Ben: 0:02

Welcome to Real Men Hug, a podcast for men and the women who love them. I'm Ben.

Jim: 0:07

And I'm Jim.

Ben: 0:09

Today we have a treat for you.

Jim: 0:11

I am so excited to introduce to you Roundtable Mindset. We are in kind of like a collaboration group on Facebook with some other podcasters and Roundtable Mindset was the first one. Not only that introduced us to that group, but also that we really keyed in on, because I just love their content. They ask those tough questions and have raw conversations like on our podcast. And there's just a synergy between our two podcasts, unlike any other, I just. Absolutely have loved listening to some of their episodes. And I'm so excited to have Mahlon and Jamie on our show today.

Ben: 0:52

If you like Ben and Jim, you are going to love these two. We had such a blast recording with them. So excited for you to listen. So let's jump in.

Jim: 1:01

Let's jump in. All right. I got to say, I am so excited to be here today with Roundtable Mindset. Been a fan of your show for, I think we were introduced to your show probably maybe a month or two ago. I've listened to a few episodes and just so excited to have you guys as the first people that we collaborate with. So just really excited to be here and have this conversation with you.

Mahlon: 1:30

Well, we're honored. To be your first. Let me just say it that way.

Jamie: 1:35

Excited to be here. This is gonna be fun. Well, I was gonna say,

Mahlon: 1:39

Jim, you're using our word excited. That's, we've cornered, by this point, we should have had that trademarked to our show because we say it all the time.

Jamie: 1:49

Was it we, or was it me? Cause I can't come up with other words, but it's exciting. And we're excited to be here. Everything's really exciting.

Mahlon: 1:56

I was trying to take some heat off of you, Jamie. So, but it is you, it is you.

Jamie: 2:01

I'll own it. It's fine.

Jim: 2:02

I think our trademark is a hundred percent.

Ben: 2:06

Well, that's my trademark. I'll, I'll own that one too. A hundred percent.

Jamie: 2:10

Well, so now we all know what the merch is, right? Like a hundred percent. That's right. Excited. Yes. Oh, look at that. Look at that. We should get merch for our collaboration. Oh my goodness.

Mahlon: 2:21

Well, I will say, I don't know if this is needed or not, but this is Mahlon from Round Table Mindsets. Nice to meet everyone. I will say, I have been a big fan of Real Men Hug since the very first episode. I know, for me,, I don't think I consider myself a typical male, sports or something that I can take or leave. I'm not really interested in like a lot of the male driven activities. You know, I have some friends that are really into cars and sports and all this other stuff, heavy metal. I mean, as a kid and none of that really kind of spoke to me. And so I felt like I was kind of removed from what a mainstream male was. I've just kind of lived with it, and I've just kind of grown up and became an adult and had a family of my own, all just kind of with this understanding that I was just different, and there wasn't a lot of people that I could relate to, and then I hear your guys podcast, and what I love about it is you say a lot of the things that I am feeling or that I've experienced, and you don't make apologies for it. And I think that's something that I've learned from myself, um, that I've done is that I've just made myself smaller sometimes, especially around other, other guys, or I've apologized for it. And that's one thing that after listening to your episodes, I realized I don't need to do that. And I shouldn't be doing that because I am my own person and I don't want to fit into any kind of stereotypical mold. And I'm okay with that, I think, or at least I'm trying to be. I love your guys episodes in your podcast.

Jamie: 3:51

You guys had me at real men hug, just the title of the podcast. I was so interested in that. I prefer podcasts that bring a different perspective and help me see things in a different way. To just learn about different viewpoints and perspectives has been really helpful for me. It's just part of, it's part of my jam. I nerd out over things like that. I've really enjoyed, hearing you guys.

Jim: 4:10

Yeah. Well, Ben and I look up to you as a show. You guys are amazing. A step in front of us. You've been recording for a year now, right? It's been a year that you're recording

Mahlon: 4:21

just celebrated. So we've just now hit a year. So in some ways we're your first collaboration and you're our one year guests. So welcome and happy birthday to us. Jamie.

Ben: 4:34

Yeah, happy birthday to the round table mindset. Yeah, I'm looking forward to when we get to a year. We've got 10 episodes. That was our latest celebration. Yeah, and it's been a blast and Mahlon what you were saying about Not apologizing for who you are I just wanted to,, stand up and shout yes, that, a hundred percent. I spent probably the better part of 35 years,. Feeling bad for being different. Feeling like I had to apologize to the world for being overly sensitive for Not being a sports fan. I'm turning 40 next week, by the time listeners hear this, I'll be 40 I'm done apologizing to people for being who I am. I am the guy that will go to a coffee shop with my journal and just sit and listen to lo fi music and write in my journal. There's this big dude over in the corner and he's journaling and tearing up. I don't feel the need to hide that from people. what you said, Mahlon hit the nail on the head for me. I just want to be authentically me, even if that means breaking some societal norms and expectations. There's just so many unwritten and written expectations that society puts on both men and women. And I'm excited about unpacking those here today.

Jamie: 6:06

That's awesome.

