What Makes A Man?

Richard Reeves says courage, grace and responsibility

Are men in crisis? What went wrong? And what can help? Joey and Haroon sit down with Richard Reeves for the first episode of Avenue M—and rightly so. Reeves was one of the first to blow the whistle on what’s now a widely-acknowledged (or, at least, hotly-contested) crisis of masculinity, except that Reeves refused to operate according to the terms of the existing debate. We can care about men without collapsing into easy caricatures, which might make some people feel better.

But they don’t actually help us become better.

Joey and I deeply appreciate Richard’s thoughtfulness, openness, and perhaps most of all, how his awareness of a problem became a responsibility he courageously pursued: That says a lot about him—and about the kind of people we want to be. Though he knew it could potentially cost him support, Reeves went ahead and explained that, yes, in fact, many men are falling behind.

Watch and Learn (or Listen and Learn)

The exchange quickly became personal: Since Joey and Haroon are raising boys, and Richard’s raised a few of his own, Avenue M’s first podcast covers heavy ground—sharing insights no parent, and certainly no father, should miss.

Watch the full conversation on our YouTube channel!

Of course, you can also listen on Apple Podcasts…

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Whatever your preferred platform, don’t forget to subscribe. Of course, you’ll also find every episode here on the Avenue M substack, plus show notes, transcripts and more. If instagram’s your thing, you can find us there, too.

Join us! In the weeks and months ahead, we’ve got an incredible lineup of guests, from remarkable scientists, cutting-edge thinkers, comedians, and the very impressive men who commit to the institutions and ideas that keep our communities and country vibrant and strong.

We’re Avenue M: Two men of faith in the Midwest, covering masculinity, meaning, and how to make the most of what we hope to the God is our middle age. Join the conversation!

Show Notes

• Richard Reeves is founder and President of the American Institute for Boys and Men (AIBM), with a new partner institution in the United Kingdom. Because the crisis crosses borders, the solution will have to, too!

• Reeves is also the author of Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What To Do About It

• Haroon’s written for AIBM, urging Muslim men not to tie their fate to Andrew Tate and the manosphere: Religion doesn’t have to conform to the culture wars, because religion is bigger than crude partisan politics

• This episode is sponsored by Queen City Diwan, which leads travel adventures, immersive experiences, religious journeys, leadership retreats and religious pilgrimages. This fall, we’re headed to Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Spain—and more.

Avenue M is produced by Bespoken Live with music by Zach Swelter, who plays in Circle It and Mosant.

Episode Transcript

Richard: Yeah. Well, there isn't one, unfortunately. I really wish there was because it may makes it much easier to, to motivate. But there were a couple, I was working a lot on issues around inequality, uh, and upward mobility. That was my previous thing. And there was this really striking finding from researchers led by Raj Chetty and his team out of, um, Harvard.

And what they found was that there was no difference in the upward mobility rates of black and white women, but there was a massive difference in the upward mobility rates of black and white men. And that you could explain all of the difference in upward mobility rates in the US between black Americans and white Americans by what was happening to black men.

It's all about the black men. Obviously that intersects with race in, in a very powerful way. But it was like it was my day job to worrying about that inequality thing. And that kind of never left me that finding. And then as I got into the work, I kept kept seeing these data points. But I will say there was a moment, I think I was probably already committed to the project, but when the pandemic first hit, the male college enrollment rate dropped seven times more than the female one.

The female one actually barely budged. It was go, it was consistent with the decline in previous years, but in 2020 it just created for me for all kinds of complicated reasons. And what struck me about that was less the fact that there was this sevenfold difference, but more the fact that no one was noticing the fact, there was no reporting there.

None of my colleagues at the Brookings Institution knew that fact. Even the ones who worked on higher education, it was on table three of a. Department for education report. And I just, it was a real moment where I just thought, you know what? I know we'd be reading about this if it was the other way round.

And this is kind of interesting, right? At the very least, policy makers should be thinking, huh, really seven times more for this group than that group. Nah, we should dig into that. We should look at that. Uh, and so that was a real moment for me of like a, I was surprised by the extent of that fallen in college enrollment for men, but I was frankly shocked by the absence of people noticing this quite, quite striking fact.

So I think that's probably more of a moment of realizing the importance of continuing with the project than are realizing the problem.

Haroon: So when you, when you picked up on this, did you feel like this echoed or mirrored anything you saw in your, in your lived experience? Or was this something that you saw some data and, and the data didn't really seem to be anything you would've expected?

Richard: No, it, it completely echoed what I was. Hearing and seeing in my own lived experience. And to be clear, like this was my, my own experiences in a pretty affluent, uh, with a pretty affluent background at the time. My kids were in high school, uh, and I'd been looking at what was happening at their high school.

This is in Bethesda, in the suburbs of DC, very kind of up, you know, upscale economically, you know, areas. So it's not like the area where you're gonna see the biggest problems. But one of the things I really noticed and this was that there was a huge difference between the private conversations that were going on, about what was happening to boys and men and the public conversation about boys.

And so you just couldn't stop people talking about, and this is a cross class and race lines, how worried they were about their son or their brother or their husband or whatever. Like, it was just this huge, like, it was, it was what people were talking about in, in their own lives, but not what you were talking about in pub.

So there's this huge gap I felt between the kind of private discourse. About boys and men and the public one. And, and I think a lot of my work has, has been motivated by de desire to close that gap and to just say, actually this is a, this is a broad, much bigger problem. This is not just your son or your friend's son or your neighbor.

This is, this is like a, this is like a structural problem. Uh, and in sometimes I felt like I've been doing a version of like cognitive behavior therapy by just telling a lot of people that you're not alone. That's quite, that can be quite liberating in itself. So when

Haroon: Joey, do you have a question?

Joey: Well, I just thought, I wonder do you have sort of a, a shorthand diagnostic of the problem? And we talk about educational disparity, deaths of despair. There's a lot of ways you kind of frame it. Yeah. Is there a way just for our listeners to hear, like when you say the problem, what, what are referring to?

Richard: Yeah, well, I shouldn't say the problem if I said that I should have said the problems, and no, I'm not going to give you a, uh, a single sentence, uh, explanation. Uh, and I apologize to your listeners and to your viewers for that. Uh, it would make my life much easier and probably your life much easier if I could.

