Speaker 1: 0:00

I don't know what that is. It sounds like I'm about to cry. I'm not. I'm not. I'm happy. Are you about to cry you?

Speaker 2: 0:06

look like you're about to cry.

Speaker 1: 0:08

Actually, if you kind of act like you're going to cry. You kind of do, kind of start to cry, you're going to cry Bro.

Speaker 2: 0:14

Oh dude, are you going to cry right now? Are you going to cry right now? No, oh my God, that's embarrassing.

Speaker 1: 0:22

A guy taught me how to cry Like an actor.

Speaker 2: 0:26

Punching me in the face so many times, he was like no, I gave you something to cry about.

Speaker 1: 0:32

That's right. That's what actors generally do. There's just like someone comes up and just punches him, this guy shows up.

Speaker 2: 0:36

He opens the door. I'm here to teach you how to cry. Oh man, that is maybe the scariest introduction possible.

Speaker 1: 0:55

So this guy was telling me how to cry theatrically and he was like the way you have to cry is you have to try to stop yourself from crying while pushing to cry, Because that's the way people cry.

Speaker 2: 1:08

They don't, just they don't just oh.

Speaker 1: 1:11

They go like I just don't want to cry, but I'm crying anyways.

Speaker 2: 1:16

And then he's like that's how you look good, like an acting way to cry, yeah, like if you're on screen or on stage, you're trying to like think of something to make you cry and then stop Right.

Speaker 1: 1:25

You have to like be. It's like a push pull at the same time, then you look really like you're crying.

Speaker 2: 1:32

Welcome everybody. Hi, this is Solutions for the Multiverse. I'm Scott Moppen, I'm from Browse and we come here every week with a new podcast for your ears.

Speaker 1: 1:42

Every week we have a new solution.

Speaker 2: 1:44

What do we got today?

Speaker 1: 1:46

Today's solution is just I've been really thinking about it a long time, Like at least two weeks. Is that good or bad?

Speaker 2: 1:52

Very intensely. Does a long cooking time make a solution better or worse?

Speaker 1: 1:58

Oh better, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like a fine wine, just like sitting in its cask.

Speaker 2: 2:04

You like to cook a fine wine before you drink it. Like to boil it up, put it on the back burner. Hot wine, actually hot wine isn't. Well, glue wine.

Speaker 1: 2:14

Yeah, if you do like a spice spiced wine Mould, they call it mold. We don't call anything else mold. Do you mull anything?

Speaker 2: 2:22

Oh, you mull an idea. That's what I'm doing.

Speaker 1: 2:24

I'm mulling the wine, I'm mulling the idea, the solution, yeah, okay. So here, this is a little bit of a complex one because, you know, we require all solutions to be new, like either completely out of the mainstream or entirely new. It's a requirement. It's a hard requirement. It is a hard requirement because what are we going to do? Come in here and be like, oh, we should have, you know, you should recycle. It's like everyone, you know, people know all that already. We need, you know, we need new solutions.

Speaker 2: 2:48

All right, I'll scratch that one off my list. No, recycle is dead. Oh, you were going to come and do recycling. That was my big idea for the next episode.

Speaker 1: 2:56

Okay, so this is a new idea, but the solution is not new, but the why is extremely new.

Speaker 1: 3:02

Okay, okay, so the solution is just people have probably heard of this already which is universal maternity, paternity paid leave for everyone. Yes, I have heard of this, yes, yes, and maybe you get like you know there's maybe you get like six months of it per parent and it's use it or lose it. So the man and the woman both need to either take time off or not, but it's not like all the woman who gets the time off and the man doesn't, which then create these imbalances in women's pain and careers and it's not fair.

Speaker 2: 3:34

So that would be the kind of, that would be the suggestion that what you're saying is like the way it is now, when you, when we have in America, anyway, when you have a kid, the parental leave is zero. The maternal leave is zero, but it's more accepted. But like frowned on, it's like you better get that done as soon as you can, or whatever.

Speaker 1: 3:53

Yeah, yeah. And you're saying something in other countries they do, like six months maternity leave, yeah, but they don't do paternity leave, which then makes it so that, even though that's great because mother gets to be home with baby, it's not great because it sets this default. Then the market responds by saying oh well, we're not going to pay mothers as much, we're not going to hire as many mothers because they're going to take six months off and be paid.

Speaker 2: 4:19

Right.

Speaker 1: 4:20

It puts a career cost on having a child for women but not for men, and this is an interesting thing people can look up if they want the wage, the wage pay gap that people talk about, like 70, say 6 cents on the dollar. Like women get paid 76 on the dollar to make for the same job Right.

Speaker 1: 4:40

Turns out that that's not actually true. Not in the sense that it's basically women get paid. Women with no children get paid roughly the same as men, like 98%, like within spitting distance, Okay. But mothers get paid only 58 cents per dollar for the same job as men and women who don't have children.

