nothing hanging over their head. No homework, no work. Even if you don't have work for two months, it's like, when will I ever. When I get back to work, what are we gonna have to do? Will I ever work again? What is. Like. It's. There's a lot of thinking about the future when you're an adult, and that doesn't. I don't think that ends. And then. Yeah, you just. You don't get those. Those summers back. You don't get those summers back. So I was jealous, but I'm also so happy for her, and it looked so fun. And sleepovers are so fun, and I miss them.

[Dax Shepard]

I do a lot of playing in the sun. Like, I feel I said this to you out in the yard. I feel like them in the summer.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

Like, I have that Sense of, I'm waking up and today I'm gonna play with my friends in. My play's different. I'm, like, on a boat instead of a trampoline, or I'm on a dirt bike in my yard, or I'm playing pickleball. Whatever it is, I do have that sense of, like, oh, it's. It's playtime.

[Monica Padman]

That's good. Yeah, that's great.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Wanna do some facts?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, let's do some facts.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. Darby Saxby. Doesn't it sound like that could be a character in a fun English.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, it sounds like it's from. Well, it sounds like it's from Flight of the Conchords because Darby is. Is one of the actors on that show.

[Dax Shepard]

But I'm more picturing like a little girl in a rain slicker in London.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it's cute, Darby.

[Dax Shepard]

Sexy.

[Monica Padman]

It is.

[Dax Shepard]

Meet Darby Sexby. She loves her parents, but not her Uncle Mike.

[Monica Padman]

What did our Uncle Mike.

[Dax Shepard]

Uncle Mike is a chimney sweep who gets dusties all over her favorite stuffies.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

See, now we got a story.

[Monica Padman]

I bought it. I want to know more.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, well, how will she address this situation?

[Monica Padman]

More about Darby. But, you know, she's gonna be mean to her Uncle Mike, and his Uncle Mike's just sweeping a chimney and then

[Dax Shepard]

wants to play with her stuffies because he's long. That's what she's gonna figure out.

[Darby Saxbe]

Compassion.

[Monica Padman]

She's gonna learn compassion for Uncle Mike by the end. Yeah, hopefully. It's like three or four books.

[Dax Shepard]

Her stuff. You'll tell her we don't mind getting dirty if it's to keep someone happy and feeling loved. And she's gonna give her Uncle Mike a big hug at the end. Oh, and he's gonna go, oh, Darby, I wasn't expecting that. You've never given me a hug. And she's gonna hug him, and then he's gonna cry with such joy that the tears will wash away all the

[Monica Padman]

soot, all the dirt. Oh, I love that ending.

[Dax Shepard]

It's a tear. Tear bath.

[Monica Padman]

Listen, the one thing, though, I don't like about that story is that the stuffies are. Are like they are being codependent.

[Dax Shepard]

Only if they mind.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, but they're covered.

[Dax Shepard]

You're projecting.

[Monica Padman]

No, they're covered in dirt.

[Dax Shepard]

But they're stuffies. Like, they don't care. Like, the dirtier, the better.

[Monica Padman]

They know Darby doesn't like it, and they know, like, it itches them.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I don't know.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, dirt itches.

[Dax Shepard]

If you're. Yeah. If you're an animal and you have dermis. These is stuffies.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. But they talk. So, you know. So we're playing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they have feelings, like, physical and emotional.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

You know, one time I got dirt.

[Dax Shepard]

Unless.

[Monica Padman]

Tea? No. Stuck. Okay. This is so gross. I'm sure I've told you that. I got dirt stuck in my neck.

[Dax Shepard]

I thought you're talking about your stuffies, but you're. This whole time you've been talking about yourself. You're. Okay, I gotta rewind. You don't like hugging chimney sweeps. You don't like. I got it.

[Monica Padman]

No, I'm saying. I'm saying I feel for these stuffies because I know what it's like to have dirt.

[Dax Shepard]

Dirt stuck in your neck. How did that happen? And it couldn't be cleaned. How long was this dirty? You had a dirty neck for a while.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

How long? What's going on? What happened to your neck?

[Monica Padman]

Okay. Um. I was like 10 or 11 or. God, I hope not 12.

[Darby Saxbe]

And.

[Monica Padman]

And I was at my. We were at a family event, my grandparents house. And my mom was like, looked at me and was like, what's on? Something like, what's wrong with you? Something was like wrong with my neck.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Now I have a huge crease across my neck. I. I've had it, like high cholesterol since I was a baby.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

I hate it.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

But I've always had it. And it was really dark.

[Dax Shepard]

You had been accumulating some dirt and lint and stuff in the fold.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. That's natural.

[Monica Padman]

They all laughed at me because they realized it was dirt. You know, she was nervous. Like she came over.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah, exactly.