But I think the truth is that what we've got is a series of overlapping problems, and some of them relate to the other and some of them don't. But I think it's a mistake actually to have this sort of monocausal obsession, right? You can see that boys are doing badly in high school right now. I can also see that there are huge problems with drug poisoning deaths, especially among middle aged men.

I can see a rise in suicide rates among young men. I can see stagnant wages for men without a college degree and so on. Do I think they all have the same cause? No. No, uh, the, the what's happening in the labor market is not the same as what's happening in the education system, right? And, and, and what's happening to a 16-year-old boy today in school is very different to what's happening to a 56-year-old man in the labor market right now.

All of that said, and so I, I think it's quite important to just say, how do we make the school system more boy friendly? How do we help men in the workplace what's happening to dads? All of that said, I will say that I think an atmospheric connection between all of those things is a question mark about the role, the distinct role of men in, uh, gender equal society.

And I, I think one result of the magnificent economic rise of women has been to put a question mark next to the script that men used to be able to follow. Now I don't, I'm not gonna claim that that's why boys are struggling in high school and why their dads are struggling in the labor market and why we're losing so many young men to suicide.

I think that would be simplistic. But I do think there's a sort of cultural connective tissue, if you like, uh, that may be driving or at least contributing to some of those problems. That was not a single sentence. So you're gonna have to edit that down. Uh, and if you find a way to get me on my words to make sound simpler, then I would be thrilled, as would my communication stuff.

Joey: Well, it's not a single sentence, but it's a compelling explanation and I think it's something that people can, can put, wrap their heads around. Um, so back, sorry to interrupt, Haroon. Go ahead. Keep, keep.

Haroon: No, no, not at all. I, I guess where the first question I wanna ask, there's so many questions I wanna ask, is, when you started raising this concern, and, and I know you've, you've mentioned this in the past, I think to a lot of people, when I, even when I've shared your work, there's a, a sort of reaction among many people, however well intentioned, that, that that can't possibly be true.

That even if they, they might feel it anecdotally. So I'm wondering who, who first responded with openness to what you were saying. Were there particular instant institutions, people, politicians? Like where was the audience?

Richard: Well, I think in a broad category, it was moms, uh, especially sort of probably left center, left moms, or at least moms very committed to their own careers, to like the idea of gender equality generally, but who are desperately worried about their sons.

I think that was a kind of key demographic, which is like, like here I am and actually still think I'm facing problems in the workplace, say, and I'm fully committed to the issues of women and, and I'm watching my son, especially if you've got sons and daughters. But I'm watching my son and I'm like, wow, I'm really worried about him.

And I think what I did was give permission in some ways to hold both those thoughts at, at the same time, which is to say, look, I'm not asking anybody to give up their commitments to the cause of women and girls in order to say that you are not wrong to be worrying about your son. There are some real problems facing boys and men now.

Uh, you're not imagining it and you're not alone and it's okay. Right. And I did, I think that was a bit of an unlock moment for a lot of people. I will give some credit where it's due 'cause it relates her indirectly to questions. Like, one of the most important conversations I've had in terms of its influence on me, but I think influence on certain groups of people was the interview with Ezra Klein.

Ezra talked about how this work is something of a narrative violation, which I think is what you're getting at her room. It's like this just goes against the, it goes against the grain. And I've used that term a lot. I think that's right. And if you're doing narrative violation work, you have to, you know, do it very carefully and, and empirically.

But that conversation was really good, very deep, and actually led me, it changed, it changed the trajectory of my career, honestly, because it was in that conversation with Ezra that I realized this is an institutional problem and not just an intellectual problem. And that then led me to set up a whole new institution to work on this issue.

Um, but I would say that someone like him, uh, was, is a kind of important sort of marker. And, and they, and they reissued it. They reissued that conversation later. And a lot of people, particularly in that sort of more. Intellectual space. I felt, this is a slight digression, but sometimes when people come up to me, they'll say, 'cause there's done quite a lot of podcasts on this, on this work now people say, oh, I heard you on, and then I'll try and guess in my mind how they're gonna finish a sentence based on how they're presenting.

And so I can usually guess pretty well. Like, and the, and and, and I'm like, and the people who say, I heard you on Ezra Klein are very different to the people who say, I heard you on Theo Vonn. And it'd be very interesting to say, let me ask you, like, if someone came up to me and said they heard me on your show, what would they, who would they be?

Joey: I, who was the media list? I was gonna ask you the opposite. I could, could you diagnose? 'cause there is definitely a moment that I heard you on a podcast. Um, do you think like, what, what, what do I fit into? I would love to hear, what do you think?

Richard: Ah, that's really tough. You're making me do that live. I usually do it.

I usually do it in my own head and, um. Yeah, no, I mean, you've got a sort of subject specific area, so it would be, it would be harder to pin you down, to be honest, because I've done a lot of stuff around, you know, uh, some of the boys and you know, the fatherhood stuff. So I think it's kind of possible that you came through one of those route.

Joey: Yeah, it was, I mean, I heard you on Ezra, that was the first one. Yeah. And then I've also heard you on Derek Thompson. Um, yeah. Plain English.

Richard: Um, but I bet you, I bet, I bet you didn't hear me on Theo Vonn.

Joey: Well, I get Theo Vonn in like, the social media stuff. And the social media, um, the all, I don't listen to his podcast though.

Richard: Some, some, sometimes if I'm in a mix, a sort of relatively aged mixed audience, I'll ask people to put their hands up if they have heard of Ezra Klein, and then if, and then I ask 'em to put their hands up if they've heard of Theo Vonn just to see what the overlap is in the Venn diagram. And it's vanishingly narrow.

Haroon: How, how old is the Ezra Klein demographic? I mean, I guess we're, we're there

Richard: I'm sorry to say that, but if you are, if you're under 30, you probably haven't heard of Ezra Klein. Sorry, Ezra.

Haroon: Yeah. I, this is, I, I think this is so interesting. The, the term narrative violation, I feel is really compelling, I think for me. So when we first met Richard, uh, it was a few years back. I was just a few years into being a stepparent, and so a lot of these questions were very live for me in a very, just an unexpected way.

I suppose there's, in theory you can prepare for it. In practice you really can't, right? You're figuring out a lot in real time. And I remember the conversation that I, that I got to hear and, and you were on a stage and, and you said something really beautiful and I thought it was really profound because I sat with it and then I found myself thinking about it and reflecting on it for weeks and months to come because it was, it was packaged as practical, but it.