Speaker 2: 5:04

So if you split it not along the lines of men and women, but along the lines of moms versus not moms, then it even gets worse the disparities. Well, that is the disparity, yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:15

There is no disparity between women with no children, because basically Capitalism is like, if you don't have children and you can sacrifice your whole life to capitalism, we'll pay you more. And if you can't, then we'll pay you a lot like half as much. And so if you give maternal and paternal paternity, paternity paternal leave, and it's use it or lose it, so the man can't like transfer it to the woman he either has to use it or it's gone Then both the man and the woman are going to be like we both are taking six months off, or he'll, or she'll take six months, and he'll take six months. And now the career. The career penalty is fair. The hit is distributed evenly across both parents Right.

Speaker 1: 5:55

So that's kind of like that's everyone's heard this already. This isn't a new idea.

Speaker 2: 5:59

Maybe this kind of I didn't hear, I haven't heard a position like yeah, you have to.

Speaker 1: 6:01

You have to do that. If you just give maternal leave, you, you, you preserve, you, you increase the equity, you know, you improve child outcomes and parental outcomes, but you, you still give a hit to the mother folk. This is something the union of moms could fight for. Yeah and so okay, but this isn't the solution. This is just sort of what everyone knows already. You said it was a solution. Well, this is the solution, but the why is what makes it new? Okay, okay. So hit me with a why. Okay, are you familiar with? Do you think?

Speaker 1: 6:31

okay, so have you heard that there's a mental health crisis in the United States?

Speaker 2: 6:36

I have heard that yeah, okay, yeah, okay. So let's talk about this. When people are trying to deflect from the gun violence crisis, oh God, but that's the separate. Thing.

Speaker 1: 6:49

Yeah, yeah. And well, I'll just say right off the bat people who commit mass shootings are not crazy. There's a letter from the American Academy of Psychiatrists. No, I can link to it in the show notes. The American Academy of Psychiatrists have written a joint letter saying people who do mass shootings the vast majority but 95% of them are not psychotic.

Speaker 2: 7:16

You're not here being like these guys have some good ideas. No, that's the thing but it's important.

Speaker 1: 7:19

No, but it's no, exactly. They're in the common parlance.

Speaker 2: 7:22

You're out, you're these guys out Half the audience.

Speaker 1: 7:24

Two thirds of the audience just said this guy's crazy. Of course they're crazy. They have to be crazy. They went and killed people. The point is psychiatrists are saying they're not mentally ill. That's important right.

Speaker 1: 7:39

Cause, then if you really wanna end what's going on, you have to know what's going on. And if experts are saying they're not crazy and then Congress people who are not psychiatrists are saying they're crazy, the Congress people are wrong and the psychiatrists are right, and so you have to wind back. So what are they? Well, they're people with really bad ideas, really really bad, destructive, violent ideas, right, but they're not mentally ill, they're not schizophrenic, they're not manic depressive, they're not right, they don't have a mental illness.

Speaker 2: 8:08

How are we gonna link this back to paternity leave?

Speaker 1: 8:10

Well, I just wanted to share that because I think it's important to get that out there, cause all the even good news like I watch, good news, like breaking points they'll throw out. I love breaking points.

Speaker 2: 8:19

Oh, you were just, that was just a separate thing. You were just like those people are not crazy. Yeah, that's just a separate thing.

Speaker 1: 8:24

That was a side track. They're not crazy. They are. They are human beings, are just hyper violent creatures. If you put them the right, the wrong ideas in their head and they'll go and murder a bunch of people, that's just human nature. It's not crazy, which is terrifying, but it's true and so you have to. You know so. Then it gets back to gun control Again. If we remove the their crazy narrative, it's only gun control. That's the only thing you can go back to, or eliminating political extremism and other sort of extremism things you know. Anyways, just wanted to throw that out there. They're not crazy.

Speaker 2: 8:59

Okay.

Speaker 1: 9:00

It's the American Academy of Psychiatrists have definitively said, and it makes sense my mom says this all the time, she's a psychiatrist and that she's always.

Speaker 2: 9:08

She just walks around the house going those mass shooters are not crazy. Well, she's very concerned.

Speaker 1: 9:12

They are very safe yeah she's very concerned with gun violence and gun control and she's a psychiatrist and she has been for 40 years. She's a psychiatrist and she says every time when you know the news is saying, oh, there's a mass shooting, she says and they say oh, mental illness, she says they're not mentally ill.

Speaker 1: 9:29

That's a lie. The news is just lying, because they're not. They're not mentally ill. They have very bad ideas, but they're not mentally ill, anyways, okay. So mental health crisis so you've heard there's a mental health crisis. I've heard this Okay, there is. Let's add some color to this so people get a finer sense of it. So mental health crisis, it is not a mental health crisis of major mental health. So there's no increase in America of, yeah, schizophrenia, which is like the worst mental illness you can get. There's no increase in like major depression, like major, major depression. There's no increase in like, yeah, like totally debilitating, you know delusional psychosis, you know inability to I don't know all these, all the like really major, that would like really destroy your life mental illness.

Speaker 2: 10:20

That's not higher.

Speaker 1: 10:21

What's? It's only minor mental illness. So complications with PTSD. You can have major PTSD, but again that's not what's on the rise.

Speaker 2: 10:31

Just minor PTSD. You can't look at dots that are too close together because it freaks you out. Yeah, is that one? Is that one? Tryptophobia, tryptophobia yeah, that's on the rise.

