Dr. Daniel David

Sit back and buckle up - this interview with Men’s Mental Health Expert, Dr Daniel David. A no holds barred interview as we dive into a variety of subjects. Masculinity and how it’s being destroyed by both academia as well as modern psychology. What is toxic masculinity – you’ll love to hear Dr David’s reaction, ME TOO Movement and their agenda. Boys rebelling from their mother and why that’s healthy. Feminist desire to extinguish masculinity. What kids need from their mother and father. How family court is so unfair to fathers as it relates to custody. Parent alienation.  Toxic moms. Thoughts on Andrew Tate and why he has amassed such a following.

For over 25 years Dr Daniel David has had a highly successful practice specializing in working with men stuck in toxic relationships, addictions, self-sabotaging behaviors, and patterns that keep men trapped in life-controlling problems. One of his areas of focus is working with young adult men struggling to find their way in life & older adult men dealing with anger management, confidence issues, addiction recovery, and relationship problems.

Dr. David was the founder and executive director of a nonprofit agency and outreach program to street gangs in New York City.and has been recognized for his work by the New York City Mayor's office as well as the New York State Governor's office and NY State Senators.

He conducted his postgraduate training at the University of Oxford, England, as well as at Harvard Medical School.

Disclaimer

"As with any discussion concerning men's mental health, masculinity, and men's issues within the social environment, it is important to acknowledge that these discussions do not reflect anti-women sentiments. I personally believe that any parent who raises a boy and girl would not put down their son in order to raise their daughter. As a good parent would raise both a son and a daughter equally, society has a responsibility to help both men and women and not to displace or disadvantage men over women. I believe that it is important to advocate for women's rights while still advocating for helping men and improving men's mental health. Most topics I discussed have been vetted through consulting with female colleagues, clinical psychologists, clinical social workers, lawyers, and female therapists who understand the big picture issues for both men and women in society and mental health. My views and opinions are intended to spotlight the ailments of society and the issues of boys and men and are not intended for clinical diagnosis and do not constitute therapeutic advice. Please consult your healthcare provider about treatment options that are available." ~ DPDavid

Transcript

Robert (00:01.234)
Hey everyone and welcome to Dad to Dad's podcast. I'm Robert and today I have the great pleasure to welcome Dr. Daniel David, a men's mental health therapist. Dr. David, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Daniel P. David, PhD (00:15.55)
Well, thank you for inviting me. It's an honor. And anytime I get a chance to talk about men and men's issues, I'm really happy. So thank you so much for inviting me here.

Robert (00:26.494)
Look, before we really get into questions, because I have several for you, I'd love to hear a little bit more about your background as well as your practice.

Daniel P. David, PhD (00:34.058)
Sure.

Daniel P. David, PhD (00:37.738)
So it may not look like it, but I'm actually from Midwest farm country. Okay. So I grew up as a farmer. All right. And until about, yeah, very, very few people, my friends don't believe it either. Like I used to, you know, lug the bales of hay, you know, and drive tractor and all that. And, and then I, I tell guys that, you know, I escaped from the farm, from the farmer, the cornfields of Ohio. And I. One day.

Robert (00:46.442)
I don't believe it

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:07.55)
told my dad that I wanted to go to New York City. He didn't know it, but I had a little bit of a love interest there. So he put me on a train and I went straight to Penn Station and my entire life was changed. So, you know, growing up in the Midwest and then going into New York and then, you know, it happened that my, at that point I was pretty young and sort of a religious kid.

And I, you know, I was active in the church and so I got involved in a church in New York City and And actually, you know had a crush on the pastor's daughter. So that's so that's what happened to get me Right exactly things not to do And so um, and so while I was there, you know, I went

Robert (01:46.41)
No.

Robert (01:51.138)
That's a whole nother podcast right there.

Daniel P. David, PhD (02:03.358)
Went to school for a while. I started college, eventually I finished, obviously, because I'm here. But then I worked for Bear Stearns for a short time on Wall Street, and I was probably 20 years old just in a stockbroker kind of training program. Very basic. And one of my friends who asked me to actually be a speaker over a week at a youth camp in...

uh, right outside of New York city. He, he said, you know, would you come and, you know, I was torn. I said, you know, I can't take time off from work, but, uh, it happened that there was a really bad day in the market. And, um, and I was at 55 water street, like way up high and, uh, you know, the, the market had crashed and, uh, and then, uh, you know, I, I heard these, this craziness guys were like, it was all men, you know, they're crazy as heck.

And I looked up at the windows and I said, oh, I know why they don't allow these windows to open up because all these guys would jump out. So I packed my, I had a whole briefcase of stocks. I put everything on top of my desk, put all my paperwork on top, and then I put my overcoat on, got on the elevator, went out down the elevator, walked out the front of the building and decided I was gonna go speak at this camp. And then I...

Basically, I was probably one of the first ghosters of jobs. I just ghosted on my job. They sent me SOS messages later on. They thought I probably was going to kill myself or something like that. And so at this camp, there were 300 kids. They were teenagers from high school. They're all inner city kids from New York City and area schools. But also, they belonged to these churches. So when I got there, I was like, oh, my god.

Robert (03:38.464)
Yeah.

Robert (03:43.104)
I'm going to go.

Robert (03:47.447)
Wow.

Daniel P. David, PhD (04:01.166)
I started to, you know, befriend the kids and, um, and I found that, uh, one group of young guys, they were off to the side and I kind of approached them. I found out that they were gang members and they had come to this camp, not to enjoy church camp, but to actually have a fight with another gang that was at the camp. And so they were, yeah. So it was like, what's going on here? And so, um,

Robert (04:23.355)
Oh wow.

Daniel P. David, PhD (04:30.214)
And so I befriended them and I found out that they were a faction of what was called the White Tigers back then. And they were real gang members. They weren't, you know, they were kids, but they were brutal. I mean, you know, during the 80s and the 90s, there was lots of street wars in New York City, lots of, you know, shootouts in restaurants, you know, where these gang members would be. And it was...

Robert (04:57.069)
Right.

Daniel P. David, PhD (04:59.442)
The White Tigers were a Chinese gang, but they also had a Korean faction. And so I found out that they were going to fight, so I befriended them and I asked the other, the church pastor who had the other gang that was there, I told him to take them out of the camp. So I spent about five days with them. Then when I got to New York, I called one of them up. Back then you didn't have cell phones, right?

Robert (05:27.982)
cell phones, yeah.

Daniel P. David, PhD (05:28.774)
Right. So we had beepers, if you remember. OK, beepers. I had my I had a beeper. And so I beeped one of the guys and then we got on the phone and. And I said, hey, you know, I want to come. And I had this man and I said, let's go play some basketball. So I took these guys to play basketball and they, you know, basically adopted me. They told me and showed me what the underground was like and what the underworld was like. And

Robert (05:32.122)
Oh yeah.

Daniel P. David, PhD (05:58.562)
Later on I wrote a book about this, but it's not in English, so nobody can read it except for Koreans because it's written in Korean and so I learned the language and I started to really be concerned because there were all these kids that were really in violent gangs and hurting each other and Nobody nobody knew what to do with them. So Eventually, I decided that I was going to

be a I found a mentor guy who was named his name was Mr. Kim and he was a social worker and he actually took me under his wing and he taught me how to build a nonprofit organization I was really probably by that time was probably 24 years old I had been married since 21 you know so I got married when I was 21 what not to do okay guys okay right so

Robert (06:51.918)
Well, right. That's early.

Daniel P. David, PhD (06:58.178)
And so, he taught me how to build a nonprofit organization by helping him build his. And then when we got to a point where it was now a $1.6 million nonprofit, he looked at me and said, okay, it's your turn, go out and start your own. And so I ended up starting a nonprofit organization that was called New Vision News Services. And then...

The purpose of the organization was to fight street crime, and it was gang prevention. And so, over 22 years I did this work. It was all about kids in the street, kids dropping out of school in New York, yeah, in New York, New York City and the five boroughs. And so, all of those years taught me about the...

Robert (07:43.56)
in New York, right?