When you realize how much work has to go into it. I think you said something, I think the question was, and, and I'm apologize for garbling this, what is the mark of a good man? Or how would you, how would you consider, what would you consider a mark of a good man when it comes to your son or sons? And you said something along the lines of, um, he'd be able to ask a girl out and to make sure she made it home safely if she said no.

And at first I said, oh, that's, that's kind of witty and, and fun and and thoughtful. And then as I thought about it, I said, wow, there's a lot there. And I wonder how much of what you speak about is anchored in your experience as a father.

Richard: Yeah, so that's a great question.

The full quote, I've used it a few times since, probably partly because it seemed to resonate with people. Uh, I think I actually used it on Bill Maher first. I've tried to raise my boys to have the courage to ask a girl out the grace to accept no for an answer, and the responsibility to make sure that either way she gets home safely.

And it's very interesting that you should mention that her, because just yesterday, as we're recording this, uh, my son sent me a TikTok, uh, of a woman, um, who, I dunno, I'm not on TikTok, but, using that quote. From me, I used it again on Diary of the CEO and saying she's raising kids.

So this is what I'm talking about. This is what this is, this is the kinda masculinity I'm talking about. Apparently it's doing quite well on TikTok, um, this video. And so it does, and I've tested it on various audiences, um, quite a bit. And what happened was, I sort of, that was one of those moments where I tried to sort of take, take the academic work, take the scholarly work, and kind of back it into my experience as a father, right?

And it was very much that way round. Like, I wanna be clear that I didn't, I didn't sort of, I didn't raise my kids by social science. Uh, in some ways, honestly, I really do wish I'd known a lot more then, especially when my kids were younger than I than I did. I, I think that I was not made some mistakes that I think I could have avoided with this knowledge, but I also think that to some extent I was just sort of doing that instinctively and then I realized that really did map onto the work, but in a way that I hadn't sort of thought through.

And I think what that captures is a sort of willingness to take some risk, have some agency, right? That's the. Um, uh, what was it? Somebody, someone's talking recently about Dumas, this kind of Greek idea of like energy and particularly masculine energy. And in Welsh there's a word called hwyl which means basically sat like the wind in your sail.

My mom is a Welsh speaker. And so I heard that quite a lot. Who, and it's uh, uh, so there's a bit of that. It's a bit of like agency. Then the second thing is like the second one's very important, which is no sense of entitlement at all. Just to kind of know how to accept or, you know, she's not interested, you miss, et cetera.

And I think that's incredibly important. And then the third thing is like, and we had a thing with my kids where if they were late home, but that's 'cause they were getting someone home safely. Usually a girl. We would actually just give a little bit of curfew, um, flexibility because I do think that that's actually a good thing to do, to take care of people and who are, um, are more vulnerable in me.

I have to tell you, I haven't found many people who hate that model. Even the most progressive, like feminist young women, they don't hate that. Um, they don't hate the idea that a guy is gonna ask them out as long as he's not is doing it, doing it without an entitlement. They don't hate the idea that he's just thinking a little bit about like, are you okay to get home?

Like that's, that's not a horrible vision. Um, but I think that people have been so reluctant to even talk about that, some of those sort of virtues, that it's created a space in some ways, and maybe we'll get into this for kind of, I think, much more reactionary views of how you're supposed to be a man, which you've written about for us, for written.

I mean, I just think, I think that maybe we'll get into that, but I think it's like some of the work that you've been doing with young, young man and part, particularly kind of young Muslim man, uh, has really been on my mind again recently in context of this TV show, Adolescence. Um, and we're about to publish a commentary piece on that over at AIBM.

I think this kind of like, where are you getting these messages from, uh, and the work that you or your, you've done and are doing with young men in terms of like these online influencers versus these in real life influence. I'd actually love a kind of update from you as to like how you think the culture has moved on now in terms of the work that you are doing.

Haroon: Yeah, I was gonna laugh. The challenge is, I love the courage, grace, responsibility. I need to figure out how to map it out to a conservative Muslim community where, um, you know, you're going to meet her parents. So, I don't know, um, make sure the parents make it, I don't know.

I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to do that for, for, you know, a more, not arranged, but more facilitated. It's, it's a more like family arrangement, right? I mean, obviously that's not how a lot of people are actually in relationships, but I think it's, it's interesting that I, I love the frame of courage, grace, and responsibility.

I started noticing after picking up your work and thinking about what was out there in Muslim spaces, I started noticing two things. One is a lot of American Muslims seem to be pulled into the culture wars in ways that felt really inauthentic and, and kind of, I mean, one thing, dangerous, but also just irrelevant, right?

Like, certain frames didn't really make sense. And then the second was I noticed that, you know, with the high schoolers, I'm, I'm teaching the boys like, that's too late to make certain interventions, right? So I started putting, putting these considerations into the middle schoolers I teach. Hmm. And so giving them opportunities, and it's funny, like it's a really small, silly thing, but I make them, so we pray congregationally, collectively Muslim men lead prayers and kind of anyone can lead a prayer and I always push a different boy to do it.

Each time, and they usually bungle it up and they get really embarrassed. And I always say to them, I say like, you're in a totally chill space. Like, no one's gonna make fun of you. These are all your friends. Like, I don't really care. I'm not giving you a grade. You know, one day you'll have to go up to the mic, so to speak, and the pressure will be on, or you'll be in a situation where something will be on the line.

And if you've had a chance to do that beforehand. And I, I really think that a lot of parents don't give their boys chances to take risks. Mm-hmm. In unusual ways. From sports to public engagements, to taking a leadership role. And I tell them, and I, I don't know if they think I'm nuts, I tell them like, one day you're gonna be a dad, very likely.

Um, or you're gonna have kids in your life and they're gonna look to you to model something. So right now you're at 12 years old, and this probably sounds completely bonkers and irrelevant, but hopefully it, it plants a seed.

Richard: I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I think the idea of like social risk taking, um, it's a way to, it's actually can be quite a pro-social way to sort of model an a a willingness to take risks.

Right. And, and what I've discovered is that actually, um, very often that's kind of rewarded in the romantic marketplace to use that horrible language, which is like, actually you see a guy that's like willing to just put it out there a little bit. Like even if it, he stumbles and he struggles.

I think there's something the overwhelming majority of young women watching a young man try to do something and put himself out there are gonna be incredibly gracious if, even if it doesn't Yeah. He doesn't pull it off, they're gonna admire him. I, that's my experience anyway, but it's also reflecting a little bit on.