Speaker 1: 10:41

And then you know anxiety, depression. I mean, these are things people are suffering with them. I'm not trying to minimize the suffering, but these things will not. You know you don't run around with your. You know, naked in the street with your pants on your head.

Speaker 2: 10:51

You know you just, you just feel like I feel bad.

Speaker 1: 10:54

I'm at work, I'm function, I'm relatively functional person, but I feel bad.

Speaker 2: 10:58

Okay, yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:59

So I'm not trying to lessen it, but I'm trying to point out what's going on so that we can try to figure out a solution. And it's going to come back to parental leave. That's going to be the solution but I'll explain why. All right, so, okay, so it's minor mental illness, not major mental illness. Okay, so what do you think is causing it? Just like what top of the dome. What would you think? Just like man on the street would say oh, it's probably caused by social media, social media.

Speaker 2: 11:25

That's right, is that it?

Speaker 1: 11:26

Yeah, is it caused by social?

Speaker 2: 11:27

media, Social media Okay here's the problem.

Speaker 1: 11:30

There is no mental health crisis anywhere else in the world, only the United States has it, they don't have social media anywhere else in the world. No, that's the problem. There is social media everywhere, but there's only a mental health crisis in.

Speaker 2: 11:41

America Sounds like blaming violence on video games.

Speaker 1: 11:43

There is a little bit of eating disorder problems that are like in France. There's like eating disorder problems and stuff.

Speaker 2: 11:50

Have they eat snails and stuff? It's like a crazy disorder. You guys are disorder. They're like just give me those snails, I'm not, I'm not. I'm not Like what an eating disorder plays an ethical.

Speaker 1: 11:58

You pull up your car. You pull up your car to the fast food thing and they're like what's your disorder?

Speaker 2: 12:04

And you're like snail oh, would you like to eat a snail? And you're like no.

Speaker 1: 12:07

And you're like this McDonald's is.

Speaker 2: 12:08

There is. They do have mental illness. Mental illness is a little At those other countries.

Speaker 1: 12:12

America has a distinct spike in mental illness in the past 10 years.

Speaker 2: 12:17

You said France has a lot of eating disorder.

Speaker 1: 12:18

They just have, they've and they've trying to fight it. They do, they try to do things to try to fight their eating disorders, but it's it's not more than it was in the past, you know, or it certainly isn't more in the past 10 years. It may be more in the past, whatever 30 or 40 years, but yeah, okay. So social media is everywhere. So what else would like? What else do you think would cause mental health crisis in America? What do you think I mean?

Speaker 2: 12:40

technologies everywhere. Computers and cell phones are everywhere.

Speaker 1: 12:43

So it's not technology Stress, okay, but like Bald Eagles?

Speaker 2: 12:48

What I mean? What else does America have Bald Eagles? Yeah, it's causing, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 12:53

Yeah, Well, I mean. So some people would say it's our work culture.

Speaker 2: 13:00

Right.

Speaker 1: 13:01

Because we have a really hardcore work culture. You know very few vacations.

Speaker 2: 13:04

Yes.

Speaker 1: 13:05

Very you know. Low pay for for for many people very low pay Lots of stress.

Speaker 2: 13:09

You're tied to your job, with your health insurance a lot of times and your your whole life security is wrapped up in debt.

Speaker 1: 13:15

Yeah, and you have a lot of like bills every day. You have to pay your insurance, you have to pay everything, whereas in other countries you're, you have six weeks vacation minimum. You know, even if you're like a service worker, you get like a minimum wage and six weeks vacation and free healthcare. So you would think, oh well, that's what's causing the mental health system. Is America or crisis? America has a crappy economic system and the Europeans have like a fantastic economic system Japanese pretty much every other modern country.

Speaker 1: 13:42

Even developing countries have universal health. Thailand has universal healthcare. You know like even Preach it to the choir. Yeah, so people would say oh well, that's what must be causing the mental health crisis. Okay, the problem is is that system has been in place for 50 years?

Speaker 2: 13:56

Okay, Right, Like since the 70s, basically things, so we would have seen this happen way earlier. Yes, and what is it?

Speaker 1: 14:03

Well, it might be. It might be Techno music, parental leave. It might be, because that's the. That's one categorical difference between America and other countries. All other countries have parental leave.

Speaker 2: 14:16

But ours doesn't change. Only America does not. It's just. Other people have instituted parental leave in other places.

Speaker 1: 14:22

No, they, no, no, they. You're right, ours hasn't changed, and theirs hasn't really changed ever since the 60s. You know, european countries had the labor movement in 60s, that our labor movement was cut off and killed Right. Their labor movement continued. So by the 80s, they had, they had secured all these benefits for workers. So what did change, though, is the number of women in the workforce. Okay, and when did it change? About 1980. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 14:51

So if you look at the demographics, which I pulled all the data for this- you have in 1955, the number of women who, after one year of giving birth, were in the workforce was only about 30%. It's like really small. Okay, that stays about level and it just ticks up. But then it's like a sea change in the 70s and 80s and by the end of the 80s it's above 60%, it's like 70%. So it's like two to three times more.