[Monica Padman]

And then she's. She's touching it and dirt's coming out, getting everywhere probably.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Like all the stuffies, you know? And then they all laughed at me. And I didn't clean my neck. And I have to clean my neck. Monica, you got to clean your neck. And I was really embarrassed. I probably cried. I'm sure. I'm sure I cried.

[Dax Shepard]

Have you seen this video of Malala talking to quote, Indian mom?

[Monica Padman]

I don't think so.

[Dax Shepard]

It's so great. It's like. Or an Indian therapist. And Malala's like, yes. So I got shot. Okay. I'm hearing you got shot. A lot of people get shot. Shot,

[Monica Padman]

like not taking it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Everything she says is like, stop being a baby.

[Darby Saxbe]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And that might be your fault.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And it sounds to me like a lot of poor me, you know, just

[Monica Padman]

Stop being a victim.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so funny. You've not seen this clip?

[Monica Padman]

No, I haven't.

[Dax Shepard]

That's really good. I'm trying to think who sent it to me.

[Monica Padman]

That's very funny. Yeah. You know, my mom will do that. She. For a long time, if, like, I complained about something that was, like, from them.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

You know, she would be like, when are you going to. Like, when are you going to understand your own person? Like, we're not basically, like, we're not responsible for any of your damage.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Which, like, I lie.

[Dax Shepard]

Respect it.

[Monica Padman]

I guess. I get it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

But she did laugh at me when I had dirt on my neck and probably because I was taking a bath by myself way too young.

[Dax Shepard]

That's what you think. And you didn't know to clean that crease?

[Monica Padman]

No one taught me.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Who's supposed to teach me?

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I bet you're. I bet that crease has never been dirty again.

[Monica Padman]

That is right now. It's all dried up in there.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you actually soap that? Yeah, I do to this day.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. I wash my neck. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

I can't risk walking around with dirt. Neck again.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't wash my neck.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, you don't have a crease.

[Dax Shepard]

I've had so lucky.

[Monica Padman]

It's not the same.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Darby Saxbe]

Rob, do you have a crease?

[Dax Shepard]

I don't think so.

[Monica Padman]

So unfair. Well, this is actually ding, ding, ding, since it's for Darby and that's parenting.

[Dax Shepard]

Dads. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Dads. Yeah. My dad, I don't think laughed at me.

[Dax Shepard]

He didn't even see it.

[Monica Padman]

He did not see it. They're like, look. And he's like, I don't see anything.

[Dax Shepard]

Exactly.

[Monica Padman]

That's where I get my. That's probably where I get my non.

[Dax Shepard]

Sherlock would say my powers of observation. So you'd have to say, like, my deficit of observation maybe or something.

[Monica Padman]

But I'd like to. I'd like to twist it and make it positive. Like, that's where I get my just non. Judgment judgment.

[Dax Shepard]

My nonchalance.

[Monica Padman]

My laissez faire or nonchalant. But I don't make judgments about people because I can't see what to judge. So that's cool thing about me. Okay, you said that we've diagnosed like, six neurotransmitters. Scientists have identified over 200 neurotransmitters, which are the body's chemical messengers.

[Darby Saxbe]

So.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. Brain rules for babies. You guys read. You said a child will make 60 or 70% of relationships worse. In Brain Rules for Baby, author John Medina notes that more than 80% of marriages experience a significant drop in relationship satisfaction after a child is born.

[Dax Shepard]

Even better. But 80%.

[Monica Padman]

John Gottman, who we love. He highlights 67 to 70% of couples see the quality of their relationship plummet within the first three years of baby's life.

[Dax Shepard]

People just need to have that warning.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Darby Saxbe]

It's good to know.

[Dax Shepard]

And they should know. It'll pass.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. When you're in it, you don't think it's going to pass.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

You're like, what have. We've traded this for that for sure.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Darby Saxbe]

Oh.

[Monica Padman]

Percentage of men who rate having children as a high priority or like, highest priority. So this says about 57% of men ages 18 to 34 want to have children one day, according to a Pew Research Research center poll. Surprisingly, this means men are now more likely to prioritize having kids than women who report a desire for children at 45% in the same age group. Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

This whole world is flipped.

[Monica Padman]

Flippy flip.

[Dax Shepard]

Women in College at 65%. The boys want to have kids.

[Monica Padman]

Well, it's all connected. I think all of that is connected because if you're in college, as a woman, you have big career aspirations. You're not thinking about having kids. You're thinking about doing. Doing that. Interesting. Now, studies on men having daughters. Yes. Research suggests that having daughters increases the life expectancy of fathers. But the opposite is true for mothers.

[Dax Shepard]

Did say that.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

They live less long with daughters.

[Monica Padman]

Come on, listen. It says for father. Studies, including landmark research published in the American Journal of Human Biology, show that a father's lifespan increases by an average of 74 weeks for every daughter he has. Has.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So that's about one point. Whatever I said.

[Monica Padman]

Sons were found to have no significant impact on a father's longevity.

[Dax Shepard]

Why?