The, how do you think about these values in terms of, uh, like Muslim masculinity, which you wrote that beautiful piece for us about, which I really wanna recommend to people. Um, it's like there's a, there's a hadith around how, how many days women can travel on their own. Mm-hmm. Um, uh, and, and there's this kind of argument as you probably like how, how literally to take that or No, how many miles to travel on your, it's how many miles to travel.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and, and that's kind some, a friend of mine kind explained, well, of course that was, you know, written when it would take you like two days or something to kind of travel that matter mile. Right. So, so the question is that do you still apply it, uh, like today and, and leaving aside the sort of theological discussion about how to interpret an old Hadith today?

Of course. What's the lying behind that was actually a really kind of noble for which is that of just protection, right? Yeah. The, the, the Hadith wasn't written. A bit out of a sort of sense of like, we must control our women. They must never leave the, and it was actually written out of a sense of like, it's actually pretty dangerous for women to travel across the desert for three days on their own. Right?

Haroon: Yeah.

Richard: Uh, and so maybe we should just like not not do that. Um, and so that was a really helpful kind of way to sort of think about that frame for me, which is that I think in some of those, like what today can seem like these for very, very patriarchal rules or Hadith or whatever, actually what lies behind them is probably something that's, you can still argue about it, but it's like much more well intentioned than that.

Haroon: Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I, I think that that's really what I, I hope to get at with the teaching. And, and Joey, I know you and I have talked about this too, is that in a faith space there is exactly, there's that difference between feeling a sense of responsibility for the people around you. It's exactly like you said, you know, making sure someone gets home.

Late at night, um, paying attention to what's happening around you, uh, understanding that there will be many instances when you'll be expected to step up. And, and I think that if, if you can do it in a quote unquote small way when you're 12 years old, you can do it in a bigger way when you're 22 and an even bigger way when you're 32.

And Exactly. And I think that that's something I see in a lot of immigrant Muslim communities, that we've put so much energy and effort into academic success and professional success. And I'm not knocking that, is that we forgot that certain life skills, which are arguably much more important, don't just get organically.

Like you have to intentionally pass them on. Like, what does it mean to pay attention? Right. I, I heard this, um, you know, you mentioned the manosphere thing, um, and, and kind of the online influencers. You know, I, I heard this guy, uh, out in Chicago once say that, you know, I, I used to laugh at my dad. He was, you know.

Recent immigrant didn't really speak English properly, didn't know how to dress for success, shall we say. Um, you know, and, and I used to get, I used to cringe when he'd show up at school. And now that I'm much older, I look at him and I say, my God, he was a man. He was married, he supported his wife, he moved to another country entirely.

He dedicated every kind of ounce of his time and energy and income to his family. And he never asked for attention or, you know, he didn't, he didn't indulge anything. And he said, I don't think I could do 10% of that. And I think it's a really beautiful, um, sense of what does it mean to, to show up in the moment you're in.

Richard: Yeah. I, I love that because you do get that sense. And I, I have noticed it among some immigrant men too, maybe particularly certain groups of immigrant men. When I think about it, maybe it is more. South Asian, uh, immigrant man, he kind of roll their eyes at their dad, you know, 'cause he's like quiet and like, oh god, dad, he's such a, you know, he, and, and, and, and you're right, Harun, like all he's done is move here, build a business, take care of his family, kind of make money, make everyone safe, get them educated.

Apart from that, he's a total loser, right? Um, but there's a kind of natural thing where like, you're always gonna be a bit like that with your dad. And I've had a couple of moments with my kids where the stuff I, I'll tell you, I'll give you one specific example. I have this habit where like if I'm, uh, on a crowded train or a bus or something, uh, and I'm standing and someone needs to sit down, obviously I, I would give my seat that's just baked in for me.

But, but then if I'm already standing up and somebody gets on it needs the seat and there are, you know, young men sitting down, I say to them, who. Who's gonna give their seat up? Guys go, you know, this person, they need a seat. Could want to, um, I say it very nicely, but hey guys, one gonna give a seat. Almost always someone will leap to their feet.

Right? You never, you never, or, and I would do that with my sons when they were young and they would be like, dad, that's so embarrassing. Can you stop doing that? I was like, no, someone's gotta do it, right. I'm sorry. Like, uh, there's almost like they almost wanted someone to do it, if that makes sense. Do you know what they wanted permission.

They just wanted someone to break the ice a little bit and just say, huh, hang on. And they could just go, oh God, I'm so sorry. And they'd jump up. Anyway, my 24-year-old son, I'm with him a few weeks ago, we were on a crowded train. Someone gets, somebody gets on who needs a seat? There are some young men sitting down.

My 24-year-old son said, Hey guys, is one of you gonna get up? And I'm like my work is done. And I said, he said, you know what? You're absolutely right, dad. Um, and, and he just started doing it. I never told them they had to do it, and we never had a conversation about it. They just saw me doing it and they've gone from being cringingly embarrassed by it to doing it themselves.

And if that isn't fatherhood, I dunno what is.

Joey: I love that. I love that so much. I think we all have these moments also when we start doing the things that our, our, our fathers did to us or for us. And like, where did that come from, that somehow like innate, it's been, it's been baked within you. Um, the question that I had is I've, I've heard you, you mentioned scripts already.

I've heard you talk about scripts. A, a fair amount. And the level to which, like our masculine scripts, our masculine scripts are socially constructed. How improvisational kind of scripts are a little more difficult for boys. It seems to be. Um, you know, I, I can't help but think about. How the script that Har has in the Islamic context is, is distinct but connected to the script that maybe you have for your boys. And so the question that I had for you was, do you have any guidance for dads, for parents as they're thinking about constructing a social script for their boys?

Richard: Yeah. I, I always struggle with these sorts of questions 'cause you are worried about sounding prescriptive, right? Um, but I also think that sometimes the concern about sounding prescriptive means that people, no one ever says anything and they just end up saying, oh, well, everyone's different.

Well, of course everyone's different, but I think there are certain guidelines that, uh, you should follow. And, and I'll connect it to a broader issue. So the thing, and it relates a bit to the story I just told, which is, uh, be of service, uh, give more than you get. Uh, gen be a generator of a surplus of one thing or another.