Mahlon: 6:07

Absolutely. And, and Ben, I'm kind of finding out that you were the king of transitions because man, that was slick. That was smooth. What you just did there. That's pretty, that's pretty good. Yeah. I'm like, bravo.

Ben: 6:17

It's not my first rodeo.

Jamie: 6:19

That's fantastic. Cause even after a year, we have to announce our segways. I am here to segway.

Mahlon: 6:27

For those of you who are missing it, we are moving on to the next point right now. Okay.

Ben: 6:33

And here it is. That's the kind of thing that Jim would be like, Ben, stop being Mr. Whittaker over there.

Jim: 6:38

No, that was a good one, Ben. That would have been a little golf clap for you.

Mahlon: 6:44

I'll second that. One of the things that I'm excited to talk specifically with the three of you, but, uh, Jim and Ben, to get your perspective, there's these expectations that are floating around. And I know when we all started getting together and kind of saying, Hey, what are we going to collaborate on? This was something that was kind of percolating in the back of my brain because I was hearing your guys's podcast because I was experiencing things personally, because as I'm getting older, I'm just feeling less and less, I'm feeling tired of having to make excuses for myself just because of who I am and when, you know, Jamie and I on some of our previous episodes, we've tackled some gender. Specific topics and it can get pretty heated and it can get pretty, divisive just because it's a very passionate conversation, but that still doesn't mean that there's not things there that we should be talking about. And so the expectations that we set on each other from a male's point of view and a female's point of view, um. I am all about us talking through those because I think that happens today in a lot of different ways. And it's almost like rules of engagement of life. you don't necessarily purposely think about them because they've always been there. And I'm really excited for this group to kind of talk through those and sorry, Jamie, but I know as you kind of being the only female voice. You can't be every woman, like you've said, but I'm looking to you to kind of bring us that that woman's point of view, because that's the point of view that I can't, I can't have as much as I look on the outside, I'll never be able to experience it the way that you experience it.

Jamie: 8:22

Well, I just want to clarify that Oprah says I can be every woman. So I'm going to go with it for this episode.

Jim: 8:28

All right. So Jamie's every woman and we'll do our best to represent the three of us. Right.

Mahlon: 8:37

I feel like there's stereotypes within the roles of men and women that I think they've been there for the longest time. And are they okay that they stay there? Should we be trying to change them? So can we start with stereotypes?

Ben: 8:49

Who's got a stereotype to unpack?

Jamie: 8:51

Mahlon's full of them.

Mahlon: 8:53

Oh, I got a small one that just drives me absolutely nuts. And I even hesitate talking about it because it's so weird because they've always been there, but I've always been under the impression, the expectation that's kind of set before me. If there is a spider in the room, I am the resident spider killer. I have to be the one that goes and, and destroys it and gets it out of the room. It's one of those things that I don't mind that role, I guess, but I don't want it to be expected. I always do it as a kid. I was terrified of spiders. I had arachnophobia really bad to the point where I would sit there and start sweating if there was a spider in the room and the expectation, even when I was a kid, if I was there with my mom and my sister, I was the one that had to go and kill the spider just because I was, I guess the, the guy in the room, the man, I don't think that's fair. I don't think that that's necessarily something that has to be there because I am the resident boy or the male in the room.

Jamie: 9:53

I don't mind taking care of a spider. If there's a snake, it's a whole different story, I'm just saying, like, then yes, I'm going to want someone who is braver than I to go take care of the snake. you know, what's interesting now that you say that, that totally was, how it was set up in my house when I was married and younger. And then I was a single mom. And we moved into an apartment that had been empty for a bit and had spiders. And then guess what? I was the biggest, bravest person in the room and I got to kill the spiders. I guess I hadn't thought that could be a thing, spider killer.

Jim: 10:27

You know, I think stereotypes are just kind of a shortcut that our brain takes to try to understand something that's not familiar to us. Right? So sometimes stereotypes I think can be healthy as long as we are okay with adjusting them when provided with different information. So when you have a relationship where that stereotype doesn't work, then you figure it out. Like if you are the man, but you're allergic to bees, deathly allergic, And there's a bee in the house, normally you kill the bugs, but maybe this time it's your wife that does it because you don't want to have a severe allergic reaction. I think as long as you have that willingness to adapt your understanding. I don't know, I don't, I don't think they're always a bad thing necessarily, at least to start with that level of understanding.