Daniel P. David, PhD (07:55.666)
the issues that men have, especially when you start with teenage boys and the problem with teenage boys and you know, I observed and took lots of notes. I still have notes from back in those days about why are these boys out on the streets committing all these crimes? What's going on with their families? What's happening? You know, and when we talk about dads and the importance of dads,

The first thing that I noticed was the lack of fathers in these homes. And so, you know, and then the lack of, of boys being initiated into manhood, which I'm a strong believer in because of course, you know, I've seen the results of men who are, who are still. Well, I, what I call boys and men's bodies, basically uninitiated men who never truly grew up.

and never understood what it takes to be a healthy man. And so what were the gangs? Well, the gangs were a form of initiation into manhood, but they were a distorted form of initiation. They were, you know, these young boys were being picked on by other maybe gang members in the streets, coming out from school, because I used to guard the schools technically. And the kids, the boys would come out and then they'd be picked on, you know, a few blocks down, they'd be...

You know, beat up by gang members and then it would force these boys to seek protection. Well, who are you going to seek protection from? If you're being confronted by a gang over here, you're going to go over to the other side and say, hey, can I join? And, and so these boys were being basically forced into gang membership just so that they could survive in the streets of New York City.

Robert (09:41.611)
Right.

Daniel P. David, PhD (09:50.97)
And this was the 80s and the 90s. This was a very different New York than it is today. Okay. Yeah, New York Times Square is like Disney World compared to what it was back then. Because I used to walk there. So, that's what I started to observe was, okay, well, this is a type of initiation into manhood, but it's distorted. They're really vulnerable to nefarious men.

Robert (09:55.661)
Right.

Robert (09:59.606)
what it used to be. Oh yeah, I remember, yeah.

Daniel P. David, PhD (10:19.07)
who want to use them. And back in the day when the laws were different, a little bit different, these gang members, these adult gang members, and by the way, they were tied to different mafias, the Tongs and the Triads in China and in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and then in South Korea, they had these mafias. And these were older guys, well into adulthood, that were enlisting these young guys to...

basically watch houses of prostitution, to watch gambling houses, to watch drug dens, basically, and carry guns, because an adolescent back in that day could carry a gun and not get charged with an adult crime. So later on the law changed and changed in a drastic way, but they would use these young guys as a way to...

take care of their business so that if they got arrested, the kids got arrested, you know, they wouldn't get so much trouble at the adult. Right. So so that's where I started. And you know, you know, to make a long, long story short, that's what I did for 22 years. I ran the organization. I you know, if you remember Johnny Depp in the 21 Jump Street.

Robert (11:23.787)
Right.

Robert (11:43.999)
Yeah.

Daniel P. David, PhD (11:45.81)
I had eyes and ears on the streets of New York, in Flushing, Queens, and in Chinatown, and other areas, that were kids who observed and they would report back to me all this information. They would collect information on gangs. And then I would collect information on gangs, right? And eventually, two of the largest schools that had a huge population of these immigrant kids.

Asked me to have you know, they each gave me an office in the schools. Benjamin Cardoza high school was one and And so I used to actually do counseling with these boys in school and get them off the streets back into school, you know, and A lot of times I would have to challenge teachers like you're the one who put him out on the street and you know And i'm telling you He's going to come back to school and you're going to teach him

Because by New York State law, you have to teach this kid, and I don't care if he's fidgeting. That's the problem with our education today, is the kid's fidgeting. He's a nuisance. No, he's not. He's a boy. And what boy is supposed to sit there and stare at a whiteboard for eight hours a day? They're meant to be out running around, right? So our educational system has basically caused the problem, too. So now you got me started.

Robert (12:45.803)
Right.

Robert (12:52.802)
Right.

Robert (12:59.072)
Right.

Robert (13:08.862)
No, keep going. I love this. I actually, I want to hear a little bit more about the educational system and let's touch on that in a minute. But, uh, you know how it's, I guess kind of a doing a disservice to boys.

Daniel P. David, PhD (13:21.114)
It is, you know, there's a lot that's already built in, baked into our society that is disadvantageous to boys. You know, the school system, you know, when we have like something like 75% of teachers are female, and not to say that, you know, they're not doing a great job, you know. However, when you're...

When you're dealing with boys, you have to understand the mind of a boy. You have to be able to tolerate certain things with boys. You have to be able to, um, work with boys so that they are, you know, active with their learning because a lot of them are using their physical body. They need to use their physical body and learning. But what do we want to do? We want to make them sit down and we want them to face forward and we want them to stare at a whiteboard and we're going to sit there with this boring, you know, marker.

writing on the board and telling them to, you know, take notes, uh, because that's the easiest way to supposedly teach kids. And so what does it do? It causes boys to be fidgety. It causes boys to, you know, uh, be distracted. And as soon as that happens, the teacher notices and says, and I just did this today. Look, I'm now I'm pissed because I just did this with a college student today. He, he, he.

Was having a problem Freshman first third week in school He he's a brilliant guy Wants to learn so excited about learning. I've seen him grow Through high school and you know, I'm having a time with him today and talk with him coaching session and his professor so he was tired he was tired he was just tired and

Robert (14:49.357)
Right.

Daniel P. David, PhD (15:14.47)
You know, and I asked him about his sleep and he said he was sleeping, but he wasn't sleeping that well, uh, probably because of the stress. And so he, he nodded off in class. Okay. So he gets an email from the professor. I don't really think you want to learn. I think that you just really don't want to pay attention. You know, she went after his character in a major email of character assassination, as if he was, um, he didn't really want to be there.

because he nodded off. Did he did she ask, Hey, I noticed you were nodding off. Are you okay? Anything? Is there anything going on? You know, I'm here to find out by the way. It was a psychology professor. Okay, which blows my mind, right? Like, where's your empathy? Where's your compassion? Right. So she writes this email and she sends it

Robert (16:02.956)
Hahaha

Robert (16:08.324)
Right, right.

Daniel P. David, PhD (16:13.518)
also cc'd it to the advisor and another person as if His character was not you know in line with her intentions to teach and she and he was being This disrespectful. I'm like, this is the problem with our education 75% of teachers are female and this is the problem, you know, so

Robert (16:34.315)
It does.

Robert (16:39.126)
Well, you say that and you talk about the lack of masculinity that the kids see. When you were saying that, I think about the number of homes that where there's not a father figure. So one, there's a large chunk there where male influence is missing. Then you go into teaching, you go into school again, large female.

population teaching, large ratio of the teachers are females. And then at the same time, I can only imagine that the ones who are coming up, not necessarily with the curriculum, but the teaching methods, probably female.

Daniel P. David, PhD (17:25.449)
Sure. Yeah. And then, you know, then we have

Robert (17:29.531)
I mean, so of course it's going to be a disadvantage to the guys that are in the, to the males that are in the class.

Daniel P. David, PhD (17:36.286)
So, you know, I know we're going to probably talk about toxic masculinity, but here's one of the issues.

Robert (17:42.524)
I would love to talk about toxic masculinity. Why don't we go into it?

Daniel P. David, PhD (17:45.198)
Okay. Well, well, I don't want to let let's let we'll come back to it. But I want to just make this little notation since you brought it up. Okay. All right. So so, you know, you think about this whole notion of toxic mass masculinity, oh, you know, masculinity, this and that. But when we think about the stats about women, for example, you know, you know, 76% of teachers

Robert (17:51.783)
Okay.

Okay.

Daniel P. David, PhD (18:14.954)
25% are male, right? And usually male teachers are in older grades, not always, but mostly, and coaches, all right? So there isn't a heavy duty influence of male teachers in class helping kids, both girls and boys, to learn. It's female dominant. Then you have...

Therapists and counselors. I'm in a profession where When I go to a conference sometimes Out of 200 women. I'm maybe a ham one of ten men in the in the room Okay, so when you have The world of psychology which has become female dominant and then wants to you know write about men's issues and also wants to dictate that

this is the way you're supposed to be with men and boys. And they put out this APA paper that was ridiculous. You know, based on the feminine look at, you know, what men are supposed to be. So you have, you know, now you have teachers and therapists and counselors that are predominantly female. And when you go to divorce court, which we could talk about later on,

the guardian ad litems are female. Okay, so, you know, the laws are being affected by women against men and boys, right? The world of psychology is failing men because it's predominantly female and they're expecting men to start thinking like women, basically, and that's a problem because that doesn't line up with the male brain or male psychology. And then you have the education of boys.