And I think it speaks to, like the dad's room is just talking about, which is, I think I'm really convinced that there is a pretty fixed idea, uh, in culture where the transition from boy to man is transition from consumer to producer. Now what you produce is gonna be very different. Right. I think it's a, there's this idea of a surplus, right?

And you can think about in different contexts that would be, and this really relates to fatherhood. It's one of the reasons fathers were invented because of the calorific requirements of these kids that we have so early. But it's like you have to get more meat for the tribe than, than, than, than you need, right?

You can't, if you just kill enough meat for yourself, uh, to then you're not a man. Not ancestrally, not like in the right, you have to generate a surplus because you get, there are, there are women and there are children who are kind of calorific, calorific, like massively demanding and you cannot hunt in the same way.

Now I'm not suggesting of course that that's the same today, the surplus today could be of something else. And even in the postal economy, it could be money, it could be energy, could be time, could be love, could be service, could be all kinds of things. But at that sense of ser service and serving others, I think is absolutely massive.

Um, and I think that can just take different forms. Uh, but I think that that's the golden line, which is to. I think about my own sons and kind of how they've grown up. It's like, when, when am I most proud of them? And it's not when they've achieved certain academic things or made a certain, got a promotion.

Of course I'm proud of them. I'm proud of them when I see them as surplus gener, as doing more as serving others as caring for providing for protecting serving. Alright. Um, I've actually wr, I actually wrote a piece for, um, uh, for, uh, Ann Snyder Brooks', um, magazine comment on the, the difference between relational masculinity and kind of, uh, and lone range of masculinity.

I think the, i, there's this movement online of like Ugg out men going their own way. And I use that as an example. Like men who are going their own way are not men. By any cultural definition, right? If you are just out for yourself, you are not, you are not, you are not a grown ass man. You are still a child.

And I think that idea of kind of relationship and service is really what, what drives a lot of work. And it's, what, what I worry about now is that this is a really new growing concern for me. The lack of men showing up in various service spaces, religious spaces, civic spaces, volunteering. I've, I've just signed up to be a big through Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Uh, where I live in East Tennessee, there's a 12 month waiting list for boys compared to a three month waiting list for girls. 'cause they don't have enough men. That turns out to be true across the country that we don't have enough YMCA volunteers. We don't have enough scout leaders, we don't have enough mentors.

A lot of these programs, they don't have the men. And so I do think there needs to be a call to men. To do, to do these, these roles. And I, and, and it needs to be specifically to men. The call can't be, we need volunteers. The call has to be, we need men. Uh, and that's maybe not an uncontroversial thing to say, but I've become really convinced that unless there's a specific call to men, which is we need you as men to come do this thing and provide this surplus, this service, then I think we lose them quite profoundly.

Joey: Before Haroon, just before you say something, I mean, I've also, we need male teachers, we need male therapists. We need there, I mean, it extends beyond just the volunteer kind of civic atmosphere.

Richard: Absolutely. Those are classic sort of service providing roles. Right. Uh, my, my son, the 24-year-old I just mentioned, is now a fifth grade teacher in Baltimore City.

Uh, he struggled through education himself and like, I gotta tell you, like of all I'm, I'm proud of all my sons. I'm proud of what they do, that there's something to me about the idea of this. This kid who's like, struggled himself a lit through the education system. He's like six foot four now. He's coaching the girls middle school soccer team as well.

And they, and half of 'em have never played soccer before. And it's like, they just like, literally just like all run off of the ball. Like this class, they don't care. So he's this six foot four white British guy teaching in kind of Baltimore city. He's at the front of the class. He loves it and he's amazing at it.

Um, and, and there's something really beautiful about that. Um, it is the same with like my, my eldest son. He's just kind of bought a house and his girlfriend is like struggling, you know, she's just a little bit of a career transition thing right now. And so he's been able to sort of make that happen for them.

And I just like, when I see things like that happening, you know, one of one of those is maybe looks a bit more traditional than the other, but what I'm seeing is just yeah, yeah. These guys are just, they're giving it. They're giving it. And that's amazing.

Haroon: Yeah. You know, I, what I love about that is, you know, you, you talk about different models and you touched on this, um, this question of the, the danger of the prescriptive, and, and I fully hear you, but something I've kind of, it's been kinda lodged in my mind is, you know, I'm, I'm not talking about culture from an essentialist point of view, let alone from an ethnocentric point of view, but, but lived experiences, which I mean historically did map out over religion, culture, language, geography, for obvious reasons.

Right. We weren't, to your point, we couldn't really travel that far in, you know, so many days. Um, you know, I, I've noticed that the way cultures do certain things offer us lessons. And I'll give you a simple example and, and I don't know how we can highlight that, or I'm looking for a way to highlight that.

So when I moved out here to Cincinnati, um, not that far from you, I guess, you know, on an American scale, uh, you know, and like you said, right, like. You know, I, it's funny, like I never really played team sports and now I got three kids who love sports and you know, God has a sense of humor sort of thing.

Mm-hmm. And when our youngest, um, he's now 13, when he was about eight, nine years old, he played basketball, loved basketball. And these teams were absolutely hilarious 'cause they would be fully, 30% of the team didn't know that dribbling was a thing. You know, many of them didn't understand that the basket stayed on the same side of the court for half of the game.

You know, like it was amazing. Right. And then I'd start to meet these coaches and they're all successful men in different kind of ways. And I remember one year with this just absolutely amazing collection of small, young men, um, playing basketball, uh, air quotes. And the coach was C-suite executive at Pepsi.

And I got to talking to him and basically, you know, intuited that, and, and he wasn't saying it in the sense of like, I'm, I'm just forced to be here, but like, this is something my church and my company expect. And it's a, it's a kind of calling, it's a marker of professional responsibility. And like, you can't show your face in the office.

And you know, here's a dude who I'm sure has a lot going on and probably doesn't want to be spending four hours theoretically, you know, coaching, you know, kids who, whatever, right? Mm-hmm. And, but I'm like, and I, I was really moved by that, that like, he didn't have to do that quote unquote, but it's a culture.

And I guess my question is, it's a very long-winded way of saying it mm-hmm. Is how do we bring back the prescriptive without the, the judgment and, and the harshness, but with the motivation and the expectation?

Richard: Yeah. That's a beau that's a beautiful story. I love that. I love that. And I think it's exactly what we're after, isn't it?