Speaker 2: 15:24

I mean, I live my life through pop culture in the 80s is when you get movies like Working Girl, where they're like imagine what if she worked or like.

Speaker 1: 15:34

Dolly.

Speaker 2: 15:34

Parton teaches me about working nine to five or all these things where it's like the movie is just like hey, what if the woman works? And it's like everyone's like what? Yeah, it's like that thing in the 80s that's right, when that was ramping up, so that would change the distribution of men to women in the workforce. And then you're saying, since the new mothers is where that real gap comes in, pay raise or not new mothers, but just mothers in general, people who choose the mother track right that.

Speaker 2: 16:02

That's where that inserted itself into our workforce.

Speaker 1: 16:05

That's when it would have happened, yeah, but the key thing is that was the 80s, right, right, okay, so then you have to be born in the 80s in order to have to be born in the 80s.

Speaker 1: 16:19

Well, let me go back a little bit. So let me go back a little bit. This is a bit of a complex idea, so everyone needs to just hang onto their seats. So remember that we're talking about not major mental illness like deadly mental illness, like schizophrenia. We're just talking about depression mild to mild to mild to medium depression, anxiety, adhd, teenage PTSD and PTSD throughout your life. And then eating disorders. Those are minor eating disorders, not like deadly ones, just like, oh, some weird complexities for the eating.

Speaker 2: 16:47

Right.

Speaker 1: 16:48

Okay, and we're also talking about the 80s Okay. Rate of mothers with children under three working doubled from 1976, 34% to 1997, 61%.

Speaker 2: 17:00

Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1: 17:01

So now let's talk about attachment theory.

Speaker 2: 17:06

Okay, okay, so I think I see where you're going. Have you heard of attachment theory?

Speaker 1: 17:10

Yeah, Okay, so do you want to tell people a little bit? Do you remember the kinds of attachment? The standard ones, isn't?

Speaker 2: 17:15

this, the one where they were doing this, is like early childhood development, and they did an experiment where they gave monkeys, like people, a what? No, there's one where they gave monkeys like a, like a mannequin, to hang out with that was covered with soft stuff and they were like nice and they gave one that was just wire and those monkeys turned out like mean without mothering or died.

Speaker 1: 17:34

or am I not in the attachment theory? Yes, that is, that is that's there's. Yes, that's like the with with monkeys. They also did experiments with humans, yes, where they would define various sort of attachment styles harder to justify raising a human child and giving it only like a code hanger as a parent and being like why don't you act normal, child?

Speaker 2: 17:55

Put some googly eyes on that code. Yeah, yes, but they've checked it out with children, right? Yeah?

Speaker 1: 18:01

So attachment theory is like probably one of the most significant discoveries about science in the last like 100 years, I think, and it keeps on showing up everywhere. So it was discovered in the 60s by the or was theorized in the 60s by this guy named Bulby, and then Bulby. People were like very skeptical of it because it was like it ran against like common parenting ideas of like stiff upper lip, you know, like a kid needs to kind of cry it out or, like you know, they need to be independent, right?

Speaker 1: 18:30

So I'm going to essentially neglect their emotional needs.

Speaker 2: 18:33

Well they're like. You don't want to spoil them by getting by being right. Right, spare the rod, spoil the child, right. They're like, if you're too much on them then you'll make them into like a weak adult as a, they'll be bad.

Speaker 1: 18:42

Right.

Speaker 2: 18:43

Oh, okay, I don't want to do that. I don't want to hug my child too much.

Speaker 1: 18:45

Exactly so. Bulby was like no, hug your child, take care of them, like if they have needs, like respond to their needs, you know, and and that will be better for their attachment and which will make them better overall. So that was discovered in the 60s and then there's been longitudinal studies done since then that have like are very conclusive, like attachment theories, like very strong. Bulby actually was a. What he was studying was in. He was English and in England it was normal that if a child went to the hospital for anything, the doctor said do not visit the child while they're in the hospital.

Speaker 2: 19:22

Isolate them away from everything that they know in a strange place. It's a little scary yeah they would say so.

Speaker 1: 19:28

They had these weird ideas like oh it will, it will interrupt their treatment if the parents are dawdling around, you know, and and the kid will want to leave and he can't leave because he needs to be treated here in the hospital.

Speaker 2: 19:41

You're filling hospitals with beds of little British children being like mommy, mommy, where is my mommy exactly?

Speaker 1: 19:47

Can't nobody's visiting them. Oh my, and Bulby was like I don't think this is a good idea and everyone was like shame, shame, bulby is an idiot you know so say rip more children from their parents. Don't listen to that Put them into locked wards in British hospitals. You know, can you imagine like 1960, 1950, you know British hospitals like probably awesome rooms, super awesome.

Speaker 2: 20:12

Nothing at all like a prison Cool.

Speaker 1: 20:15

So, anyway, he's bold as we're bold, we got this idea and then he started to actually try to back it up with like research and and then there's been other people who did stuff with like the monkeys and other stuff. Basically, people have shown that there's attachment is very important, yeah, yeah. And if you separate babies from motherhood, from mothers early on, they'll just die. Even if you give them food and and and what they need and keep them warm, they'll still die.