And I'm getting to the point in my life where I think I'd love to, um, buy a castle, a literal castle, and create an all, um, boys, um, school, um, simply because probably professor Xavier here. Um, so, so because I think that boys need to be educated very differently than girls, not to say that, you know,

Robert (20:26.734)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Daniel P. David, PhD (20:36.582)
Girls don't have their own issues and their own needs. I definitely believe that we should advance girls and continue to advance girls, but you don't do that to D by disadvantaging boys. You know, I always say this as a parent, I don't need to put down my son in order to raise my daughter. And I think we need to stop that in society as putting down boys in order to raise girls. I think that it's as a healthy parent, you raise both children.

Robert (20:46.851)
voice.

Daniel P. David, PhD (21:04.946)
boys and girls together to love each other and to have equal abilities, right? And understanding of their abilities. But you don't say, well, to your son, oh, you stay there because your daughter or your sister needs to get ahead. You know, it's like you don't do that as a healthy parent. I don't know any healthy parent that would do that. But we do that in society. We do that in schools. Now we're doing it on film.

Okay, changing all the male characters into female characters. Now, you know, Captain America is a woman and the Black Panther is a woman. And, you know, um, and I'm.

Robert (21:44.186)
Wait, I didn't know Captain America was now a female. I had no idea. Maybe. I mean, I had no idea. That wouldn't surprise me. Maybe I need to admit. I'll double check before this comes out. And if it's not, I'm gonna edit this part out so we don't give anybody any ideas. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Daniel P. David, PhD (21:46.834)
Well, I thought there was one. Yeah. You know, every time I.

Daniel P. David, PhD (21:57.678)
Okay, yeah. Well, go on Disney, go on Disney Channel, go on Disney Plus, because I think that's what it is. But, but, you know, think about it, you could add other characters that have been, you know, turned into women, you know, because, you know, it's time for men to step aside. I mean, Disney has been doing a great job with that, you know, as much as I like Disney World. I'm not a fan of Disney, the, you know, producers here. So

Robert (22:22.538)
Right, I agree.

Daniel P. David, PhD (22:25.434)
But it's because society suddenly has to make this Make up for lost time. So we're gonna push all the boys off to the side and we're gonna only advance women and But we're now complaining about boys who are just like in back in the day in the gang world You know teachers and schools would be up in arms about The the bad behavior of boys outside of school or and around the school, but they were the cause of it

They're the ones who push the kid, the boys out of school because of quote unquote behavioral problems and they were direct contributors to the gang problem. And so now in society we want to push boys out of the picture and then we want to blame the boys for all of the problems in of the world. And this is a real issue in our society that needs to be addressed. And so, you know,

I think the world of psychology needs to be revamped and balanced out. I think teachers need to understand the difference in, there's a difference in educating girls and boys and that, and, and get a hold of that. Um, and this whole belief that, you know, gender is a construct, you know, especially because I see this as a denial of biology and, and the basic real sciences out there, except, you know, gender science is probably the weakest. I've, you know, I,

Robert (23:50.004)
Right.

Daniel P. David, PhD (23:54.35)
I challenge anyone to look at a gender studies program and find any biological classes in them because there's none. Okay. All right. So there's a problem there. And so academia has pushed the notion of masculinity off to the side and denigrated it, basically made it as if it's some sort of problem in society. When in reality, a lot of, you know,

Robert (24:01.797)
Right, wow.

Daniel P. David, PhD (24:22.91)
Feminists are starting to act like more men manly than men are okay, and in their aggression toward and antagonistic attitude towards men So we've got to understand this because it's having a huge impact on kids and so in my practice You know, I try to be balanced here and reasonable on the show here. I'm actually, you know highlighting some real

Robert (24:27.987)
I know.

Daniel P. David, PhD (24:51.642)
underlying problems that I see in society, but in the practice, you know, I try to help guys to have this balance of understanding who they are and, um, and what it means to be a man and why it's important to acknowledge their male identity and, and really to embrace their masculine identity because to do otherwise causes them great harm and is like handicapped capping them.

So, you know, boys get very confused about what it means to be a boy and what it means to become a man because they've heard all these things, anti-male messages, like, okay, how many shows where fathers are highlighted, especially, you know, in nighttime TV, you know, where the father is the bumbling idiot, you know?

Robert (25:48.028)
Mm hmm. That's true.

Daniel P. David, PhD (25:49.778)
portrayed as like an idiot, right? So why would a boy wanna grow up to be a bumbling idiot? Right? This is how society has really just painted masculinity as a problem, right?

Robert (26:02.922)
You know, and I see it with my two sons as well. I mean, they're both great kids.

Robert (26:09.554)
It is not okay. I are, there's times when I feel like it's not okay for them to be aggressive where they're taught. It's not okay. You're a male. It's not okay to be aggressive. It's not okay. Whoa, Hey, you're losing your cool. It's not okay. You're a male. No, it is okay. I know in our prior talks, you know, you've talked about that. No, it is okay. You're, you're a male. You should, you know, it's okay. It's okay to granted all within reason.

But that's part of our DNA is being aggressive. And I agree. I mean, we have been, I feel like we continue to be suppressed more and more.

Daniel P. David, PhD (26:43.083)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel P. David, PhD (26:49.926)
Right, well, because, you know, again, right, right. Well, again, you know, so when we talk about the influence of the feminine influence on male development, so when we talk about dads, we talk about

Robert (26:51.69)
which there we go, toxic masculinity, if we wanna.

Robert (27:10.39)
Yeah, let's talk about that kind of go in. I want you to keep going and kind of go into mom and dad roles if you don't mind.

Daniel P. David, PhD (27:17.294)
Okay, so you know when we when we talk about dads we talk about. You know, I often get these young guys who come to me and they you know they have their first baby right and. they're like sometimes scared shitless you know. Like what the hell do I do right, and so you know and i'm always happy when they you know they're calling me up and going you know i'm happy I had my.

Robert (27:33.59)
Yeah. All right. Yeah. I was there. Yeah.

Daniel P. David, PhD (27:45.906)
first baby, I'm like, well, I'm certain your wife had the baby, but you know, I understand what you're talking about. And, um, and I don't know what to do. And, you know, I want to come to the therapy and get some coaching on, you know, what can I do to, you know, be a better dad? And, and I'm like, perfect. I said, you're going to stop generational harm right, right now, because by you learning to take care of yourself and becoming a better man, you're going to be a better father.

And so these guys come in and they're honestly, you know, seeking, you know, for themselves, but for their kids as well. So this is fantastic. But I always tell them when you have a child, it's brain training. It's 100% brain training. And whatever you do with that child, you're training that child, you're training their brain. It's almost like having a puppy. Okay. In the beginning, but even more intense. Because

Whatever you do to train that brain, you're going to get results, whether you like them or not. And so you better be very careful about how you train that brain and men and women train the brain differently. So we know that we know that for example, when's the last time you saw a woman throw her baby up in the air? Right.

Robert (29:10.574)
Sure.

Daniel P. David, PhD (29:13.766)
You know, have you ever seen a woman throw a baby up in the air? No, never. I've never seen.

Robert (29:15.006)
Never, never, never. And my boys loved that. Higher, higher dad, higher. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Daniel P. David, PhD (29:20.05)
Yeah, higher, higher. Exactly. But you know, you have dads who throw their kids up in the air, you know, it's like, as long as they catch them. Right. Exactly. So why is it that our brains want to do that? Where mothers like, okay, I want to hold on to this kid and you know, don't let it go. And that becomes problem, a problem in teenage years, by the way. So, so men, raise children, train brains.

Robert (29:24.51)
Yeah. Are balancing them on one hand. I used to do that, you know.

Daniel P. David, PhD (29:49.394)
differently than women do and they need both. Okay. So what do kids need? They need they need love from their mothers. So they need to understand the value of nurturing the value of care the value of closeness doesn't mean they don't get it from their dads. But these are like the primary vitamins that kids get from their mothers. What dads do for kids boys and girls?

is it's a different type of love. It's, it's acceptance. And boys need acceptance from their fathers. Girls need acceptance from their fathers. Why? Because the father is oriented out into the world, meaning dads go, you know, I know women work and, but we're talking about in the nature of raising a child. Fathers are more oriented towards.

out into society, what happens out there, and how will my child grow up and survive out in the world?