Ben: 11:19

But they do get bad at times. And my example of a stereotype that went bad is something that I was trying to remember on our last episode of Real Men Hug. We did an episode of marriage. Jim had this great story about forgetting to order his wife Jimmy John's. And I'm just relishing, pun intended, the story and not able to think of my own story of something similar. It came to me finally and it fits very well here. My stereotype was this. It was middle of winter in Michigan being from the Midwest. You guys probably understand that winters can be a pain and it gets cold. It gets, you know, the wind is blowing, the snow is falling. We were in Holland, Michigan, which is very close to Lake Michigan. And it's just like a blizzard and my wife needs gas and I'm with her in the car, she's driving. In my mind, the stereotype has always been if you're driving, you're responsible for pumping your own gas. We stop to get gas and we're sitting at the pump and she's just sitting in her seat and not taking her seatbelt off and not getting up to pump gas. And I'm in the passenger seat just completely oblivious and finally, it must have been 30 seconds or a minute, I just looked at her and I was like, I thought you said we were getting gas. And she, in a very disgruntled manner, says, What kind of boyfriend doesn't pump gas for his girlfriend in the freezing cold blizzard of Michigan? And then she slams her hand against the steering wheel and opens the door dramatically and jumps out and pumps her own gas. And I'm just sitting in the car like, what just happened? And so that, to me, like we both had competing stereotypes. Who's right? Does the driver pump gas or is it the boyfriend? Because he's the dude in the relationship and it's supposed to do the hard things, like which stereotype is right.

Jamie: 13:26

See, and I'm sitting here thinking, huh, sounds like a typical young relationship, lack of communication. Right. Like I think that I, and I think. Stereotype is one thing. Cause I feel like stereotypes are something that society puts on us. And some of these things I feel like are more, um, like what we just bring to relationship, right? Like whenever we have those interactions, I think that how we were raised or what You know, what, what the landscape was when we were young and coming into these spaces really plays a huge part in how we interact, as men and women or what our expectations are. For instance, I, I hate outside. I hate bugs. So lawn work is not a thing for me. I'm not going to be mowing the lawn. Right? So when I came into marriage, when I was like 23 years old, it was just assumed that this is how this was going to work, right? He was going to mow the lawn. I was going to do the cooking. Cause I was None of us wanted hot dogs every night of the week. That came from where, how we were raised, right? That came from the way that we were brought up. I wonder, is that a stereotype thing or is that more like societal expectations of gender roles?

Jim: 14:42

I think that is a good example that typically people assume that the guy is out doing the yard work and that the wife is doing the cooking, but that's not always the case. And sometimes it switches, like in Ben's relationship, I know it, it kind of swapped halfway through there, so.

Ben: 15:02

More than halfway through. More than halfway. It was like three fourths of the way through, let's be honest. I continue to struggle with that. And 17 years later, we're still married. Thank goodness. But it's been rough. There's been a lot of those moments where I just assumed that things are this way and we don't communicate about it. And then one of us gets upset because we're not seeing eye to eye on something. As far as gender roles go in, in our setting, my wife was responsible for basically everything up until within the last year or two, it's fluid. And I think that's one of the things that has been most impactful for me about understanding expectations and gender norms and all of that. I used to think of them as written in stone and there's nothing I can do about them. But the truth is they're fluid and I have the ability to say what I want for myself and what expectations I'm going to put on myself. That's been a huge moment of awakening for me of just realizing. I can go against the grain of what other people say, and it's okay, and in fact, it's healthy. And so that's been the discovery for me.

Mahlon: 16:28

I agree with all of that. I guess where I have a problem with expectations set from the genders, from a man to a woman or a woman to a man, is that sometimes they're rooted in tradition, sometimes they're rooted in Some of your faith, I think, could maybe spill in this, how you were raised is probably really a big point of view or a big, factor into it. What drives me nuts is that if they're established and these expectations are set then they start changing or you start getting challenged on them. Once that's been set in stone for you for so many years It's hard to start adapting and I think in today's society. There's this expectation that Oh, we've now learned something new. Everybody needs to shift. And maybe this is me kind of, as I'm getting older, I'm understanding that shifting doesn't happen as fast for me as it did when I was younger. And again, I don't know if that's a mental thing. I don't know if that's a age thing. I don't know if that's a generational thing. But it doesn't matter because, that's true. Where I started getting frustrated is, okay, that used to be how things were. That was an expectation that used to be set. Now that's changing from a societal point of view. If I'm not changing as fast as what society deems it to be, Then I'm wrong. People start saying things to me or you start noticing at work or even around maybe your friend group or even your, you know, day to day with your, your wife or your significant other. And I don't think that's fair because there should be some accountability and there should be some recognition to say, this is something that has either been ingrained and maybe as a small child, I was raised with a certain point of view and to expect it to be just changed like a light switch. I think there needs to be some accommodation for that, and people need to have some awareness that people are probably changing at their own rate, and they need to recognize that if it's not as far as long as they are, doesn't mean they're not trying, it doesn't mean that it's not moving. It just means that it's in the process, and people are coming along, and some people may only be able to bend so far. And that's as far as they'll ever going to get.