Speaker 2: 20:35

Like they need attachment, they need like care and, like in the in the animal kingdom, humans take a remarkably long amount of time to become independent of their parent. Like you know, horses are born and then they can like walk or whatever Like a lot of animals are set to fend for themselves from a real way earlier age than humans.

Speaker 1: 20:57

You didn't just like immediately roll over and you were born and like fashion a shiv out of whatever was. I was born.

Speaker 2: 21:03

I was born holding nunchucks and I was like, ready to go. I was like here we are, whoa, out of my way, spin a nurse nurse, cratch it out of my way.

Speaker 1: 21:12

I'm coming through Watch out Ninja baby. That's like a. That's like a code in the hospital.

Speaker 2: 21:18

Ninja baby code. Oh no, another one has been born, a ninja baby. The doctor goes in there to deliver it. There's, all of a sudden, there's a poof of smoke and the baby's gone. You turn around, you look behind you, the baby's there. You're like what happened? Like baby's, like I delivered myself.

Speaker 1: 21:34

So basically they define there's there's four types of attachment that generally emerge from different interactions people have, mainly with their mothers. It could also be with other caregivers and fathers.

Speaker 1: 21:44

As long as someone is there, being responsive to people's emotional needs, they'll gain, they'll get a better sense of attachment. One of them is just secure attachment. That's the preponderance of people in the United States, majority even are secure attached, securely attached, great. Then there's avoidant attachment, which is doesn't seem as good, not as good. It's also called is also called insecure attachment. Oh, the type of insecure attachment, avoidant. So it's avoidant, insecure or insecure, avoidant attachment. Okay, and then there's another, there's all the rest are insecure, right? There's only one way to be.

Speaker 2: 22:17

There's only one good one.

Speaker 1: 22:18

Yeah, and then all the rest are, you know, more difficult.

Speaker 2: 22:20

I thought you were going to lay a super good one on extra attachment Like no, like this is really healthy.

Speaker 1: 22:26

No there's avoidant, there's avoidant ambivalent, which actually is the preponderance of people in Japan, the majority, but the largest slice of the pie is is they're just like oh, a child. Well, the children are like whatever. Moms here, moms here.

Speaker 2: 22:43

I don't care.

Speaker 1: 22:43

I don't care if moms here or not, Like whatever. I'm fine, you know yeah. Okay, it's because the Japanese mothers are like right on the kids side constantly, and so the kid just gets, takes mom for granted and becomes ambivalent. Okay, and then avoid avoidant.

Speaker 1: 22:58

The preponderance of Germans are avoidant Because Germans have a theory of parenting which is like oh, kids need to like be independent, like tough, you know actually my nine, yeah, and then, and then the other one is so insecure, avoidant, insecure, avoidant, ambivalent, anxious, so insecure, anxious attachment, so you're anxious about where's mom, what's going on, you know, and then disorganized, which is like the worst. Disorganized is like you really don't feel like you can trust your mom cause she like sometimes takes care of you but sometimes doesn't. So sometimes you're avoidant, sometimes you're secure, sometimes you're. So it's all just like disorganized.

Speaker 2: 23:44

This would be. M&m is classically the-. M&m is desperately of disorganized attachment yes, yes, him and his mom. Okay, yes, exactly.

Speaker 1: 23:54

Probably in the 80s. He was probably born in the 80s. I don't know if his mom worked, but you know, so here's what we're getting back to. If you have, especially if you have insecure attachment, all minor mental health goes up, all of it. Men get ADHD, women get PTSD. That's generally gendered.

Speaker 2: 24:18

Okay.

Speaker 1: 24:19

Women get women and men, but predominantly women get more eating disorders if they have and this all tracks with attachment style Securely attached people are not invincible to mental illness. They can have mental illness too, but it's a strong vaccination against minor mental health is to have secure attachment Okay, and disorganized is the worst, and the amount of disorganized attachment people in the United States has only been trending up since the 80s.

Speaker 2: 24:50

So I think, yeah, I'm connecting the dots. You're saying this shift in the workforce happens in the 80s, but the mental health is like a lagging indicator. That happens because of kids who start growing up in that process, but we don't see the effects until they've matured into larger humans.

Speaker 1: 25:11

Teenagers adults.

Speaker 2: 25:14

Okay, so that would explain then why that starts, when that starts and what it is.

Speaker 1: 25:19

Yeah, and right now, the mental health crisis in the United States only affects people 45 and below. Okay, 55 year olds. Look at us and are like you guys are so weird with all your ADHD and all your OCD. This is what X-Gen people say. They're like you guys are so weird because you always are claiming you have all this mental illness. They just think we're lying.

Speaker 2: 25:41

Do you think we've fixed it and they're not gonna have it? Or they just, they're just used to it?

Speaker 1: 25:44

No, no, I'm talking about older people, older people were born, their mothers were before this change in the workforce.

Speaker 2: 25:49

Why don't you and?

