 The thing is, is that the literature states it doesn't matter. I mean, it matters in the sense that, you know, if the school is riddled with bullets or gun violence, or just low performing academics, then, yeah, your kid could be at a disadvantage. But there's a certain level on which continuing to reach for the stars does not provide any more of an advantage. And in the original Freakonomics book, they talked about how parenting, it's not about finding the best school. It's not about finding the best materials. It's not about being a perfect parent. It's about being someone who would so desperately care to try to find those things that leads to being a good father or a good parent. It's not about doing it right. You're going to do things mostly wrong by many measures, because you can only learn by doing. And then you get better at it. And then you get better at it. And then you get better at it. You see that your kids are really, really resilient, especially boys, and I'll touch on that in a second. And they'll be okay. You know, early on, it's new. You're kind of wondering what these little creatures are. And they are both, they're a little helpless. But as one of my, one of my doctor clients said, you know, if they came out and their parts were on the other side of the room, they'd find their way back together early on. Like that's, you know, that kid's will be broken and then put back together really quick when they're really, really young. But then you've got to start kind of, you start thinking about this stuff. It's never even entered your world before. And it's just a weird concern that shows up. Then the next thing you start thinking about is, what's sex going to be like with my wife after she's had a kid? Really? Like, so how many of you have seen Ace Ventura when nature calls? Not all is lost on our generation. This is good. No matter how hung you think you are, you're not the size of a baby. And so you're worried like, oh God, you know, what the hell is going to happen here? And as it turns out, in our case, because remember that surgery I told you about for the first nine to 10 weeks? Like it was real touch and go because it hurt. Like she's inflamed, she's taken care of a kid, she's exhausted. These things just weren't going to happen. And there I am selfishly concerned like, how's it going to feel? Well, I can tell you that these soft tissues are meant to return to a relatively normal state. Things get back to normal. Now my wife cared enough about total health. She was leg pressing again. She was hip thrusting again. There were some pelvic floor exercises, which occur, and there's a total aside. There's an all the rage in physical therapy about fixing pelvic floor dysfunction, which just kegels aren't going to be enough. That there's a crazy woman in Bali, Kim Minami, who she's all about like doing deadlifts with a kegel ball attached to weight with her vagina. And I'm not even joking. I've only got one guy laughing. How is that not funny to you guys? Like the notion of like, all right, let's string up. What was that? They're not old enough. They're not old enough. So this notion of like, all right, we're going to hook up a loading pin, and then you're going to go down and you're going to clench, you're going to stand up with it. This is the type of stuff she's about for like vaginal muscle control. So you don't have to go to that extreme. Your wife doesn't have to go to that extreme. Your girlfriend doesn't go to that extreme. But these things come back to normal. And, you know, we're already thinking about having a second kid. So but early on, again, your marginal utility is low. You're just playing like cleanup hitter, like you're helping your support role. And then the crying. Oh my God, the crying. So before I was a kid, or before I was a kid, I was a baby. But before I was a father, I'd be on a plane, and a kid would cry, and my spine would light up, like electricity shooting from my tailbone up to the back of my head, and I'd be like, oh my God, this kid, I swear to God, this turd, yeah. And then you have a kid. And two things happen. Number one, the only kid who can make that reaction happen is now your kid. Like, because if your kid lights up and cries, you all of a sudden you're like, what are you crying about? What's the deal? Because here's the thing, your kid's not giving you a hard time. Your kid is having a hard time. Take that to heart. The only way it knows to communicate is loud and crying because common the popular belief, your kids can't talk. Like they can't formulate words and common rational structures and tell this stuff to you. They're still dumb. And the only way they can communicate what they want is with sound and fury. And the second thing is all of a sudden on a plane, those other kids crying, I don't hear them. I'm reading and a kid's crying, oh that's good, because it doesn't cause a visceral reaction. Another kind of superpower. But then you have a rational reaction of those poor parents because they are pulling their hair out trying to get these kids to calm down on the plane. And then you're going to find out that commands don't work on a newborn. I took my son to see his great grandmother in January. We have three dogs and so you'll see where this is going here in a second. We're flying to Ontario airport Southern California from Austin. And in the last leg of the flight my kid starts crying. Pretty good, right? And I'm like, we're trying to get him calmed down. He's been a trooper so far. And finally I pick him up and I hold him up in the seat and I go, that's enough. And my wife just looks at me and starts laughing. Because remember when the command you give to a dog is like, that's enough. And second, again the kid doesn't know any better. You're just grasping at straws. You're like dog command, that's enough. Now you're going to find these kids get older. Training dogs and raising kids, kind of similar. Like as far as like you don't do this, if you set conditional expectations and they know how they're going to be disciplined for a certain amount of behavior, they'll tend to behave that way. Obviously you don't feed them like dog treats. But god damn it, if it's not true that some of those kid snacks may as well be dog food. The same ingredients just they've replaced artificial bacon flavor with artificial cheddar flavor. So you're going to get your screaming