Jim: 18:32

Mahlon. I think that's a great point. That's at least on my end. I know that was one of the huge reasons why I was drawn to this topic, because I think we are seeing that huge shift where it's just harder to survive. In this economy than it, than it used to be. You know, it used to be that one person could go to work, get it done. You could buy a house, you know, almost immediately after getting married, if not immediately after getting married, and it just sort of rolled into the next step and the next step. And it doesn't negate the hard work that went along the way, but now you have more dual income households that. People can't even afford a house anymore, but for a while we still had that same expectation that, Oh, well, if you, if somebody is not staying home with the kids, then you're a bad person. How could you possibly do that? Somebody should be with the kids. Why aren't you? Well, because I can't afford it. And then what if one person like in my household, my wife, her hourly salary is more than mine. Should she be the one who is working more? And then if that's the case, then a lot of those traditional female roles and household chores and raising the kids, do those go to me because I make less money or do I work more hours because I'm the man and my wife stays home and she just has to work? And do all the stuff at home to we're not living in the same world, but we're still being told all of those same expectations. But then, in my opinion, we have this whole new world view coming out of nowhere that's saying, well, no, that's all wrong. And we're just going to do things completely differently. And I feel as a man myself, it's like, I don't even know what to do and being a typical and. Kind of having grown up conservative, but having also a lot of some things, a liberal mindset where I agree on this side of things. I feel like no matter what I think and do, I'm making somebody upset and I just don't know what. I'm supposed to do or how I'm supposed to act without somebody being like, Nope, you're doing it wrong.

Jamie: 20:37

What's interesting is I feel like it's still kind of a novelty and I think, you know, like a stay at home dad situation or something like that is super novelty to me still. But I think what's interesting is how, how different. The expectation is, and, and it's interesting to me to look backwards too, because, my, my mom was coming up in the age of, you know, women's empowerment I am woman, hear me roar was like my mom's life theme or something, right? So beat into my head, you are just as good. Being a woman doesn't make you less than. However, in her relationship with my dad, it was very traditional and typical of the generation. Right. And I look back to things like advertising Women made a bulk of the purchasing choices with their husband's money. All the advertising was about being ready for dinner when he comes home with this beautiful new Frigidaire fridge, you know, like all of these different things. What excites me is the massive shift that I've seen and what I see moving forward. And, you know, I don't think we're, I don't think we're there yet. I don't think we're done. And I, I feel like at my house, it was pretty traditional, traditional, I'm using air quotes because. I don't know that it's as traditional as my mind sees it, but around me, it's very traditional that if the kids were sick, I was home, right? If there was a meeting at school, I attended. If the kids needed to go to the doctor, that was my job. But at the same time. I chose that. I chose to do that because it was important to me and that was okay with me. And I think that's probably why the space feels like if I think this way or do this thing, it feels wrong because I think we're sandwiching in between shifting and it makes me wonder if my mom was in that same space.

Jim: 22:32

We wanted to take a break in the middle of this conversation we're having with round table mindset to remind you that we have got this new campaign that you can help support our show. Buy me a coffee. It's in the show notes. We've got it up on the episode notes and the Facebook page, so be sure to check out. Buy me a coffee. I also wanted to give a hearty shout out to Sarah Yoder for giving us a legendary hug on our buy me a coffee platform because of. Sarah's donation. We were able to immediately turn around and get a couple cameras for our show that we've been wanting to get. We had another member also hop on and give us a legendary hug. Blown away by the support that we've been getting from our listeners. That we're able to turn around and put that money into the show by getting better audio and visual equipment so that we can continue to do this for you. So thank you so much to our listeners for supporting the show. If you haven't yet, and you want to check out, buy me a coffee, be sure to find those links. We would love any amount of support from our listeners. It helps us do what we do.

Ben: 23:45

So check it out at buymeacoffee. com slash real men hug. And know that it certainly makes a huge difference for Jim and I both.

Mahlon: 23:57

What's hard for me is I never realized growing up just how Different I was. My mom did the majority of the housework, but she didn't do it alone. From the time that I was in second grade, going forward, I had a chore list that I had to do. I was doing my own laundry when I was in the second grade. I was doing the laundry. I was making the beds. I made not only my bed, but other people's beds. I did take out the, the trash. I mean, everybody in the house helped, but my mom kind of ran the household and she also worked. I didn't realize how uncommon that was. And then I'd go over to people's houses I would pick up my dishes and I'd go rinse them off and put them in the sink. And they would be like, what are you doing that for? My mom will take care of that. And it's like, no, you should take care of it for yourself. I didn't even realize that, but that's what my mom was teaching. My mom was teaching me to say, you need to be independent. So my mom, as a young man was teaching me, you don't need to be dependent on a woman to take care of you. And on the flip side, you shouldn't expect a woman to take care of you. That's not their role. Their role isn't just to be there and serve your needs, you should also learn how to take care of yourself. And I didn't realize that lesson she was teaching me was so much in the future. Jamie, I know you made the comment of, living off of your husband's money. My wife and I, she's a stay at home mom and I'm the one that's in the workforce. And that conversation has come up several times in our marriage with friends. They say things like. Are you okay with Kim spending your money or Kim? How are you feeling with, Mahlon making the money? The way we have to look at that is it's not just one of our, our paychecks that come in. I might be earning it, but we both get it and That's one thing we've had a fight for a very long time is that even if I'm in the workforce earning it, it's not just my money. A lot of people seem to have a problem with that, or at least the ability to see that it's both of our money, even though one of us is earning it.

Jamie: 25:55

I wonder how much of that is that there aren't a whole lot of stay at home parents anymore There's probably not as many families who are able to do that as there used to be because of the economy and the times we live in, both parents really have to work most of the time. It's just like, how do you do this?