Speaker 1: 25:50

so their mothers were there in their house being able to be emotionally responsive to them. Right, there's also other things. America has hostile architecture and car centrism. Other countries don't have that, but there's. I don't think that's the explanation, but the main thing is the paternal maternal leave and, critically, another thing that happened was what's called ferberization. Ferberization is the when we had too many furbies.

Speaker 2: 26:21

Yeah, we had to. They just took over. Yeah, that was a big fad for a while, I think, yeah they're just an ocean of furbies.

Speaker 1: 26:29

Ferberization is the cry it out method of sleep training.

Speaker 2: 26:33

Oh, where you just let the kid cry. Yeah, I don't like that it started in guess the year 1985.

Speaker 1: 26:40

Oh my gosh, 1985, it was the first year that Ferber Ferber.

Speaker 2: 26:46

Ferber goes. He watches back to the future, has a great time, listens to Huey Lewis, michael J Fox, everyone's flying around going in time and then he comes back and he goes. You know what kids need to cry more. What is this?

Speaker 1: 26:59

dude. So in Denmark the way that you do the ferberizations, the cry it out method, is child abuse. You can have child services called on you if you do that method of Sounds good yeah. And guess who?

Speaker 2: 27:14

doesn't have a mental health crisis.

Speaker 1: 27:16

Denmark yeah, they're happy, they're one of the. There's this big research study on happiness and Denmark was the happiest country, yeah, so anyways. So cry it out method, but especially the lack of maternal and paternal leave being the ability for Americans not all Americans. Some Americans are rich enough that mom or dad can stay home, where mom and dad have a work schedule that allows them to be around or they have really good childcare where the child can get a strong attachment from a caregiver which is fine.

Speaker 1: 27:48

Someone has to just be responsive to your needs emotionally and that's all. That's what the science shows. So it doesn't have to be mom and dad. But if you have no universal childcare and you have no parental leave and you have this incredibly grinding work schedule that all that a capitalism causes, you are going to create weekly attached, insecurely attached population and on the edge of that weekly attached population you're going to have a preponderance of minor mental health problems ADHD and boys, ptsd and girls, and there's generally there can be both, but that's generally what happens. So 10, 10, nine out of 10. Adhd is boys, nine out of 10, ptsd is girls Doesn't mean there isn't the one who has it.

Speaker 2: 28:34

The other one. So you're saying we fix the leave situation, the parental leave situation, and that.

Speaker 1: 28:41

And childcare. Let's do them both.

Speaker 2: 28:42

And childcare as well, and then that creates a more attached population.

Speaker 1: 28:48

In 20 years there won't be a mental health crisis anymore. It fixes that fixes the mental health crisis.

Speaker 2: 28:53

No one else has been able to fix by pouring tons of money.

Speaker 1: 28:55

We won't need Prozac. We won't need Prozac. We won't need. Also, guess what? If you have an insecure attachment, therapy works worse on you. It doesn't work as well. So if you.

Speaker 2: 29:05

You're just screwed. Basically, the basic thing that we have to fix doesn't work. Ailing people doesn't work exactly people who are ailing, exactly okay.

Speaker 1: 29:13

So if we so, we have to look at root causes. And and my, I didn't, I didn't think this until like three weeks ago, when I did all this data, when I pulled all this research, okay, I thought it was probably technology, like I thought, oh, it's my cell phone.

Speaker 2: 29:27

That's what I guess you know, yeah. But everywhere has a cell phone well and mental health in the 80s. The thing that you always hear is like oh yeah, Ronald Reagan closed a bunch of like health centers or change something with the requirements for mental health and Basically put a bunch of people out on the streets who were institutionalized before that and like that that's the Is like that's the big change that happened, starting in the end.

Speaker 2: 29:52

So right you hear about that as a mental health thing, but you never hear about, yeah, this like this, the minor mental health thing that right perks up from some sort of a situation like a detached population In our country as we've shifted all the stuff.

Speaker 1: 30:06

Yeah, so you can. There's some other stats about disorganized attachment. So approximately 15% of children in the pod general population have disorganized attachment, but in maltreated populations of children it's 85%. So, essentially, if you're, if you're a maltreated child, you develop disorganized attachment. And then disorganized attachment is the worst in terms of outcomes, in terms of mental illness, and you know the ineffectiveness of therapy, etc. Etc. The key thing for developing a secure attachment is this is what I'm just like, citing the research here. I don't know, I mean, I'm not a psychologist, but the research says maternal sensitivity, that that is what in the research is the Critical factor for developing secure attachment. Okay, so having a mother who is like Aware, responses emotional and physical state and responding to your emotional and physical state.

Speaker 2: 31:02

When you have needs or whatever, you start to learn and internalize as a person. Like that you're safe somebody. The world is yeah not the end of the world.

Speaker 1: 31:09

Every time something bad goes on, exactly, there's someone here to help and so then there's been multiple studies that have been shown that poverty Also seriously hampers maternal sensitivity. So populations living in poverty, the mothers, cannot, they, they, they aren't or cannot be as Responsive to their children and therefore you're condemning people in poverty to Mental illness, poor relationship outcomes, etc. Etc.