So when we start to raise a child, we start to cause them to have a little bit of discomfort. So it's like wrestling, right? I forget, I think it was John Eldridge. He wrote Wild at Heart and he talks about his boys and I think it was a video or maybe a audio book that I was listening to and he was said, you know, like.

one day, you know, they would get rough and tumble and, you know, and dad was all about, you know, wrestling the boys and things like that. And one of the younger boys, I think elbowed, john in the nose, and he had a bloody nose and, and the boy was like, his son was in shock. And, and, and john kind of said, you know, he caught it, he saw the shock on his son, and he goes, Hey, buddy, you got me, you know what I mean? And, and, you know, and, and was, you know,

Robert (31:48.174)
Bye. Ha ha ha.

Daniel P. David, PhD (31:54.814)
Actually not angry but really happy about it And so the boy went up and got his brothers and his son went up and got his brothers and they were all surprised that you Know he had gotten him So, you know, that's the sort of kind of rough-and-tumble that boys and girls need Truthfully because what are we learning? We're learning about our bodies at that point what we can do with our bodies and what we shouldn't do with our bodies Right, and we're not gonna learn that from our mothers Okay

Robert (32:14.936)
Right.

Robert (32:21.622)
No.

Daniel P. David, PhD (32:24.562)
We're learning about how to take risk in life and what is appropriate risk and what is too harmful of a risk. So, and we're not gonna learn that from our mothers. He was also saying this, he was saying, like they were in the car and they were talking about cars and his sons were saying, "'Dad, what kind of car do you want?' And they were back and forth. And then they asked mom, "'Mom, what kind of car should we get?' And she said, "'I don't care as long as it's safe.'"

Right. Because that's the orientation of a mom. It's like moms, moms always believe that the kids can, will always come home for Christmas or Hanukkah, right. And, um, and fathers are sincerely anxious when I have guys to have their, um, son, their, uh, their kids go graduate from college and, you know, then the fathers get depressed. Okay. And anxious.

Robert (32:57.643)
Right.

Robert (33:04.855)
Right.

Robert (33:12.364)
you

Daniel P. David, PhD (33:23.098)
Why? Because like, is my kid going to survive in the world? Right? So fathers are oriented towards society. They teach rules to kids, not to say moms don't, but dads are more likely to be an enforcer of a rule. Right. They teach boundaries and they also teach consequences. And, and these are important things for boys and girls to learn at a very young age.

Robert (33:38.894)
True.

Daniel P. David, PhD (33:51.206)
And fathers are more likely to do that as part of this brain training.

Robert (34:00.406)
Wow, so I just thought about you talking about with the gangs and a lot of them were without a father, going back. And so they're looking for that masculinity, looking for that father figure. And they're finding that, I lost you for a minute, but, oh wait, I lost you.

Daniel P. David, PhD (34:17.651)
Right.

Daniel P. David, PhD (34:29.706)
You're glitching.

Robert (34:31.386)
Okay, all right. We'll just keep going. But you know, the fought the gang members are, are the people joining the gangs, they are searching for that masculinity, and then they find it in the gangs, and they're getting those same things, the punishment, the consequences, those things that they're learning from the gangs. Is that correct?

Daniel P. David, PhD (34:45.287)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel P. David, PhD (34:53.865)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel P. David, PhD (34:57.288)
Yeah.

There seems to be something keeps uploading. I think what it.

Robert (35:00.28)
Hold on one second.

Robert (35:09.965)
It is.

Daniel P. David, PhD (35:13.086)
This is 99% uploading on my side.

Robert (35:15.863)
No, that's fine. It is the internet connection is slow.

Daniel P. David, PhD (35:21.29)
Is that on my side or your side or?

Robert (35:23.038)
It is it.

Robert (35:26.882)
There we go, you're back. All right, you're back. We'll edit that out.

Daniel P. David, PhD (35:29.775)
Okay, all right.

Robert (35:32.202)
We'll edit that out. All right. I don't know what that was from. But anyway, I want to ask you something. Kind of jumping, you were saying about initiating into manhood. Boys being initiated into manhood. Will you go into that a little bit?

Daniel P. David, PhD (35:41.022)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel P. David, PhD (35:47.027)
Right.

Daniel P. David, PhD (35:52.798)
So, you know, as we were just talking about, like, the fathers train the brain differently. So boys need that sort of very tactile, rough and tumble, physical expression. And you know, you were mentioning about, you know, anger and aggression, where, you know,

Robert (36:00.301)
Right.

Daniel P. David, PhD (36:21.67)
where we see problems in the world, we see boys getting angry and things like that, because they've never been allowed to actually work it through their bodies. They, they, they have, they have to kind of do it in a sort of, um, uh, a way that society says they're supposed to do it rather than actually what's healthy for them. And so when we talk about boys missing out on fathers and,

Robert (36:30.988)
Right.

Daniel P. David, PhD (36:51.47)
not having that father role, that father role model, they get hungry for a father. And there's this father hunger that starts to happen in boys. And back in the day when I was out on the streets in New York City and dealing with gangs in the streets, they would find, you know, I would ask them, why, so why are you following so-and-so? Why do you follow him?

And he would be just maybe an older male, maybe 25 years old. But to a 15 or 16 year old, he's like an adult dad almost. And they would say things like, well, he protects me. He gives me things. He makes me feel strong and powerful. They would start to identify some of these dad needs in the gang leader. And...

Robert (37:30.614)
Right.

Daniel P. David, PhD (37:50.538)
Um, and it would be distorted obviously because this, this leader, gang leader wasn't there to be their dad. He was there to use them and to control them and, and expect things from them. So he would give them things, but you know, he'd expect loyalty. Right. So then I would see, you know, the cops come and, you know, rough these young guys up and, you know, it, it was so disturbing because.

Robert (37:59.32)
Right.

Daniel P. David, PhD (38:20.238)
I thought to myself, if only the dads were there and involved, and I would always ask about where's the father and why isn't he involved? And, you know, it would be, you know, some tragic stories. Sometimes the fathers were incarcerated, but not always. Sometimes the father was, you know, through parent alienation, which we talk, we see a lot in courts, the father was basically made to feel unwanted in his own kids' lives or told to stay away.

Um, and so, uh, so fathers, you know, were told to stay away. So they stayed away and there was a big void in these boys' lives. And when there's a void, boys start to want to fill that void or they feel really bad about themselves. They start to, um, get depressed, start to feel anxious. They start to feel insecure about who they are. They've, uh, they don't understand. Um,

what it means to grow up and to, you know, uh, make a life for themselves. So what do they do? They, they get into comfort seeking behaviors like video games and, you know, um, hanging out and drinking and partying and, you know, and, and so they, they miss all of this developmental stuff that they're supposed to get through, you know, all through their childhood into adolescence, into young adulthood is by the way, because a male.

male's brain probably, you know, um, both brains don't really mature until about 24. That's why the actuaries changed the car insurance after 25, you know? So there are still some developmental years even in the early twenties that are there. And that's probably why I'm getting so many in my practice because they crash and burn and because they don't have any.

Robert (39:58.262)
Hmm. Yeah.

Daniel P. David, PhD (40:17.722)
understanding of how to build a life because of no fathers. And so, you know, it isn't the problem with toxic masculinity, because I have hoarded that word. Um, it's a problem of too much feminine influence on the development of boys and young men. We have too much feminine influence. And this is why boys are so confused about themselves.

Robert (40:22.291)
Right.

Daniel P. David, PhD (40:45.75)
And these insistence from academia that, oh, it's just a social construct is really poor science because in reality, when I'm out on the street dealing with guys and I'm in my practice dealing with guys, the way I work with men is to help them embrace their male identity to understand who they are as men, to come to some acceptance of their role in society and they get better. They get healthier.