Jim: 26:11

Yeah, no, statistically, there are not as many single income households as there used to be. But that's, I guess the point I was trying to get at is there's still these holdovers from the fact that there very much was this traditional nuclear household where you. The man earns the money and the, the woman stays at home. As an example my wife works nights, which means a lot of times she's sleeping during the day. If there's an email or a call from school, maybe, it happens to be a day that she's up, but there's a good chance that she's sleeping. Every time we're filling out those papers, Here's dad's number. Here's very clearly written out, do not call Melissa, my wife. Here's her number just in case, but call Jim. And we explain the situation, and who do they call? They call my wife, because that's what you do. You call the woman, right? She's the one who's organizing everything. She's the one who's knowing what's going on with the kids. And it's this huge stereotype that we had to fight. It took like two years for the school to finally get no. Jim is the one who responds to calls. And I'm like, I'm sorry, but my wife has the patience of a mayfly. You don't want to talk to her. She's sleep deprived and annoyed that she's talking to you instead of sleeping. So you probably want to talk to me, but that's something that we've had to fight because. Those teachers and the principal and whoever, they just assume that, well, of course, it's the wife who is advocating for the kids and showing up. There's this huge holdover that you have to fight.

Ben: 27:52

Definitely. That is identical to how it's been with my wife, Andi, and I, if a teacher emails the parent about something, I'm typically the one that's replying and even though I sign my name and make it very clear at the end that it was from me, teachers will respond and they'll be like, Oh, Andi, thank you for that information. And I'm just like, what? I even said it was me. I've started the emails by saying, this is Ben, just to make it abundantly clear. we have a joint email address and it's kind of funny because. It's Ben, Andi, and then our last name. I think people look at that and instead of reading Ben, Andi, they read Ben and I. And so they assume that it's the woman having the pressure to have the man's name on the email address, but it's actually her. So yeah, it's just this crazy thing.

Mahlon: 28:50

I will say the last episode that I listened to Real Men Hug, I really felt convicted because What you guys are just talking about that is a expectation stereotype that I fall in very nicely. I am comfortable with letting my wife just handle all of those situations with the kids and I believe it was in your last episode about marriage where you talked about the mental load. everything that you were saying in your example, I was like, Ouch, ouch, ouch. I'm doing all of that. I actually went to my wife and apologized to her. I said, I am allowing you to take all of this responsibility on and it's unfair that I'm not, even asking to help Chip in or even taking a little bit off. And it truly wasn't until I listened to that episode that I realized there's a lot that goes on her plate that I just expect that she's going to do that. Be it either her gender or be it that she's a stay at home mom. We had a really nice conversation and I think going forward, we're going to see some improvement. Some might say too little too late as our kids are aging, but again, where, where realization comes in, that's where I can start changing it. To go one step further as I'm doing self reflection now, I didn't even care if my wife agreed with it or not, because I wasn't even asking if she agreed with it. That's how it was set up and that's what we were going to do. And I realized now that there's other areas that I'm going to have to start inspecting and have those, conversations to say, this is an expectation. Is this your same expectation? And if not, where do we have to adjust? And that is something that I haven't done before. And I'm looking forward to it. It's all coming together at the right time for me, I guess.

Jamie: 30:30

You know, it wasn't until recently that I understood that idea of mental load. I'm a working mom. My kids are grown and out of the house now. Yay. There would be times where I would get to that space and I would just lose my crap, and I couldn't figure out why. It's just been recently that I've realized, those plates that I was juggling all the time and not understanding that I was taking on all of those roles. I was taking all of those responsibilities on because I was the parent, the parent, my partner is definitely part of their lives and super supportive and does those things, but a lot of those things he couldn't do. I have all of those home expectations with my family, but then I have all these expectations at work too. that's been a huge driver for this shift, in my opinion, in, in expectation, because it was different when. Most moms stayed home with kids and most dads went out to work. Now that both parents are working, we have to start shifting some of those loads a little bit and share, that mental load one person can't do all of that at the same time. and I think it's been too slow to shift. That's part of why I think there's a lot of heavy criticism and scrutiny over those typical gender expectations because, I don't know that we've known that this was an issue for a while. I didn't even recognize it for myself for a long time.

Jim: 31:51

And I think you're just left feeling tired and you don't know why, because that's always just been the assumption that the woman takes care of it and you are just left frustrated. I think of like Ben and Andi situation. Andi probably was like, well, yeah, Ben, maybe because you don't help around here. And Ben in his traditional roles things. Well, yeah, because you know, I'm out making money and then I go. Go back home and I put my feet up, you know, we sort of use that analogy of the plane, the air masks coming down and Ben sitting there making sure he gets his peanuts to snack on. And meanwhile, everyone's passing out around him. And really, it is that cultural shift that we have to recognize that I think women have been Shouldering so much more of that burden because now they have to work and do everything around the house. And even when you have somebody who is aware of mental load and trying to help, then you have those outside forces like the school in my example, that's trying hard to make it continue to be something that the woman has to continue doing.