Speaker 2: 31:35

I mean they, they have the poverty is correlated to poor health, not just mental health like poor physical, like there's a lot of stuff that gets nailed because you know, like a lot of relationships have a lot of extra stress, because what's the number one thing in wishes was like money.

Speaker 1: 31:51

Right, you know that's a huge stress in the household. Also, if you're just working all the time you come home You're exhausted, kids crying and you're like they just have to cry it out. Right, they just be a response.

Speaker 2: 32:01

Yeah, they're for me. I can't go help that. I'm gonna start ferberizing. Yeah we're not dead marks I ain't get arrested.

Speaker 1: 32:09

There is some research that muddies the water and all this. So it's so. It's not like total. I mean, I think there's a like, a really strong case for all this. There has been studies, though, that showed granted, the studies were done in 1984, when there was this cultural push to like, say like almost like, a woman's movement, like a woman can work.

Speaker 1: 32:28

Sounds and they found things like oh you know, employment status of the mother did not make any difference in the stability of attachment, but that was done in 1984. All the recent studies Also, that was only 5th, for 59 people were studied in that study. That's not a large sample size, I think at least 200 or 500 to make it like believable.

Speaker 2: 32:50

I don't know what the numbers are, but you would think more than 50.

Speaker 1: 32:53

Yeah, I think this study that says this. I think this is BS, this study from 1984 from Owen and Esther Brooks and Chase Lansdale and Goldberg, really taking these.

Speaker 2: 33:03

Oh yeah, I read all the papers, Just roasting the 1984 researchers.

Speaker 1: 33:09

I just Listening at home. They didn't know they were gonna take their death. I think they're like whoa. I was like when they did this.

Speaker 2: 33:18

That was. I thought I was good on that one, you know me.

Speaker 1: 33:21

But yeah, so maternal sensitivity and, yeah, fiberization, so, yeah. So I think today's solution is, I think, I think, I think I discovered the solution to the mental health crisis. Like. So what does this look like? Is this we need a union of moms? Okay, to come together and fight for maternity, paternity leave, universal child care and the end of poverty.

Speaker 2: 33:40

But what I'm saying, like I'm a, I'm a boss, now my, my work force, somebody's gonna have a kid. What does this look like?

Speaker 1: 33:45

is this is this six months out, do I? Lose my employee for six months or no matter what so the way chat, the way maternity, paternity leave works is it's a government program. Okay, so the employer doesn't pay a dime, right? I'm not. The government pays salary, yeah but I do I mean Presumably.

Speaker 2: 34:07

I've hired this person, you can do a job.

Speaker 1: 34:09

Some, some people say you know, like a lot of employment. They say you know what's six months of employment? It's 20 days. It's 20 days a month or 19, whatever. 20 days a month for six months, so it's like 120 days. Okay, so a lot of people say you know you can use any. You can take 120 days off in the first year after your baby's born or something like that, so you could do it all at once. You could just stay home for six months or you could do like half weeks.

Speaker 1: 34:35

Employers should have some flexibility to allow people you know, maybe they let you take 120 days in the first three years.

Speaker 2: 34:41

Of your kids is this are we saying six months per per kid, wait per parent per birth, or?

Speaker 1: 34:47

I mean, I think it should be a year per parent, per birth. But I mean, I think, I think, I think it. This is a. I mean all the other countries have done it and they don't have a mental health crisis. So I mean the the proof is in the pudding, it's right there. You know, we're gonna make it so that future generations of Americans aren't. You know, a 20-30% of people aren't suffering from PTSD and OCD and Anxiety and depression and blah, blah, blah blah.

Speaker 2: 35:12

I was gonna say I always like to take our train to this station, but what would this look like in implementation? Is this a top-down like? Would this have to be Like, not an executive order, but would this have to be passed through Congress?

Speaker 1: 35:25

Yeah, we have to be a program, I mean this was in, this was in the build back better. I Bill before got and then the whole bill. Well, this is the problem with the big build back better bill. They tried to do an omnibus bill. Right, that's where they put everything into one bill. That was a big mistake, because then everybody could pick one thing they didn't like and disagree with it.

Speaker 1: 35:44

Instead, I think they should have picked just. They should have said that, they should have said this and they told Democrats are such losers Strategically. But they should have said Democrats are the party of children and families and therefore we are passing the American Children and Families Protection Act, which provides universal childcare, universal maternal paternal leave.

Speaker 1: 36:08

You know the better gun control to prevent, you know, shootings. You know they should have said and they. And then they should have said this is all about children and anyone who came at them Against it, say your anti-child, your anti-family, your anti-parents, and it would. It would have just destroyed. Instead they put like all kinds of crazy stuff. I mean I believe in all of it, but but they just put too much in one bill and they didn't have a rhetorical strength anymore.

Speaker 2: 36:33

I wonder if our representatives were more representative of, like you know, the age of the normal person and they would be thinking more like parents or have people with parenting concern, like yeah. We're doing this that literally the day after Diane Feinstein passed away at 90, while she was still serving as a senator. It's like, yeah, maybe, maybe our, maybe our representative class is too advanced in age right now. You need somebody more in touch with kind of gotta leave.

Speaker 1: 37:01

We already solved that problems.