It's where we're, there's just an ethos and an expectation of service, right? Of going. Above and beyond, uh, of, you know, giving, giving more than you get, being the mark of a kind of responsible, fully like a grown ass adult man, right? Is is like giving stuff. I love that. What is, so I think for, for me, the way I think about it, and I dunno how helpful this is, and don't even know if it's a direct answer to your question, but it's, I think 'cause we get caught up on the kind of, I think I, I'm willing to be very prescriptive about the fact that dudes need to show up and do stuff, right?

And so like in terms like just in very narrowly fatherhood, right? If you've got kids, whether they're kinda your kids or step kids or of your kids in your life, you have a moral responsibility to be engaged with providing for in various those kids, period. Right? Just, I think that's just an inescapable moral duty.

Um, but I also think there's a, do I, would I go as far as saying duty? I don't know, but I think there is a moral. Responsibility on men, on adult men to be of service to the tribe. And I think precisely because there's a slightly different role for men and women in, in the re in reproduction. I think the tribal bit of the responsibility is even more important.

Um, and it reminds me a little bit of the, it's another chetty finding actually, but this kind of really striking finding that in, in low-income neighborhoods, uh, they were specifically looking at kind of mostly looking at black neighborhoods. Um, where there were lots of dads around. The boys did better even if their own dad wasn't around.

Right. So you might say, okay, well obviously neighborhoods, there's lots of fathers. That's 'cause that means lots of sons have got their dads around. Right. That's true. What they also found was even the boys whose fathers were not around did better in neighborhoods where there were lots of dads around.

Dunno why exactly, but I think it's plausible to suggest it. 'cause those dads were doing some fathering of other people's kids. Right. That fatherhood isn't just found in the family. Fatherhood actually properly defined is a tribal thing. Um, and so your Pepsi executive is being a father to those kids.

Right. They're not his. And so the, the unlock for me is to be prescriptive about the needs to be of service without saying it has to be this way. Right. I do think that like, well, I, I, I think about myself. Like I was a stay at home dad for a while, right. Or my wife was the kind of main breadwinner. And I like to think I was doing well by my kids and organizing their play dates and all the rest of it.

But I also became a scout leader, uh, a mentor, uh, organized some of the, the, the school trips, the scout thing was huge. Camping trips, doing all that stuff together, kind of all got involved with the school, et cetera. And so I like to think that I was still like meeting that ethos. Of being a, I didn't say I'm just a stay at home dad.

I said, okay, so what do I do for the tribe as well? Right. And so I think I was as in many ways, as good a provider and as good a surplus generator when I was primarily the primary parent as when I was the primary breadwinner, which I've also done.

Joey: Yeah. I have a question that's connected to what we're talking about, but maybe just like a, a, a little twist to the knob.

Um, I've heard you quote Margaret Mead a couple different times about this idea mm-hmm. Of boys can learn nurturing behavior. Yeah. And I know you're, um, I'm gonna ask another prescriptive question here, so go go for it. But Okay. What, what would it look like or what advice would you have for, for parents with, with boys?

I know this is a larger institutional question. It's about relational norms, about a larger picture. But in terms of parenting specifically, are, are there any kind of specific pushes or guidance you would have to help boys learn nurturing behavior?

Richard: Yeah, this is gonna sound a bit, maybe a little bit, uh, counterintuitive, but, um, first of all, like, obviously the first thing is just they, they believe their eyes, not their ears, right?

So, I mean, I've given an example, somebody, they, they're just watching what you do, um, above all, and they're watching what the other men in their lives do. That's one of the reasons why I've said quite a lot that the best antidote to an unserious or even reactionary online male figure is a serious in real life flesh and blood man right in front of them.

In the mosque, in the classroom, in the church, in the neighborhood, on the coaches bench. Like coaches are just mental health professionals, mentors and dads in disguise rolled into one, right? Coaches are just like amazing. Um, but the counterintuitive bit is, I think, try and find ways to get them into some all male spaces.

Uh, because I, I've really come to believe that the all male spaces that are provided through say some, some religious groups or through things like. Boy Scouts, although that doesn't exist anymore, it's now scouting for America and has gone co-ed, which is something I've talked about. But, but at YMCA groups, teams, team sports, I think this is where, this is very important because I actually think that it's, it's easier for boys to learn that sort of nurturing, especially in that sort of group sense with other boys.

Uh, and actually I think the same thing is true in a different way for single sex spaces for girls. I think actually, if you look at what Girl Scouts do and those, uh, what typically those all female spaces do, they really prioritize being assertive, being, you know, encouraging competition, et cetera. In other words, to put it very bluntly, girl Scouts don't spend a huge amount of time telling girls they need to be more caring.

More nurturing and more emotionally available and there for each other. They spend a lot of time on STEM assertiveness, leadership, competitiveness, right? Because it doesn't come quite as naturally to girls, right? And the same is true the other way around. Like in Boy Scouts groups or in male teams, you don't use the same language.

But what you're actually teaching 'em to do is love each other, look out for each other, you know, nur, nurture each other, be part of something bigger than yourself. It's not all about the competition, it's about the team. It's not just about you, it's about them. And so actually what you're learning through those all male spaces is how to be more nurturing, how to be more caring, how to be more emotionally available, right?

You don't necessarily use that language. And so in a perverse way, I think those, all those single sex spaces help us to lean against and fill out, I think some of those more masculine and feminine traits rather than going against them. And I think it's therefore a tragedy that we are losing some of those all male spaces.

But that's what I would do if I was a parent. Fine male teachers find all male scout groups, fine male coaches. They need a, they need a crew.

Haroon: So, you know, you, when you, you talk about these different initiatives, um, ways in which people can show up, men can show up and, and should show up. I'm wondering, you know, it's been some time now since your ideas have entered the national conversation they have, and I think they've, they've entered a global conversation as well.

Are there particular people or spaces where you see that there has been positive change that, that we might learn from or wanna highlight? Or, or maybe conversely there's places where you think that we're missing the point?

Richard: Yeah, that's a really good question. I mean, I, I would say that I'm, I'm really excited by the growing permission space around this issue, right?

I, I, my, my goal was to mainstream this issue. My goal was to take this from like, I mean, I think we may have talked about this, but like, I couldn't get a publisher for my book. Uh, and, and, and that seems weird to say now, right? Uh, right. Um, but it was true. Um, and, and so I, I, I think that the issue is getting mainstreamed and that excites me.