Jamie: 32:57

I work with families a lot. No shade to the single dads. Okay. The single dads who are busting it and working hard to do that. Absolutely no shade. But what's interesting to me is how. accolades are for single dads, dads who are not following the traditional mom's taking the kids and dads get them every other weekend, but vice versa. it's almost, disheartening to see how much congratulations and extra support and, Oh, my heart goes out to that guy cause he's just doing the right thing for his kids. And I'm thinking, you know, Dude, this has been going on forever, it's just an expectation that single moms are going to do what single moms are going to do. And they're going to, they're going to take the world by storm because they have to. And here the dads are getting all this applause and how amazing are you? You know? Oh yeah.

Mahlon: 33:44

Drives, drives my wife. Absolutely. Nuts. Absolutely

Jim: 33:48

not. I my wife is going to be listening to this laughing because we have literally an inside joke when I go out with the kids. She's like, okay, who told you you're a great dad this time? Because she will go out and people are like judging her and stuff. I like, why can't you get your kids under control? And I'm sitting there like skipping through the aisles with the cart. And people are like, Oh, look at you. You're doing such a good job with those kids. I was yelling at my kid in the parking lot., I, I rarely ever yell. He goes running out between two sets of cars and he almost got hit by a car. And so I yelled at him in the parking lot. Like. Dude, that can't happen. And I see this guy walking up to me, I'm like, great, like this guy's going to sit here and tell me that you shouldn't yell at your kid, blah, blah, blah. He waits for me to shut the door to the car. And then he just goes, good job, dad. I told my wife, she's like, of course, if it would have been me, they would have told me how terrible of a mother I was yelling at my kid

Jamie: 34:49

that they would have called CFS. They would have called you in.

Mahlon: 34:54

When I help out at the school that's where it really drives my wife nuts. She works at the school and then she also volunteers from time to time at the school and it's so funny But when she's there It's almost like, yeah, and I go for an afternoon for three hours and I walk out of there wearing a crown and have a robe on.. I mean, it's like, I've really done something. Yeah. And I'm like, one of the things though, that really kind of gnaws on me about this whole, Expectation is I cannot stand it when I'm with my kids and this happened a lot when I when they were younger and They would see me at the park or I'd be doing something and somebody would come and be like, oh you babysitting the kids today No, they're my children. I'm not babysitting them I'm not that just drove me nuts. I'm like, no, I'm not babysitting my own children, but thanks for asking

Jamie: 35:45

Isn't just the language alone, just like puts an exclamation point on those roles. I'm super glad to see those kinds of things shifting. I'm glad that my daughter will make, a world that that. It may not be the same for her as it is now. And that's an exciting thing.

Jim: 36:05

We should criticize men every bit as much as women is what you're saying. That's what I'm hearing, right?

Jamie: 36:12

Equal opportunity criticism. That's right. For me, everyone should feel terrible.

Mahlon: 36:18

You're all doing a bad job, right?

Ben: 36:22

Just hearing Jim talk about. That experience of being at the grocery store with the kids and then hearing Mahlon talk about the school volunteering and how he, he left with a crown. That's just been a major aha moment for me, even sitting here recording. It is so true. The moms who do this every damn day never get any praise or kudos or pats on the back. If anything, they get the criticism. They get the calls. And I've experienced it as well, being the dad and doing the things and getting all of the affirmation. Not once have I paused to think, my wife never gets this kind of treatment. So, I'm over here having an ah ha moment. So, thanks guys. I appreciate it.

Jamie: 37:08

What I love is that this idea that mom's nurture and dad's, teach and guide and discipline right. But, um, I love that that is shifting. Dads that are 10 years younger than me or 15 years younger than me that are so invested in raising men who, are emotionally intelligent and, and young men who, take care of other people and care for other people and have some sense of responsibility to other people. That is an incredible shift that I'm seeing in, younger parents and, younger families. Dad's need to nurture just as much as mom's need to nurture. Right. mom needs to be empowered to discipline and, and set boundaries just as much as dad can set boundaries and, and discipline too. That's going to make us better as a people moving forward. Yeah.

Mahlon: 38:02

I have some thoughts around that.

Jamie: 38:08

Welcome to the round table guys.

Mahlon: 38:09

No, I don't want people to hear it as I am disagreeing because I, I'm not, I think it's great that they're shifting from my point of view. And again, I'm making this about me, so I can't say this about all men. And I'm glad I Jim and been here to kind of bring their perspective. But I will say. there is something to say about. A mom's nurturing ability compared to a dad's now Am I here to say that a man cannot be as good of a nurturer as a woman? I'm not gonna say that but I can say it's easier for me to see a woman in that role based off of my own worldview and I see that within myself and i've seen that with the people That you know raised me and how I grew up Grew up and the friends around me and the environment, and even in today's world, I can kind of see that, you know, you see kids get a booboo, they very rarely run to dad and say, dad, I need help. It's always, mom, I need, I want you, I mean my, my kids growing up, when they had their tuck-ins, they asked for their mother, their dad. They were like, well, if you want to come in, that's fine, but we really just want mom to, you know, I mean, they wouldn't say, we wouldn't take a tuck in from you, dad, but they never really asked Yeah. And again, I know there's a lot of factors that go into that. The question is, is a new expectation that a man and a woman are to be exactly the same in every scenario? there are differences between people for a variety of different reasons, gender, race, religion, all of them. Is a new expectation is that we're all supposed to be exactly the same? Because I think that's an expectation that a lot of people are going fail at because I can't be exactly the same way in all situations that my wife can be, or a female could be in.