[Monica Padman]

Researchers theorize that having daughters may lead men to adopt healthier lifestyle choices, taking fewer risks, and build stronger emotional support networks. Additionally, adult daughters are traditionally more likely to provide care and support as their parents age. That's interesting. You can read more about the research.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, they used to. This new crop.

[Monica Padman]

We'll see.

[Dax Shepard]

I just don't have kids. I doubt they're going to be around for that.

[Monica Padman]

For mothers, the physical toil of having children impacts mothers differently. Research shows that mothers experience a reduction in lifespan of about 95 weeks per child, regardless of whether the child is a son or a daughter. The cost is largely attributed to the biological and energetic demands of pregnancy and lactation. Interesting. So my dad got 74 more weeks for me, but he didn't get any for my bro.

[Dax Shepard]

And your mom lost 180 some weeks.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, yeah, your mom lost.

[Dax Shepard]

That's. That's four years.

[Monica Padman]

On Elizabeth and Andy's podcast recently, they were talking about this, like, when you start counting how many months you have left.

[Dax Shepard]

No, it's not a fun. It's not a good idea.

[Monica Padman]

It's not a good idea.

[Dax Shepard]

No, no, you don't even need to do.

[Monica Padman]

Let's not do it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I already did it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I know. I know that.

[Monica Padman]

All right, well, that's it. Darby didn't have many facts, and it was a great episode. I hope men listen and women listen, because I hate. This is going to sound like woman bashing or mom bashing, and I don't mean to do that, but I do think moms should realize the impact of kids on fathers. Like, it's not. Not having an impact on them.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, well, there's, like, there's upsides and downsides of the stereotype that the. That the dad isn't even relevant. He's not naturally apparent.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

So it's like they get out of a bunch of shit they shouldn't get out of.

[Monica Padman]

All right. I guess. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But then also they get denied all this lovely stuff and.

[Monica Padman]

Well.

[Dax Shepard]

And also they're seen as a totally expendable. Which is not a nice thing to be seen. No, it's not like what you want and.

[Monica Padman]

But it's not even like, you know, I do think moms, for a lot of obvious reasons and understandable reasons, do a lot of like. Well, it's a default me, which it often is, but it can be changed, is the whole point. Like, I think it's important for everyone to listen into this.

[Dax Shepard]

I do think this is changing pretty rapidly.

[Monica Padman]

Yes. Again, because of women in the workforce. Because my dad dropped me off. He would drop me off at school

[Dax Shepard]

on Monday and pick me up on Friday.

[Monica Padman]

Yep. No, he would drop me off at school and we would listen to that rain song.

[Dax Shepard]

Be Gabriel.

[Monica Padman]

No, it's like rainbows and sun.

[Dax Shepard]

Rainbows.

[Monica Padman]

No, not that one. That's Kermit. This one is. Is like.

[Dax Shepard]

No, that's Rainbow Connection.

[Monica Padman]

I love Rainbow Connection.

[Dax Shepard]

Peggy Lee, how does that go? I don't know.

[Monica Padman]

Sunshine. Rainbows.

[Dax Shepard]

Sunshine. Lollipops and Rainbows by Leslie Gore.

[Monica Padman]

I see that. Sunshine after the rain or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's this. Let's listen.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow. You and your dad were having fun.

[Monica Padman]

It's not that.

[Dax Shepard]

Fuck. Yeah. Can you imagine you were trying to keep a low profile. If I saw the one Indian family in my school pull up and the door open, that song was fucking blasting. And I was 10, I would just have to fill in so many wrong assumptions, like, oh, wow, Indians love dance music.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, well, I forget the song. That's sad. That was our song.

[Dax Shepard]

I wonder if you called him. He won't know, right?

[Monica Padman]

I bet he'll remember.

[Dax Shepard]

You think so?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, he listen with his little do tbd.

[Dax Shepard]

I think about that daily because I'm nearing the end of drop off. Delta's drop off. Elementary school drop off. And we ride the motorcycle every morning, which means I'm guaranteed to have my koala backpack on a. Every morning.

[Monica Padman]

You wear her backpack? Backpack.

[Dax Shepard]

I wear her as a backpack. She's sitting behind me and she's, like, holding on to me like she's a koala bear.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And we talk while we're riding.

[Monica Padman]

It's hard to hear.

[Dax Shepard]

She just gives me squeezes and so, like, I'm excited to not have to be out the door at the same time every day.

[Monica Padman]

You're gonna miss.

[Dax Shepard]

But I, I. It's. It's. Yeah. As much as I don't like getting up and having to deal with it, I absolutely cherish that every day of my week starts. Starts with my koala bear on my back.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

I love it.

[Monica Padman]

Kids will break your heart.

[Dax Shepard]

They'll make your heart, and then they'll break it.

[Monica Padman]

That's right.

[Dax Shepard]

Love you.

[Monica Padman]

Love you.