And so I've been very excited by certain policy makers and political leaders taking it up. I was very, very encouraged that Melinda French Gates picked me out as someone to get some philanthropic support as part of her gender equality push. Um, and so I think what's happening is it's kind a growing realization that this is not an issue we should be ignoring.

Um, and that should be, should be true in a, in a nonpartisan way. So I'm very, very encouraged by that. I have noticed that there's a been a, a real rhetorical time towards the importance of things like Joey, you were talking about male teachers and kind of men in those professions. I am hearing a lot more people saying that now.

Now, that doesn't mean it's happening yet. That doesn't mean we've got policies yet, but I'm, I'm aware that this takes time. And the step one is raise awareness. Broaden the permission space, get some action, see where actions work, et cetera. It takes, it takes a bit of time, but I would say directionally that's been, um, that's been really, really useful in terms of people that have kind of gotten the wrong end of the stick.

I don't think by and large that's happened very much to be honest. I think that, um, most of the conversation about this is really pretty. Positive. Uh, I would say I, I, I, this is gonna sound ridiculous, but I sort of like, if, if, if I've got roughly the same number of fringe people accusing me of being like a, a c and having to ask my wife's boyfriend's permission to go out, which I sometimes get on that side, and, and I've got, uh, the kind of, you know, men's rights, you know, activist in disguise from the other side, you know, so as long as they're roughly equal, A, that they're roughly equal, and b, that they are very much just on the fringes.

That's fine. Like I, I, I don't think that anybody in good faith can think these aren't real issues, um, and isn't honestly kind of struggling with it. And I, I, I've come to, actually, it's very interesting. This process has made me much more optimistic and much more, feel much better about the future of our culture, which is weird to say, um, because actually the overwhelming majority of people are act in good faith.

Listen in good faith, disagree in good faith and want in a better world for everybody, boys and men, right? Anybody who doesn't, that it's the fringes who don't believe all of that. So I would say that the tone of the conversation around boys and men has really shifted in a overwhelming and much more positive direction.

The challenge, frankly, is, okay, where's the action? And that's why I'm excited by governors picking this up. Uh, Wes Moore, Gretchen Whitmer, uh, Spencer Cox really starting to say, okay, well what can we do at a state level, uh, to help this stuff? And so that, I think that's where we'll start to see the real policy action.

And then on the cultural side, it just excites me to have this conversation, um, and to engage with lots of fathers groups and men's groups and others who are just authentically trying to figure this stuff out.

Joey: So I wanted to share with you a, a a, a small story, going back to the practical here. Um, I have a, I have a 6-year-old little boy who is uh, just a wild man.

He's a wild man. Mm-hmm. And, um. The way that I have been sort of intervening with discipline or redirection, um, up until when I heard you speak, was by forcing him to look me in my eye because I received that as a sign of respect, right? Respect is big, right? And making sure he comprehends that we're on the same page when he looks away.

I say, no, look at me in my eye. Um, and I heard you say in one of the many interviews I've heard you speak about, um, about the importance of being shoulder to shoulder, looking in the same direction as opposed to face-to-face. And that has shifted the way that I intervene with, with my son now. Um, I mean, particularly around discipline, but just in general, whenever I'm trying to have a significant conversation with him, I'm now sitting next to him with my arm around him.

I'm not forcing him to stare at my eyes the entire time. Um. I just wanted, I just wanted know maybe a little bit of why that's important from you. And I'm, I'm hoping for like one real practical tool for, for, for dads and moms as there as they're relating to their sons.

Richard: Yeah. So, well, thank you for sharing that story.

Um, that's beautiful. And a wild 6-year-old boy is not unheard of in human history, so, uh, you'll be all right. Um, for sure. Uh, I, it's very interesting. So I don't, I don't wanna be misunderstood when I, when I use that analogy of shoulder to shoulder, like, I think is incredibly important. People do learn to look each other in the eye.

Um, I think that's incredibly important as a market of respect and confidence too. But I think it's just also true that like boys and young men especially, uh, it's just a more threatening post. Than it is for women, right? I think that's pretty well proven now. And so what that means is just like if you're, if you're trying to have a conversation, if you're trying to kind of open up, then staring boys and young men in the face is not the best way to do that.

Uh, it sets their threat level up and some evidence that cortisol goes up, um, it's kind of like a fight. It's like a fight stance, um, uh, for, for boys and men. And so actually just more naturally conversations will flow on your shoulder to shoulder. I think actually we've just published a piece on video gaming.

I think there's a little bit of that there. Driving, fishing, uh, walking, hiking. Uh, it's the only explanation that I've been able to find for golf, uh, is it's just an opportunity for men to do stuff shoulder to shoulder, right? Um, there's no other explanation for it culturally speaking. And so I, I, I think it's, and that's just true, right?

And so if, if you're a parent, like, and you're trying to interact with your boy, you're kind of your son, like. Don't think that the only serious conversation, the only way you're gonna have serious conversation is face to face, right? We're just talking now. No, no, no. Go for a walk. Get in the car, sit on the bleachers, et cetera.

Say how you doing like this, shoulder to shoulder. And you'll probably get, it's just a less threatening way into the conversation. It's quite a threatening way to get into it if you just stare at them. Now, that doesn't mean, as I said, you've gotta be able to look 'em in the eye and all of that, but it's just, it's a, just a true difference in the way that girls and women interact with each other.

They're much more comfortable face-to-face. Um, I, I, I invite your listeners now to go in. Next time you go into a coffee shop, look around and count how many people in that coffee shop are staring each other in the face, across the table, and then do a gender breakdown. Not that there's never any man, but like the idea of sitting and staring at your friend for like two hours over a cup of coffee.

I'm sorry, I'm not doing that. My wife would do it, no problem. And it's a difference on average. And so it's just how do you create an environment that is conducive to open communication? And there's just a bit of a gender difference about that. And it's important that mothers and fathers and teachers and therapists have really noticed a lot of therapists will now just go for a walk with their male patients.

Um, sitting them down and staring at them in the clin in, in the, uh, in the therapy room doesn't always work. And that's one of the reasons why it's important to have more male teachers and male ke coaches and male therapists, because they don't need to be told that. They just kind of know that.

Haroon: Thank you. Um, Jerry, that was a great question. Um, now I'm, I'm intern questioning every decision I've ever made, so that's, that's what, yeah, me too. That's right. Yeah. When you've asked a good question, um, I'm gonna, um, I'm gonna ask a question that, that flips things a little bit on their head. Um, so I, you know, I struggled with a lot of.