They actually do better. Okay, I tell them don't apologize for your male brain. Don't apologize for being a guy. Don't apologize for your male thinking. Mansplaining has been used, manspreading has been used. Mascopathy, they wanna, some, and these are unfortunate, I gotta talk about guys who do this to guys.

Robert (41:14.722)
Yeah.

Robert (41:31.435)
Ugh.

Robert (41:41.454)
And those are the worst.

Daniel P. David, PhD (41:42.866)
They are, they are the worst. So, you know, mascopathy, they wanna put masculinity and pathology into one word, and then they were gonna try to put it in the DSM for some reason, like masculinity is a disease. You know, this is the twisted thinking of gender studies programs, and these feminist run organizations that want to annihilate men, you know, because they think they don't need men, all right? So, you know, here they are.

Um, causing these boys to be confused. And as soon as these boys come around and they find someone who will invest time in them, mentor them, coach them and tell them, Hey, cut it out. Right. They respond. They get better. You know, one thing I loved about my work with gang members, and I still love about my work with men in my practice is that I have been able to observe.

men, boys in men's bodies grow up and mature right in front of me and take on the understanding of their, their own identity. And yes, that includes being a man and embrace that identity and feel powerful again and feel healthy again. So when we talk about male initiation, it's, or, or because I don't use the word toxic masculinity, I think, I think any clinician who uses that word is unethical.

because it comes with an attitude about masculinity that's cooked into that word to say that something's wrong with being a male. So I do not use toxic masculinity when I talk to guys and I tell guys don't use that word. It's an awful concept. So what are we really observing? What is society really trying to say? Well, okay, you know, if all these, if too much...

Feminine influences has brain trained all of these boys It's actually kept them boys, but now they have male bodies and So boys don't know how to act in male bodies so they do things that they shouldn't be doing and I differentiate it between healthy versus unhealthy masculinity or

Robert (43:53.514)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel P. David, PhD (44:12.294)
versus uninitiated masculinity. And what do I mean by initiated? Well, boys need to be taught how to be men. And they need fathers and they need other men. That's why every man should be responsible to take care of and mentor other younger men because we've lost that in society. And we've abdicated that position to the feminine, which is, I know mothers do their best.

You know, I have a mother, I know she did her best. You know, I have colleagues who agree with me, female colleagues who agree with me, and I understand that they do their best, but there comes a time when you have to turn kids over to a father, if you want your kids to be healthy, if you wanna train that brain to be healthy. Okay, but the problem is, how many generations have we been?

Robert (45:04.333)
Yeah.

Daniel P. David, PhD (45:10.594)
sliding down this slide. So, you know, the probably the, uh, Gen X millennial and now Gen Z, Gen Z is the worst. They are the most neurotic. Okay. Um, uh, millennials and, uh, Gen X, they, they've already started to lose ground. They, they lost ground to, um, you know, have influence over developing children. So

just like the teachers, the counselors and the lawyers and all the ones who have influence over male brains and male development, they've been in power for quite a while now and what do we got? We got a result and it's not looking good, not at all. So what's the remedy? Oh, to extinguish masculinity? No, to bring it back. Okay, bring it back into society.

Robert (45:57.652)
No.

Daniel P. David, PhD (46:09.434)
and make it balanced. The feminists wanted equality, but they haven't acted like they wanted equality. They want to extinguish masculinity. And they do it a lot through academia and poor science. And then you have these guys who are raised by mothers only, who were taught by female teachers who, you know,

were influenced by female professors, and now they have degrees in gender studies, and they're gonna tell you how to be a man or not to be a man, because they're insecure about their own masculinity, because where did they get their masculinity from? Where? Okay? So, that's, and they come with this authority that, oh, they know something about masculinity, because they got it, they studied it in a book.

Robert (46:55.714)
There you go.

Daniel P. David, PhD (47:06.574)
Okay, rather than going out and catching fish or climbing a mountain somewhere and you know wrestling with Right, right, whatever it is, you know like use You know use your biology now. I do recommend the female brain by luanne brisendine and also the other book Uh the male brain by luanne, uh brisendine because it's fantastic. Um So I'll give you one little pointer

Robert (47:12.242)
or wrestling, whatever it could be. Yeah.

Daniel P. David, PhD (47:36.034)
on this so uh she writes about the male brain she says uh around 14 or 15 years old I shared this with someone once and he was like blown away he goes I said around she says in this book she says um around 14 or 15 years old your olfactory because of hormonal changes in your brain for boys your olfactory uh your sense of smell changes and at a certain point in

your development as a boy, your mother should stink.

Daniel P. David, PhD (48:11.926)
And I know that, okay. Your mother should stink. Why? Because you should start to say, oh, my sister stinks and my mother stinks at this point. Why? Because it's an evolutionary biology way of keeping boys and mothers from having sex.

Robert (48:15.927)
Wow.

Daniel P. David, PhD (48:36.078)
Okay? Yeah, well, why else would your mother stink? Okay, right? Repel, repel. Why do boys start to rebel against their mothers at a certain age?

Robert (48:36.682)
Really?

Robert (48:40.902)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

What age is that? And are there certain ages, like maybe there were children, I'm sure it varies by sex too, where they need their parents, you know, a certain parent more than the other.

Daniel P. David, PhD (49:02.382)
Okay, so I do believe that, you know, when they're younger, they may need more of the nurture, but they still need, and this is no excuse for divorce courts to say that they don't need their fathers at this point. Because again, fathers do something different with the child's brain than mothers do. So mothers are here, let me give you a hug and kiss. Well, dad can do that too. But like I said, mothers aren't throwing their kids up in the air and wrestling with them. Right?

Robert (49:29.975)
Right.

Daniel P. David, PhD (49:31.358)
But kids need that because physiologically they need it. They need to develop into their bodies. They need to understand their bodies and how are they gonna do that? And you know, like, so you're wrestling with the kid and he accidentally knocks down a vase and breaks it. Well, he realizes, yeah, my feet, my hands can do something. They can break things too, so I gotta be careful. Well, how are you gonna do that in a safe environment? You know, mothers don't do that, but fathers do.

So yes, I do believe at a certain, you know, you know, young age, they need that nurture, that warmth and that, but they still need dad to rough and tumble with them. And they need dad for different reasons throughout their development. So there isn't a time when I can say, Oh, they don't need a dad cause they need a dad entirely through their development. And especially as they get older, because the body, their bodies become stronger.

They need a dad to set some real limits with them. Because I used to say this all the time, you know, NYPD, you know, I used to say, well, there's no dad in the house, so NYPD has to be the one to discipline the kids. You know, the police were having to, you know, rough up the boys because there were no dads in the house. So.

This is a real, you know, one of those real issues where dads are extremely important, especially as the boys become teenagers and even into young adulthood. Like how do you know, dad, how do I, what do I need to do to go to college? What do I need to do to build a life for myself? They need dad. So when I get guys in my office, I had one the other day, 34 years old.

His dad died when he was five Mom had a few guys come into his life, but none of them stuck So he was raised with his mom and his sister he's got a heavy drinking problem heavy drug problem and He so I started to talk to him about what it means to You know have male influence in his life and he started to tear up

Daniel P. David, PhD (51:52.966)
And he said to him, it just hit him, just in that moment as he was cheering up, he said, you know, it just hit me. I never really had a dad, so I never knew how to handle myself.

Robert (52:06.787)
Wow.

Daniel P. David, PhD (52:07.478)
And I said to him, I said, I'm certain your mother did her best, but mothers can't validate masculinity. They're not men. So what do we need from our mothers? We need love. And what do we need from our fathers? We need approval, acceptance. And acceptance and approval from dads is a form of love. That's the male form of love. Okay. So that's...

Robert (52:30.638)
There you go.

Daniel P. David, PhD (52:36.474)
That's what kids need and that's why we have to bring back dads into kids lives and young adults lives and we have to be Mentors to even older men because a lot of older men like gen x Didn't get a lot of this either So, you know, there's a whole there's several generations that you know, it's gotten worse all the way down to gen z where you know You could say that some

Gen Z have more involvement with their fathers, but what kind of fathers are they? They were they were fathers raised by mothers.

Robert (53:09.666)
There you go.

Daniel P. David, PhD (53:14.327)
I don't know how many passive fathers or men that I've talked to who are fathers who are very passive and they were raised by mothers.

