Double Standards Revealed in "Strangers" Discourse Propping Up Moms and Hurts Dads, w/ Alex Berenson

We were talking about the book Strangers, which is by Belle Burden. It's about her divorce and her allegedly terrible husband and how he left her with no money to pay the bills, even though we would later find out in the papers that she's got a trust fund worth something like $63 million. So she's not exactly wondering where her next meal is coming from. But in this book, I get it, she's pissed. The husband cheated and left her. It's not great. She completely trashes the husband who remains the father of her three children, Alex. Yes, and I don't think that's a good idea. As we were talking about before, again, The Fatherhood Manifesto is not the marriage manifesto. I'm not the person to ask how to have a great marriage. But I did read Strangers. I've read some divorce books in the last few years. Obviously, it's something that's of personal interest to me. And one thing I will say is that it's basically impossible for anybody outside the two people involved in a divorce to really know what's happening, to really know what the dynamics are, to really know who's at fault. And often, there's no one person at fault. Both people are at fault. And there's a narrative I could tell you about my divorce in which I'm absolutely the saint and the wrong party. And there's a narrative I could tell you about my divorce where I'm a really bad guy. And that's true, I think, of most divorces. What's interesting to me isn't that Bell Burden is trying to get revenge on her husband. You know what? He cheated on her. She's upset. She's trashing the father of her kids. She shouldn't do that. But it's an understandable human impulse. What's interesting to me is that culturally, as a society, once The Wall Street Journal busted her on what was essentially, I won't say lie, but lie about how much money she had and the risk of exaggeration, fib, falsehood about the risk of her losing her houses. Houses, right? A $12 million lost in Tribeca and a $10 million mansion in Martha's Vineyard. Once that happened, the feminist culture industry jumped to her defense and said, well, he's a bad guy. He cheated on her. He didn't want to see the kids. Okay, let's say all that's true. I don't know it's true. You don't know it's true. All the people saying you don't know it's true. And he totally denies the bit about not wanting to see his children and not taking care of his kids. He's very angry about that. He hasn't argued about the money stuff because he clearly doesn't want to talk that much about that. But he has said that. Okay, let's say that's true. I want you to realize that there is an industry now of women's memoirs, women's divorce memoirs, that essentially say, go follow your bliss, go get divorced, go hurt your family if necessary, if you are tired and frustrated with your marriage. Now, I don't think that's right. He pray love. He pray love was the first, but there have been many of these books since then, okay? When I say it's an industry, I'm not exaggerating. And those women are trashing this guy, Henry Davis is real name, in strangers. Well, what did Henry Davis do? Essentially, he followed his bliss. He decided, he was going to have an affair. He was going to leave his wife. I don't think that's right. I'm not in favor of that. I'm certainly not in favor of the way he didn't try to get custody of the kids. Obviously, I think parent father should be very much a part of their kids' lives. But he had his own reasons for that. And this to me is the cultural double standard, right? This is why I had to write The Fatherhood Manifesto. And you're right, it's a pretty short book. A lot of the advice, I think if you're a reasonably good parent, is not going to strike you as that out there. I mean, I think there are a couple things I write that are actually going to be surprising even to pretty involved parents. But what's revolutionary, the reason that this book is revolutionary is that I had to write it at all. And that's because we do, we have New York Magazine, we have an entire book industry now, and women's talk shows and stuff, that is devoted really to running men down and to running traditional masculinity down. And it's stunning to me. And then you turn around and you say, well, Andrew Tate's out there saying terrible things and encouraging young men to do terrible things. Yeah, that's the boomerang. That's what happened. Because for a generation, you've given all this bad advice to women, and you've encouraged them to devalue masculinity. Yes, I completely agree. I don't like the bell burden example at all. Judge Judy used to say, you have to love your children more than you hate your spouse, your ex. That's right. And I think that's exactly right. No matter how angry you are in your divorce situation, you've been cheated on all the stuff, you're hurting your children. The more you trash your spouse, who your children love, the worse off they are. Now, some children are very angry at the other spouse too, because he abandons, or he's just a prick, or she's awful. The women can abandon too. That's a different story. But in any event, very good. And I do think there's good advice in here. And like I said, good reminders. It's just good reminders. You strike a good balance in your advice about, look, have fun. You're not all disciplinarian as a dad, but also you are a disciplinarian. And reminding simple things, the one that I highlighted here, the bunch I highlighted. But I love, first of all, play games. And second of all, once your kids are past seven, do not let them beat you when you are playing said game. That's right. That's right. Because frankly, my son, who's, as I've disclosed in the book, dislocated my thumb last year, because he's such a good soccer player. That kid's 10, he's beating me for real at stuff now. And my daughter, my older daughter's 13. She's very smart. She can beat me for real at stuff too. And so they're going to beat you for real pretty soon anyway. So do not go easy on them. I really do think that this idea that you should make sure your kids never have a bad day, that's not true, because your kids are going to have bad days in life and they need to be able to deal with those things and be resilient. Think about this. In 2006, $20,000 equaled roughly 33 ounces of gold at spot price. At today's prices, those 33 ounces would be worth about $165,000. That's why many smart Americans diversify a portion of their savings into precious metals. 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