kid. You start to hear the differences in the screams. It's the weirdest thing. It's that next sense. All of a sudden you have this auditory processing like he's hungry. He's tired. He's got a wet diaper. He wants to go over there. My kid now grunts at things. He goes, take me there dad. Take me there dad. So we walk and we go over there. But it gets better and it serves a function. It's not just because your kid wants to be pain in your ass. And then the breastfeeding. So this is an image from a time magazine about this attachment parenting. This kid's like four on his mom's boob there. So my wife is still breastfeeding our son at a rate of like two or three feedings a day in addition to all sorts of solid food. And it's a really weird thing. A couple months ago there was a big brouhaha about Olivia Wilde in a photo breastfeeding your kid. And you really don't think about it as sexual in any way. You just want to feed your damn kid. Like we're sitting out there town lake trail and my wife is, she's not like sitting in front of the trail like check out my cans. She's off to the side on a bench facing away from the trail and just trying to feed our kid because he's hungry. Especially early on he's not eating anything else. He's just hungry. It's not sexualized in any way. In fact it's comical because all of a sudden you're reminded of the fact that we are mammals. We can think about our own mortality and plan our futures and all the other stuff. But at the end of the day we are animals and we still have to abide by that. By that feeding our infants and having them hang on the udders and feed. Like it is. That's the way it is. Then he starts to get teeth and she starts going okay your breastfeeding days are not long for this world kiddo. So I want you guys to try and take that away if nothing else. If you see a woman out in breastfeeding it's not because she's trying to be sexual or just doesn't care about anything. She didn't care about you at all in fact. She cares about feeding the kid. Period. Full stop. You don't even factor into the equation and that's okay. It's not about you. As long as they're not just like making you accept it. Like who watches Portlandia? Anybody? Nobody watches Portlandia? Like the feminist bookstore women. Like this overbearing you have to accept what I do or you're a hater. No it's not that either. It's not that either. It's live and let live. Kind of like I'm just trying to feed my kid. You know. Good luck with the rest of your day. And so my son is already starting to display components of boylike behavior. There is a nurture but there is definitely a nature component as well. He's starting to get into things that he knows he shouldn't and he's starting to give the smile. Like Jack don't do that and he'll be like you know and he's just like he knows he's doing something he's not supposed to. Now all guys in the room here you couldn't be told that you can't crack concrete with your head. You had to try and crack concrete with your head and you go oh god that hurts okay I'll remember that. Like ooh definitely and so there is some literature on this. This whole notion of like oh the differences between the sexes and children is just societally constrained and that's not true. It's not 100% either way but for example there's some literature that indicates that testosterone exposure in the womb alters play patterns of both boys and girls. So women or little girls who are exposed to more testosterone in the womb are more likely to play with trucks than dolls when they're toddlers, when they're children. And that boys also girls their prefrontal cortex thickness that whole like you know I should probably listen and do this and plan into my future a little bit more. That starts to thicken and sort of reach its full thickness about 18 months earlier than boys. So on top of the fact that we are delayed in puberty right because women reach their full height and sort of full body at a much earlier age than we do we also suffer the fact that our executive functioning in our brain is about 18 months behind any girl you meet about the same age and this carries until full maturation in your 20s. So we are it's great like you want the cocksure 20 something who's certain he can change the world but it's also something that you you see at a young age and it's it's actually nature it's not like oh I just didn't care about my kid and let him play with like power tools and that's why he's you know jumping out of airplanes without a parachute like Travis Pastrana or something like that it's it's an element of how we learn we have better hand-eye coordination but worse fine motor control great for doing and learning through activity poor for sitting in the class and working like this and this is the great debate that originally all the schools for men and then it became how do you how do you make a school structure that supports women and now we've done a really good job of that because there are more girls in college and more girls graduating high school so now the opposite needs to be done like boys are not mean or evil and they're not just all ADD that we live in a high stimulation environment we're in a high definition stimulation environment so our dopamine buttons always being clicked click click click click click you don't have ADD your norm is just an elevated amount of dopamine so all of a sudden sitting in class and paying attention is mind numbing the boring oh my god it's so so boring so this this is a camp i want to say it's in north carolina time magazine did a notion on uh on is called the myth of voice it's about a six-year-old article seven-year-old article but it talks about a school in Harlem of all places where it's an all-boys school and they graduate 100 percent of their people and the principal's talking like you know you gotta you gotta reach him in a way that that gets them interested in something and so yeah these guys were just dragging their asses they couldn't get they couldn't find something to like and finally let them set up a recording studio and once they had that thing that they were just so interested in everything else came up and they graduated they needed to do something actual hand-eye coordination and get up and move and it wasn't just sitting there and studying to integrate all that behavior so you already start to see that at a young age um my son doing things like