The question of myself, masculinity, who I was supposed to be in the world. I think, um, my mom passed away when I was kind of young. Um, they were, again, immigrant parents. They did more than anyone could ask. You know, from so many perspectives. They lit a fire under me. Academically. Professionally. Uh, you know, I mean, I, I, when I was young, I used to resent that my dad would say, you know, like, you're either going to Harvard or you're going to Yale.

But in, you know, on reflection, it was fascinating that, you know, here's a person of color not far removed from colonization, who genuinely thinks that. You know, his son can go to, you know, one of the two best universities in the world. And there are other great universities too, but you know what I mean, right?

Like there was that sense that you can do this and, and you should, and no one should be able to stop you. Right? And, and in retrospect, in hindsight, that's incredible. But something I really struggled with, like, I think a lot of, um, American Muslims of immigrant origin or maybe just a lot of Americans in general, is the question of marriage and you know, who, who to settle down with and how to make those choices.

And that was really, really hard. 'cause there were a lot of conflicting messages. What made sense for them? You know, my, my dad literally, I think he just called up his sister when he wanted to get married and asked her to find him a wife. And she said, what are you looking for? And, and I, I still remember this story.

She should know how to make na uh, and she should, um, pray. And those were literally his two, you know, considerations, right? So, long story short, um, it's, it's when I got married just about five years ago and, and came to Cincinnati, uh, I think I finally found my footing and figured out who I'm meant to be and.

You know, there's no reason it could, it would've happened this way. And, and I think as I look back on it, that probably the most important decision in my life has been who I've chosen to spend my life with. And I think that sometimes, at least in some spaces, we don't really talk about the importance of that.

So I started bringing that up with the boys. I teach, I also teach high school girls. I bring it up for obvious reasons, more with the boys, uh, you know, who to look for, what to look for. And I started to write about it and I'd write about what does it take? Like you said, we live in a very different age where a lot of these things aren't, you know, just kind of rites of passage.

You have to choose them, right? If you want to choose them, you have to choose them, that kind of thing. And so I've been writing and, and found like a really enthusiastic response for what do I think young men need to know to get married. And then, um, this is a very long question. I promise you there's a point.

Um, and then someone, uh, wrote me. Privately and said, um, can you write one for women? And I said, well, you know, for obvious reasons I cannot, I'm not the person who should do that, but I want to turn it around to you. And you had that beautiful kind of trifecta, courage, grace, responsibility. Um, what would you say to a young woman, um, who's looking like, what should, what should a young woman perhaps look for in a man?

Um, in, in an era when we don't have always the clearest expectations? Yeah.

Richard: Yeah. That's great. Well, thank you for sharing that. That's, that's actually really beautiful. Um, I, I think I probably would go, sort of go back to those three. I mean, there's, I I, I used courage in the trifecta, but it's both courage and agency.

I think. I, I think that the sense that he's kind of, like you said, fire under you, but like, I use that Welsh word ho, which means wind in your sails, or I think kind of just kind of got a sense of like, this is a guy that's like agentic. Uh, I think like that's al almost slightly independently of what he's being agentic about at that particular moment in time.

But just a kind of sense of like, there's a, there's a sense of purpose there. I think it's, I think passivity, like if you just get the sense of like, doesn't really know what to do, doesn't know whether he doesn't have views about what we should watch. Uh, it's like that, those are real markers. I think like, I, I do, I think passivity is, is a real warning sign I think of like, and actually young women have sort of said to me like, I, the w the, the worst answer a young man can give to a young woman who says, what do you wanna do tonight?

Is, I don't know, whatever you want. You decide, right? Just to have no view, no sense of like, this is all hunger, I think for going a agency. I think that's true. Of course, kindness, grace, I mean like, as this is obvious, but kindness going, um, uh, like a, a huge, huge, huge distance. I think what's interesting, IIII, in this, it's not really my theme, Christine Embo is on our board's, written a lot about dating, and I think that that whole issue of the dating market, like I'm 55, I've been, you know, married for core of a century and so I'm, I'm very much removed from this, uh, except through my own sons, but I do get this sort of sense that.

There's an appetite among young women for young men who do have some of those kind of markers of what we might quote, think of as quote, traditional masculinity about courage, about risk, about agency, and about the sort of sense of responsibility and so on. But they also want them to be incredibly supportive of, you know, their prospects and their careers.

And so it's like, it's very interesting. They're not looking for, there's this trad wives like trad husbands, right? But they're looking for an element of what came along with those traditional things. I've been like. Maybe I should finish with this. It's very interesting, like you get these cultural moments where I was talking to this woman recently, she's an incredibly professional, uh, she's a very successful lawyer and she and her husband have started going to this salsa dance class thing.

And she says she went in and like to start with like the man has to lead, right? And I think, I dunno what husband does, whether he's stay at home or whatever, but the husband, the, the man has to lead. Uh, and I said, well, because she's a real feminist. And I said, well God, you must hate that, right? Gosh, how patriarchal and sexist.

She said, you know what? It's so nice. I spend all day making decisions, et cetera, and I just love the fact that my husband leads and that's okay. It's okay to have these kind of cultural moments where it's like, fine, like just dance and lead. And then I think what women are kind of saying is like, I don't have to stop being a woman in order to be CEO and I don't need the men that I'm gonna marry a date to stop being men.

I. Just to support me being a COO, being a grandfather. And so I think we're really in this moment now, we're trying to find a way to kind of bring up what's beautiful and distinct about men and women without falling into traps about what that means we can and can't do. I think it's messy, this transition, and I think it's really difficult for a lot of boys and men, but I think that that's the kind of transition we're going through.

And the question is whether that conversation is going to be framed by and led by people of good faith, um, or not. And because of the reluctance of too many people to have this conversation, a conversation like this, right, where we're, we're thinking out loud, we're saying stuff has just created a really dangerous vacuum, uh, in our culture.

And, and that is a vacuum that we need to fill. There's a lovely line from Richard Rohr, uh, the Catholic theologian. Uh, it's specifically about men. Um, and it's about under socialized, uh. Under fathered men actually. Um, where he says, you end up creating a vacuum and then he says, and into a vacuum, demons will pour.

That's exactly right. Uh, we've created a vacuum and if you have a vacuum, demons will pour into those vacuums. And so the question like, so I want angels filling that vacuum now, not the demons like you.