Speaker 2: 37:03

God, that's true we already solved that problem.

Speaker 1: 37:05

Retirement yeah but I don't think it's necessarily old people. Old people love children and babies and they know all about the difficulty of Parenthood and stuff. I don't think it's necessarily age. I think it, I think it is, I think it is just truly out of the Democrats. It's bad strategy. They're just bad at strategy. They just truly are the.

Speaker 2: 37:25

Republicans are amazingly good at it.

Speaker 1: 37:28

Yeah the, the Republicans, like the Republicans, are actually doing what I'm suggesting the Democrats should have done right, right after the build back Better stuff. What did the Demo, what are the Republicans come out with? We're protecting children from trans people, right? Gay people, yeah, right, that actually. I mean it's horrific and stupid and wrong and Matt and bad-headed and just totally wrong. But strategically it's brilliant protecting children.

Speaker 2: 37:53

Right. And if someone says, if someone's a little bit unassailable, yeah, yeah, the unassailable reason that ends up getting conspiracy theories to like storm pizza places Exactly their basements. And yeah everyone's like whoa, whoa, whoa. What are we thinking back up?

Speaker 1: 38:07

Yeah, yeah, what if the Democrats, who actually are the party of children right, they actually do, you know they. They pass the child tax credit and but then they also let it, they let it, they let the child tax credit end as well, doubling child poverty in America, right? So I mean, they, they, they, they, they, they're wishy-washy because they're these neoliberal capitalists. But if they gave up on the neoliberal capitalism because it's trash, and instead focused entirely on supporting families and children and working people, and you know, then then they would just, they would just destroy, they would just destroy at the ballot.

Speaker 2: 38:41

You're talking crazy now.

Speaker 1: 38:43

Yeah, I know I'm just in crazy, but this is what we, if we want to solve mental illness, these mental illness problems? I really don't think, because therapy, like I said, people with with bad attachments, they know insecure attachment styles have worse outcomes from therapy. So it's like that's not really a fix. We could medicate everybody with like prozac I think we've tried that already. Clearly doesn't really work. These SSRIs aren't great. They're they're like a band-aid or a crutch. They don't really heal people. If we want to heal people, we have to go back and make sure the conditions of the first three years of life. Everyone has maternal or some kind of responsibility from caregiver, yeah, and that's generally gonna be the mom. But again, it shouldn't just be the mom. It should be equal maternity, paternity leave, so that so that no one gets left.

Speaker 2: 39:29

Yeah, yeah, holding the bags but and also I mean it's nice to Babies are pretty cool, it's nice to spend a lot of time with them when they're teeny tiny, because, yeah, it's good for both ends. Yeah, that's why I think it should be a good for the baby, but it's also great for the parent.

Speaker 1: 39:42

Yeah, I think it should be a year per parent gets paid leave, and that's what we should start, at least I mean really, which probably start with two years or 16 months or something, so that we can 18 years, 18 years or maybe Perparent.

Speaker 2: 39:56

That's right, you're not coming out.

Speaker 1: 39:57

Germans get child, germans get paid leave and they get like $300 a month per kid until the kids like eight. So if you have like four kids you get like sixteen hundred, like sixteen hundred bucks every month. Okay just just because just cuz it's called kind of gelt kid money.

Speaker 2: 40:14

Children, child money, child gold. Yeah, kid again not kind of gold.

Speaker 1: 40:19

I'm seeing here.

Speaker 2: 40:20

It looks like it was a law invented by someone named Rumble. Still, that about weird Huh, child gold law Okay, excellent.

Speaker 1: 40:33

All right. Well, this is the long episode, but a complex topic, so complex.

Speaker 2: 40:37

It covers a lot of bases and.

Speaker 1: 40:39

I'm happy to have people disagree with me, because there's a lot of moving pieces here and I'm sure there's ways you can slice it.

Speaker 2: 40:44

But yeah, I come out of the parent, come out and talk about how much you think parents should be worse, like, come on, come on, come and disagree, bring your less, bring your right. I want to disagree. That it's get all those furburs out of here.

Speaker 1: 40:58

They might say no, it's social media, it's video games, it's it's poverty, and it is to some extent poverty because we showed that. We showed the research showed that poverty hurts Maternal sensitivity, which then, it's attachment, which then would cause all these things, but so it is poverty to some extent, but I think it's maternity, paternity leave. Yeah, anyways, this is it. I think we solved it.

Speaker 2: 41:19

Cool solution from the multiverse, I love it Well, before we get all the way out. I wanted to remind people that I'm doing a whole thing on YouTube now. So, we are filming little episodes and they're coming out also at the same time as these episodes. So when a new audio one drops, go to the YouTube channel, which is YouTube slash at solutions for the multiverse.

Speaker 2: 41:38

I learned there's an ad in there, but we'll have it in the Okay no notes. You can see what we're up to over there. We're even bugs. Still try to get us to play this game that we eat bugs every time.

Speaker 1: 41:47

So, yeah, yeah, all right. Well, thanks everybody. Thank you, take care next time Bye, bye. You.

Speaker 2: 42:33

I'm here to teach you how to cry.