So they're not actually fully matured men on the inside. So they're not really fully initiated men on the inside. So what are they gonna do? How are they gonna teach their boys to be boys and to become men if they don't know themselves?

Robert (53:40.854)
This is so concerning. It's scary. You know, I mean, it truly is scary, and especially having two sons. I want to kind of jump ahead. Do you see that there's some sort of upswelling? Though, I mean, if you look on social media, seems to me there is sort of an upswelling of masculinity. It's coming about. One of them.

He's a little, as I'll say, I think he's obnoxious in ways. But Andrew Tate, I mean, what are your thoughts on somebody like Andrew Tate in him amassing such a strong following of these adolescent and young men?

Daniel P. David, PhD (54:31.566)
I would love to spend some time with Andrew Tate. Because Andrew Tate takes me back to New York, my New York street days. I see Andrew as the embodiment of the reaction against the influence of the feminine over

Are you there? Your picture's gone.

Robert (55:02.37)
Yeah, I'm here.

Okay, I'm here. I think it's your internet connection. All right, just go ahead with the Andrew Tate.

Daniel P. David, PhD (55:08.999)
My, okay.

OK, can you can edit it and I'll start over?

Robert (55:16.742)
Yeah, yeah, sure. I'll edit and you can start from here with the Andrew Tate.

Daniel P. David, PhD (55:21.134)
Okay. So, you know, when I, when I, you know, I've watched a few, quite a few of his videos and if I, if I could, I would love to spend a day with Andrew Tate simply because I'd love to talk to him and understand where he's coming from. But, but what I can gather from Andrew Tate and, and his followers and the people that he talks to and resonates with is that Andrew, Andrew is

the embodiment of the teenage boy who is now rebelling against his mother. And this is where the Me Too movement tried to demonize men. And look, men do some pretty shitty things. So I'm not anti-Me Too movement. I definitely think the Me Too movement has its place. But at one point...

the Me Too movement made it seem like, you know, men were the problem with the world. And I think, you know, it really turned a lot of men sour towards the cause of women. And which is sad because I think we need to, again, you know, we raise our daughters as well as we raise our sons. We don't put our daughters down to raise our sons. We raise them equally. Right. And so, but Andrew is.

really the embodiment of this resistance to the feminine influence over the development of boys and young men. So he's trying to be very real with the reality of life, but he's in rage, he's in anger, he's in hurt. This guy is hurt. In my book, he's hurt and he's expressing that hurt.

And he's expressing it on behalf of society. And he appeals to a lot of hurt young men.

Daniel P. David, PhD (57:27.254)
And that's the hard part about this is that he's not wrong, but he's not right. You know, he's not wrong in expressing his hurt and his anger. And, and he's trying to make, um, society aware of what caused the hurt for most young men. And so that's the, that's the good part. It's it's.

it's unchecked and unbridled rage that, you know, everybody blames him for. So, you know, it's like, I tell guys, you know, don't give people weapons, don't give people weapons to use against you, you know? And I think sometimes he does that. It's unfortunate because I think he has a real message. I wish somebody would work with him on steering the message a little bit to help not only point out what's wrong with society and what the problems are,

but how to fix it in a healthier way. And so, yeah, I see Andrew Tate as a symptom of our society and it's unfortunate that this man, this young man, to me he's young, I'm 62, so I can call everybody young. This young man is so hurt, so hurt. And I used to work with gang members.

And people would say to me, because I used to have a radio show in New York and I did a newspaper column for a while all about gangs and all about street and all about kids and all about family. And I would have reporters say to me, well, why do you want to work with these? These are evil people. Aren't they evil? And I'm like, no, they're hurt. They're hurt. And hurt people do bad things. But we can't deny that they're hurt. And they're lost.

Robert (59:23.948)
Yeah.

Daniel P. David, PhD (59:24.762)
And so that was my mission was to basically save them, pull them out of the gangs and help them have a better life and to let them know that they were valued and cared for and loved. And so over the years, that's what I did. But Andrew reminds me of my days in New York City in the streets because of his rage and his anger. His message is not wrong, but his way of handling it I think is...

harmful to him and to the message.

Robert (59:56.054)
Yeah, it's put them in the crosshairs too. For several. I mean, it definitely has. Yeah, absolutely. Um, I wanted to talk about your practice and you've really gone into it a good bit, but is there anything more you want to add? Like where you see men that maybe are males that did not have a father present versus those that.

Daniel P. David, PhD (59:58.354)
Right, yeah, unfortunately, you know, it makes you a target, you know.

Robert (01:00:25.302)
did have a father present when they were being raised? I mean, are there stark differences? I mean, you really went into it, but is there any more you wanna add with that?

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:00:35.602)
Well, essentially there is. So I always do a kind of intake and assessment in the beginning and guys fill out this assessment form and it's 39 problems that men bring into therapy. And when they fill out this assessment form, there are things on it that says one is father wound, guys who have felt that they were wounded by their dads.

And then, you know, the father vow, which is the vow that boys take, I'll never be like my dad, because a lot of times they'll take the vow because not only did something happen to them with their fathers, but maybe their mothers set the boys up to say that your father was a deadbeat and, you know, no good and mothers doing this serious parent alienation.

So boys then take the mother's side at that point because they're young and they want to protect their mothers. This is a Freudian concept. So, so the father becomes the enemy. And so when I, when I get them in my office, after doing this assessment, I can tell, okay, what's going on. So mother enmeshment is a huge problem with most men that come into my practice. They're, they're enmeshed with their mothers.

At one point the mother's, this is the fun, funny part about the, you know, the, uh, male brain, the book on the male brain is that, right. You're supposed, your mother's supposed to stink at a certain point and you're supposed to stay away from her. But if she overpowers you by saying, Hey kid, you're not going anywhere. You're staying with me. Then that, that resistance is killed and, and then the boy becomes enmeshed and then he becomes emotionally her husband or her caregiver or.

someone who is supposed to be there for her only for her. Right. And so, but then he grows up and he can't, he can never escape. And eventually he, let's say he falls in love with a girl and he goes over here and he, he marries this girl. Well, he's now the, now the two, the wife and the mother are at odds with each other. And then, of course, then he gets enmeshed with his wife and treats her just like

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:02:54.194)
his mother and she resents him for that because she doesn't want to be his mother. And he resents her because she will start acting like his mother. And then he'll start to resent her. And this becomes a real relationship problem and a mess. Right. So, um, so, so I spend a lot of time like, okay, unwinding this enmeshment, you know, like, Hey, you need separation from your mother.

Robert (01:03:06.675)
Oh my gosh.

Robert (01:03:10.772)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:03:23.358)
You need to stop treating your wife like your mother. Uh, you need to deal with your resentments towards your, your wife, because she's probably doing the best that she can, but you've all already, you know, got into that dance of like, you know, you know, she's my mother. So I'm going to resist her too. Um, and so, uh, there's a book by, I think it's named Tom Lee. Uh, there's a book called, um, breaking the mother son dynamic, which is I recommend to some guys because that mother son dynamic can be very,

you know.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:03:56.69)
painful for a lot of men. And a lot of these men grow up to be very passive because they have had the feminine influence over their development. So they're not allowed to be angry and not allowed to be aggressive and not allowed to do all the, say, you know, be bad, so to speak. They all have to be good boys. So what do they do? They grow up and they have to go out into society and they can't be assertive. They don't know how to say no to people. They can't set boundaries. They can't, you know,

saying, say, you know, this is what I believe in. They can't stand up for themselves. So they become very passive and they're unhappy. They're miserable and they're depressed. And this is because, like I said, they haven't had that male influence over them that says, okay, sometimes you carry a sword, you don't know, you keep it sheaved, but you, and you don't pull it out, but you have it. And people should know it that once in a while you might need to.

show it a little bit and say, you know, don't fuck with me. Right. And set a boundary and say no, and keep your boundary. Don't get passive. Don't, don't give in. Learn to set boundaries, learn to set expectations, learn to say no. There's a, there's a good book that I recommend no more. Mr. Nice guy, uh, by Glover. Um, that's a good book for a lot of guys. I also recommend to be a man by, um, Robert Masters.