Jim: 39:50

I think for me as a dad of two boys, that is really aggravating for me. And that was probably the second reason why I really wanted to do this episode because taking school as an example, school is designed around the way that girls are naturally set, you know, like they're a lot more, I'm going to sit at my seat and I'm going to learn and I'm not going to speak up and go out of turn. And you have this phrase, toxic masculinity that came out that Ben and I have talked about this. And absolutely there are things about toxic masculinity that we need to toss out that are absolutely bad, but it's somehow in our culture got wrapped up into anything that is naturally what guys are like. Is intrinsically bad. And so now we have designed school around the way that girls are and when a has just energy, not even necessarily doing anything bad or hitting somebody or whatever, then it's like, why aren't you doing that? Why can't you be more like this girl? Well, because I'm not, this is how I was born. This is how my brain is wired. They need different things. In the military, they're like, should we change the expectations of how much physical stuff that we could do because women should be able to do this, too. Okay, let's, let's do that. Change things to make sure what do you actually need to do in this situation and let's change it to be fair instead of arbitrarily saying you need to do 50 push ups, right? So we can change it and still make it fair, but at some point or another, we, we don't always do that with boys where it's just like, no, this is always the way that we've done school. You need to change how you're wired because this is how things are set. And kids just aren't given a fair shake. And I've seen that happen with my boys where it's just assumed that they're the ones that did the bad thing, or they get in trouble for things. When I see, I've been there at the school and I see girls do something and they're given grace in those situations where the boys, it's just like, well, we're going to get them in trouble and send them to the principal's office. And it's just so frustrating for me to try to raise boys when they're told that Who you are is not okay, and you need to change.

Jamie: 42:14

Well, and I don't, I don't want to step into a whole different conversation here, but to me, that is an example of why it is so important to maybe move away from some of those stereotypical gender things. Imagine a school system where our kids were evaluated as individuals, not based on, gender. what little boys typically do and what little girls typically do, you know? I mean, I can sit here and tell you, I worked daycare for years with, with small children. I always had a couple of kids that didn't quite follow what was typical of what I was seeing with all the other kids. And why do we have to separate it that way? Why does school have to be based on what is typically, Appropriate and expected of girls. Why can't it just be, we're going to do, what's best for the kids that are in that class and, and same for people, you know, just like, you know, you look at non traditional families where maybe those roles are reversed or different, or, the jobs that they're taking on are different, they might have some societal pressures, but those families have negotiated what works best for their family. As a society, why don't we do more of that? Why don't we allow people to fill the roles that they fit best in?

Ben: 43:29

Because that takes work.

Jamie: 43:31

Yeah, well, exactly. It does take work. And I think it takes more diversity too. If you think about the school system, the largest percentage of teachers are women. So of course, what are they going to expect? They're going to expect what's typical for them and what they're comfortable with and things like that. I'll tell you what, you get a male teacher in a school and that's everybody's favorite teacher. So we're, we're cultivating this in our kids. When it's abnormal for dad to take us to the park and play, of course, we're going to think that's the coolest day ever. Whereas if we could negotiate that and make it more equal. Yeah. My parents are awesome. Right? Not just my mom's school or my dad's school. Yeah. Yeah.

Ben: 44:12

Well, here's a hot take. You're asking about why is it that way? Why can't we just have individualized schools or approaches to life? I think it really has a lot to do with the nature of social media and just the way that we engage in society today. The voice that is making itself heard the most is the voice is what gets adopted because it's easier to align yourself with somebody who is convinced of what's right and what's not and what's the norm and what isn't. It's easier to just fall in line with that than it is to be the person at the front of the line saying, You know what? I'm gonna do this differently because this norm It may be popular, but this isn't a norm for me, and I can't fit this mold. We have a culture of people who are so uncomfortable with the idea of being themselves that it's easier to just wear the mask or to wear the norm than it is to try to do different because it takes work, hard work. This has been a season of transformation for me. Like people have baggage and that baggage and that trauma that we carry instead of unpacking it and sorting through it and letting it kind of inform how we live our lives. We instead just set that aside and just go with, you know, the influencers on TikTok and what they're doing and what they say is the right thing to do. I genuinely think that if people were brave enough to sit with their shit, I'm not sure if we're allowed to swear on these shows, but, but if people were brave enough to sit with the shit, Look at Mahlon. and unpack it, can you imagine what the world would be like if people, instead of just buying into these norms and these stereotypes, and this, this groupthink that is so prevalent in society today, what if we just said, you know what, that doesn't work for me. I'm gonna figure out what does, but to do that you really have to be okay with facing a lot of your inner demons, facing a lot of pain and trauma from the past that's caused you to just go with what the group says versus finding out what's right for you. Yeah.