Which is a good foundational book for guys Right, and then if they really want to get into understanding the male archetypes I recommend the king warrior magician lover book Written by Moore and Gillette And and you know, so I start to lay a foundation, you know, look, I'm not a guy who drives a pickup truck You know

Robert (01:05:39.357)
I have, yeah.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:05:52.186)
I don't fit into the stereotypical dude, but I don't care. You know, like, because it doesn't, we don't have to fit into those boxes. So I do.

Robert (01:05:57.473)
Yeah.

Robert (01:06:02.442)
Right. But you appreciate you appreciate the role of a male and you teach others how to live that life. How to accept it and live it.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:06:08.634)
Absolutely. If they want to love a truck, fine. Or a sports car over here. I like cars myself. But the point is that, by the way, that's an essential difference between male brains and female brains. And this is, again, gender people don't want to acknowledge this. But it's a pattern. Male brains have this pattern of liking things.

Like we just talked about trucks and cars and you know, female brains tend to be oriented towards people, persons, right? So, you know, it's why, it's why you don't see a lot of women, um, as bricklayers or laying telephone lines or out there on, on these crews, uh, paving roads. You don't see, I, I've never seen a woman out there. Okay. Because we,

Robert (01:06:47.211)
Yeah.

Robert (01:07:03.063)
No.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:07:04.57)
We like to fix things and I tell guys don't apologize for having a fix it brain Thank god. We all have fix it brains at some point, right? So but there's some

Robert (01:07:13.482)
And part of it too is the physical aspect of it. I mean, let's be honest. I mean, say what you want to, but a female physically cannot do what a male can. Cancel me for saying that, but it's the truth.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:07:18.61)
Right, right, right.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:07:31.979)
Right. And we're not denigrating women by saying it. It's just a fact. Unless she's been in the gym and she lifts 300 pounds, but there are very few women that do that. And they're not gonna go out and be bricklayers. So...

Robert (01:07:34.876)
No, no, yeah.

Robert (01:07:47.178)
Well, I mean, even go back to look at Serena Williams and back in her prime and she went up against, I can't remember his name. I think he was number 200 in the men's tennis and beat her six Oh six one. I mean, so physically there is, there is a difference there. You know, there is, uh, I was watching something the other day and they were talking about these, um, uh,

the MMA fighters and they were talking about this one fighter where she, I cannot remember her name either, but anyway, very good fighter. And they're like, you know, she could not even compete with somebody in the top 100, 200 in the sport. She would get beat. I mean, there's that much of a difference, but no, I agree with what you're saying there. I wanna ask you,

Before we get off, there's a few things I want to go over. And one of the things, the mental health of men who did not receive custody or who don't have the custody they want of their children who have less custody, I mean, higher rate, significantly higher rate of suicide, depression. What do you see in your practice? How do you handle that? I mean,

Is that pretty accurate? I mean, do you see these higher rates? Cause that's, look, it's just, it's heartbreaking. And I mean, it certainly is.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:09:23.234)
It's, it's really heartbreaking and I coach a lot of men through divorce.

And when I get men who come into the office and they're, you know, they're horrified that the fact that they're not going to be able to spend time with their kids or see their kids, I try to reassure them and give them some hope. I've seen some pretty horrible cases. Like I have one case where, and this is where psychology failed this guy because he was a good man. He had never been arrested, never gotten in trouble with the law, never.

but he has to have supervised visitation of his four-year-old. And he essentially had to stop seeing his four-year-old because he said, why do I want my four-year-old to see her father being supervised by a stranger every time and grow up with that image in her mind and to maybe turn around and distrust men?

So I can, you know, it's enraging when you hear about things like that. And this is the way the courts are set up. So I, so what I do is I try to encourage them, you know, and I try to say, look, because I've been around and I've done this for 35 years.

Because I know the developmental stages of a child, and I've, you know, I worked with teenagers for 22 years before I became a therapist. So I've seen it all, you know. In the developmental stages of these kids, what I know is that around 14, 15, and 16, they start to have a longing for their dads.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:11:13.266)
So if the mother, and this is a warning to mothers out there, if mothers in a divorce case want to disparage the father, alienate the children from their father, there will be a day of reckoning, where at about 14, 15, and 16 years old, especially around 14, because I think in a lot of divorce courts, the children at that point, I think.

depends on the state, are allowed to choose which parent they want to be with.

And when the children start to long, because it's a natural desire for kids to be with their dads, even if they were told their dads are, you know, bad, they want to, they start to want to know for themselves. And all it takes is a couple of positive experiences meeting their dads and it changes everything, because they've, they start to realize he's not so bad.

Robert (01:12:04.514)
Mm-hmm.

Robert (01:12:15.68)
Right.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:12:16.85)
And I coached the fathers on how to spend time with their kids and what to do. Um, and they realized the kids realized, Oh, my dad isn't bad. My mom said he was bad, but I like him. Okay. That's the beginning of the reckoning for mothers. And I have seen kids turn on their mothers and say, you lied to me. You deceived me. You took dad away. You pushed him away. And. And I've seen those kids.

Want to gravitate and if fathers are available when they're available and they can you know, really be with those kids They'll win them over very quickly. So I tell guys look It's going to be a few years of struggle but number one just Do your best to be available when you can to for your kids? I also tell them, you know

It's an illusion that when mom and dad is at home and the kids are at home that we're all like focused on the kids 24-7 because that's not the case. Usually kids are in the basement playing games and dad's up in the office and mom's in her office to have equality here. She has an office. He has an office. Whatever. Right. But in a divorce situation, equal sizes. Same paint.

Robert (01:13:19.405)
Right.

Robert (01:13:33.031)
equal sizes and everything.

Robert (01:13:37.957)
Yeah.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:13:39.174)
So, but in a divorce situation, when fathers are limited to, let's say, two or three days, sometimes that's not even the case, but let's say, as limited in time with their kids, they spend more time focused on their kids and their kids actually like that. And they enjoy it too. So the kids are actually getting more of dad than they would have gotten if mom and dad were together.

Robert (01:14:04.482)
100% agree. Let's see that.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:14:06.226)
You know, so it's a it's a it's okay guys. You'll make it you'll get through so I coach them through that and You know, I try to give them hope and even if they become a strange like this one guy, you know, basically he couldn't No longer see his kid because of this arrangement And he doesn't have the money to fight it So he's gonna wait he you know, I've told guys write your kid an email every day

put it in a special email account. Little letters to your kid every day or several times a week and send it to this account. Then one day when they become a teenager and you know in these emails you can explain how you feel and how much you love them and how you miss them and all that and then one day you give them the password to that account and let them go and read all those that diary of emails. Yeah. And.

Robert (01:15:00.59)
Hmm. That's beautiful. That is beautiful.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:15:04.686)
I've had guys do that and the, and you know, the kids are like broken hearted. It's, it's very sad, but they also realized dad did love me and it does a lot to heal them, the kids. Okay.

Robert (01:15:17.226)
Yeah, yeah, no, that's beautiful. You know, and talking about it, you were talking about these toxic moms. Everybody wants to talk about absent fathers and deadbeat dads, but nobody really wants to go into toxic moms and talk about how harmful they are. And they are just as bad, if not worse, than these so-called deadbeat dads, absent fathers.

So.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:15:48.518)
Yeah, you know, there's

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:15:52.746)
Freud talked about it a bit, but Jung also talked about the devouring mother.

Robert (01:15:58.394)
Explain that. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:16:01.482)
So the mother that becomes like a moment ago, you know, I expressed what I see a lot of when I when I work with men, I see a lot of men enmeshed with their mothers.

You know, the mother becomes, says, I don't have a man to take care of me. So you're going to be my little man now. And she holds onto the boy. The boy is trying to push away because like I said, they need to rebel, but she breaks that. She breaks it in him. And she then meshes with him and says, you know, you're going to take care of me emotionally. And so that's the beginning of the devouring mother where the boy,

no longer has his own separateness from his mother and his own separate identity. And what happens is that later on in adulthood, it develops into men who have a hard time sustaining closeness in relationship for fear of loss of identity. It's a type of what we call engulfment fear.

to be engulfed, to be swallowed up. And that comes from the devouring mother. And also the fear of the masculine. So this guy that I was telling you, this 34 year old guy that told me, he started tearing up that he never had a dad. He also, because he was in mesh with his mother, he didn't know how to handle men.

He actually was afraid of men and became anxious around men. Now outwardly he would just be himself, but internally he became very unsettled and uncomfortable around men. And this is the problem with the female, the over intense female influence over male development, which is part of the devouring mother syndrome in my.

Robert (01:17:49.099)
Right.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:18:09.778)
I would call it that. I know it's not called that, but I would call it that because it's not just mom at home, it's mom at school. It's mom at the counseling office. It's mom everywhere, the devouring feminine. But it teaches, and this is why we have so many men who align themselves with the feminist movement and tell men, oh, you know.

You don't have to be that masculine type because they're they themselves are insecure about their own masculinity because they were raised mainly by mothers Okay, so it's all a complex of the devouring mother. It's all included in that and so You know and this is what causes the problem in relationship for men because they have a hard time then to sustain Closeness because of that. So I have to teach them number one

We got to talk about your identity and you know, something about identity is that, you know, we do get, we, we do get to choose, you know, I don't tell guys, okay, well, do you have to be this certain type of man? I always say whatever version you want, I don't care if you were killed. It's okay. Uh, some guys would call it a skirt. It's okay. Um, you know, I don't care what you do, as long as you're comfortable with your masculinity and not

denigrating someone else's masculinity and saying, you know, that's too much, right? If you're going to be a certain way, fine. But learn to be okay with your version of masculinity. Learn to be centered in yourself. Learn to take on your own identity and be free to have your own limitations and your own boundaries. Accept who you are.

Robert (01:19:36.619)
Right.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:20:00.438)
And you get a choice. Like, you know, I used to, you know, I used to work with these gang members in high school and I used to say I could do a gang fashion book every year because they had different fashions, you know. But if you remember like the Fonz and Happy Days, you know, some of that was still around with leather jackets and chains. And every guy would, every young kid would come to me and go, I'm special, I'm different. And I'm like, you line them all up and they all look alike, right? But they're all different, right?

Robert (01:20:15.235)
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

Robert (01:20:28.022)
Yeah, all the same. Yeah.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:20:30.522)
And so we were taught that, oh well, when you're a teenager, you'll find yourself and then you'll become the person that you're meant to be. But we're never taught that we gotta continue the work of finding ourselves. We gotta continue the work. So our 20-something self, our 30-something self, our 40-something self, our 50-something self, and so on. We have to do the work, identity work throughout our lives and that will make us healthy.

So, you know, so once these guys start to really embrace their male identity and who they are as a person, right, because we're trying to really make them healthier people, then they, they know that they have to separate from their mothers and they know then to treat their partner, their female partners as a person, not a version of their mother. And, and to have that equal partnership with their wives.

right? And not fall into this mother-son dynamic with their wives. So they get healthier and their wives are happier. But it does take some time and it is work and that's what we do. We do a lot of that type of work.

Robert (01:21:47.55)
It's just so sick and I would imagine on the mother's end, there's a high degree of personality disorders, some sort of mental health, whether it's narcissism, borderline, whatever it may be to do that to the children.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:22:06.046)
Well, you know, I'm you know, I don't want to indict every mother but you know You know men have a higher instance of narcissism But you can have you know females with borderline personality there, you know There there is a consensus that you know, there are higher levels and but males don't get Diagnosed as much, you know, I'm a DBT therapist as well. So I you know, I

Robert (01:22:09.975)
Right.

Robert (01:22:17.439)
Right.

Robert (01:22:32.906)
Yeah, I want to, I want to get you back on if you're okay with it. And I want to go through narcissism, borderline personality disorder, uh, just really kind of talk through custody, parent alienation. Um, would love to have you back on to, to go through those. Cause I know you're an expert in those and, um, those are words that are thrown around so much, you know, gas lighting.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:23:02.602)
Mm-hmm.

Robert (01:23:02.878)
all those things. I think everybody's going through divorce calls, they're ex a narcissist. Uh, and it's all over the social media. But, um, you know, so before you get off, before we let you go, anything more you want to say about your favorite word, toxic masculinity?

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:23:10.172)
Right.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:23:20.51)
Don't use it. Don't use it. Reject that. It's, it's not real. Okay. If you want to talk about something, talk about healthy versus unhealthy masculinity, you know, or initiated versus uninitiated, but it's a, it's a horrible term used to shame men for being men. And I don't, I do not like it and I won't use it.

Robert (01:23:40.558)
you guys.

Robert (01:23:45.735)
Yeah. All right. Advice for fathers.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:23:50.078)
Get help. Don't worry, you can't do it alone. It's important to get help. Get other men to help you. First of all, fathers should have friends. Men should always, we've lost the art of having friends. So men need to have friends. And then don't do it alone. You don't need to do it alone. Get some help. There are plenty of good therapists out there. You don't always have to work with a male therapist, but if you can find a male.

Positive therapist who isn't you know ascribing to you know the Toxin masculinity BS You know you find someone that actually believes in masculinity and has a positive version of it and you know sometimes your houses of Spiritual houses like houses of faith. I guess they called them, you know men's groups are good, you know Try to find a men's group

If you can belong to a men's group, just get some support. That's all I... Men absolutely need men.

Robert (01:24:48.982)
Men need men.

You know, and it's you're talking about getting help. It amazes me. We will go and. We'll get a trainer for working out. We will go and get a coach to help us with putting or driving a golf ball or playing tennis, whatever sport it is, we will do that. We'll go pay a hundred, $200 an hour for that. But for what matters with life, with parenting, we.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:25:07.548)
Right.

Robert (01:25:19.114)
We just think we can handle it. And that is one of the most difficult and most valuable, you know, things of most value that we can add to. And, but we don't do it, but I agree. Men need men and they need help. So.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:25:34.278)
Yes, absolutely. And don't wait till the last minute when your kidneys are about to fall out. You know what I mean? You know, I get guys on the phone and it's like, you know, I'm like, Oh my goodness, this is a mess. Because, you know, they've gone too long without help. So get help as soon as you can. And get educated. Read some good books. You know, I've given you a few here. You know, read some books too.

Robert (01:26:01.226)
No, that's great. Um, anything else you want to add that maybe we missed? Do you really want to, you could, and that's why I wanted to have you on. I mean, we could, we, this could be a whole, a four hour segment and I hope you'll agree to come back because you have so much, that's fine, but, um, you know, you have so much to share and, and.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:26:05.898)
Oh, I mean, I could be talking forever.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:26:14.11)
Right.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:26:17.99)
If you'll have me if you don't get canceled because I mean.

Robert (01:26:27.474)
all of it's so important, so important to men, to fathers. And I want to get that word out the best possible way. So I hope you'll come back on. And look, I imagine people want to get in touch with you. Can they, is there any like follow you on Instagram, anything social media or what is the best way your practice?

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:26:51.034)
I'm not, honestly, I'm not on social media. My practice is so full. You know, I have a three month waiting list. I'm happy to talk to people. I think if you just write to Men's Life Institute, M-E-N-S Life Institute at gmail.com. You know, and my assistant can help set up maybe a time to talk or appointment or whatever you need. Just write me there and I think.

that'll be a way to connect, okay?

Robert (01:27:23.306)
Well, I think you might need to get on social media because I think you might need to. People might wanna hear a little bit more about what you have to say. So, Dr. David, thank you again for coming on. I really appreciate it. I look forward to future conversations with you as well. So thank you.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:27:25.97)
Ha! Okay.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:27:32.53)
Well, thank you.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:27:41.138)
Well, thank you for the honor of speaking with you, and hopefully this is helpful to men out there and women out there too. So we'll talk soon again.

Robert (01:27:47.69)
Yeah, well, definitely. And thank you for all the work you're doing. And thank you all for listening to dad dad's podcast. And you can find us on Spotify, or Apple podcast as well as on YouTube and Instagram. And don't forget, forget to hit the like and subscribe button so you don't miss any future episodes and we'll see you all next time. Thank you again.

Daniel P. David, PhD (01:28:09.959)
Take care.