Jamie: 46:47

Well, I'm going to give you a little behind the scenes peek for a second because I'm about to say something that Mahlon absolutely loves when I say,,

Mahlon: 46:53

if you say empathy, if you say the word empathy, I swear, no,

Jamie: 46:56

no, no, no, not empathy, no empathy. I think what's interesting about what you're saying is that we are looking at this from such an Americanized point of view. And if you look at other, other cultures, other countries, you know, there are countries where mama makes the choices and mama makes the rules. And, you know, and these, these things don't look the same in every society. I think what we're talking about is uniquely American. And How we choose to move forward through that is going to make a huge impact on what it looks like moving forward. I was watching a Netflix show, The Crown. It's, I'm, I'm a crown junkie. I love the royal family and all that fun stuff. I, I vaguely remember when I was younger, the first female prime minister in England, and that was in, what was that? Like the nineties, like early nineties, I think. And we still haven't had a woman president in this country, right? There's still, for some reason, there's some spaces that are not accessible to me yet. until we can figure out that I I am just as capable of doing those jobs as as my male counterparts. That's when we'll start to see real shifting in our, in our culture, in our society. Yeah.

Mahlon: 48:10

Here's what I'll say. He can't help himself. He's got a pen in his

Ben: 48:16

hand. It's like he's been taking notes. Pen in hand and everything. Yeah, I'm like,

Mahlon: 48:20

just a second. Um, no, again, it doesn't matter if you're a male or a female. Can everybody do a job? Yes. My question and I think Jamie, this goes back to our wonderful episode of gender inequality in the workplace. I believe that there is a biological element to gender and I think there are some things that are going to be different in our personalities and in our abilities. We can't always say a man and a woman will always be exactly the same because we're different. That doesn't mean that we can't have a male do a job that's typically done by female and you can't have a female do a job that's typically done by a male. That's not at all what I'm saying, but I think there has to be some recognition to say there is something different between a man and a woman that in some cases it may lend itself to be done better by a man than a woman, but also there's probably situations that can be done by a woman. That's better than a man. Doesn't mean that you omit one, one gender from doing that than the other. But I think you have to recognize that there are differences. And that's one of the things that I was trying to get at with that question earlier is, is one of the new expectations we're forming is that men and women are always exactly the same. And I don't think that's realistic. I don't think we'll ever get there because of a variety of different elements that factor into that. And that's all I wanted to say, JB. I think that a woman president is possible. I think a man president, we've all seen it as possible. I just think that we, we, we would be fooling ourselves as a society. In my humble opinion. If we think a man and a woman will always be exactly the same, I think we're going to set ourselves up for disappointment and failure. But

Ben: 50:04

I also think that that can be a cop out Mahlon and I'm not just, taking a shot at you. This is not a cheap shot. I don't disagree with you that men and women are biologically different. That's obvious. Men have broader shoulders than women. Women are typically able to have children unless nature decides otherwise. So naturally, yes, there are things that women can do that men will never be able to do. And there are things that men can do that women will struggle to do. Here's the thing though you don't stop there. That can't be the finish line to the conversation and just be like, well, that's just how it is. No, that's like the starting line. As a man, obviously I'm not going to be able to give birth, but what are the things that society is putting on women that I can help with? I'm a sensitive dude. And in my case, I've come to learn that I actually can be a very nurturing dad. And that my kids can come to me and find that in me. It's something that typically is more of a feminine trait or more of a mother's role to be that nurturer. But I have that ability and I have that skill. It's up to me as a man to say, you know what, this is outside of the norm. And this is might rock the boat a little bit, but in order to be true to me and true to my family, this is how I'm going to show up in this moment. I am going to be the nurturer of the family. In my relationship with my wife, she's the mom, she's also the one that kind of lays down the law and is the enforcer. And that's typically something that the dad does. I think we could all agree that there are things that women do. Either are the only ones that can do them or they're better suited to do them, but that doesn't give us an out to look for those nuances where perhaps in this specific makeup, in this family, in this relationship, this is what I bring to the table as a man, even though it's not manly and gosh darn it, I'm going to be true to that. It pains us to press the pause button on this conversation. It's just so good. But we also recognize that you have a whole host of things that you need to get to. So if you're sitting in the driveway waiting for this episode to end before you go in, well, you now have permission to pause. Go inside. We'll see you next week as we continue this conversation with the round table mindset podcast.

Jim: 52:57

And remember real men hug, but they also collaborate with local podcasters.

Ben: 53:03

And remember real men hug, but they also round table mindset.

Jim: 53:09

And remember real men hug, but they also don't fall into societal expectations of what you should or shouldn't be in a particular gender, in a particular time, space, or social setting.

Ben: 53:20

And remember real men hug, but real men don't need a kudos for being a dad in public. That's right. Real man hug and hurdy durdy dur. Hurdy dur.