I'm Manny, I'm Max, and this is no such thing the show where we settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research on today's episode. Why do divorce men act like that? There's no no such thing, no touch thing, touch thank.
Touch, thank.
Touch, thank you.
All right, just a quick programming note. No, we did not fire Noah, not yet. He's simply on vacation. But you never know. Maybe if Max, you know, shows his war drop, might have to have a conversation.
I were a kind of Noah esque sweater today, Yeah, the same height, like I could fill in, you know.
Yeah.
We've got a special guest today, a guest who I'm surprised we have not had on it.
It's kind of disappointing.
Given the fact that you were not only at the beginning like ten years ago, really at the beginning for some of these original flavor arguments that inspired this show. And our special guest is Maxwell Tawny. Thanks for joining us.
I'm excited to be here.
I don't think I can totally live up to Noah, but I'll do my best.
Max is a media reporter and editor for Semaphore. But Max, we're here today because of a pitch that you had for us. This is actually your idea of this episode, and so I wondered if you could just walk us through what your question was and how we can help.
Yeah.
You know, as a part of my job thinking about and writing about and podcasting about the media business and industry, you know, I consume a lot of articles. I'm still one of the few people who I think reads Yeah. Yeah, my brain isn't totally rotted yet. I can read something
for about thirty seconds. And at the end of the year last year, I was reading an article in the Cut listing like the most divorced guys of twenty twenty five, which kind of an amusing, you know, old school kind of style, like twenty ten style blog posts.
But it made me kind of think, like, what is clear most divorced, not like amount of times divorced, no, kind of the most divorced energy like, which you know, God got at this point that I was thinking of, which is why do we all kind of instantly recognize what that is? Like what makes a divorced guy divorced seem divorced? What's the type of behavior when people say like, oh, that's that guy is such a divorced guy, Like, what
is it? We kind of know what falls into that category, but I guess I was curious about why that's immediately recognizable, and also like why there's no parallel for you know, in a straight relationship, you know, divorced characteristics for women. Why is it just and why do we have just such a vivid picture in our heads. So that's what I was hoping that you guys would figure out for me.
But I'm here to help puzzle through it with you. Well, it's a great question, and I've been thinking about this a little bit, and you know, not to do a not all men, but you know there are men who are divorced who are not the divorced guy, if that makes sense, right, So we really want to define what being a divorced guy or having divorced guy energy is, or what the divorce guy stereotype is. So why don't
we walk through some examples. Let's start with you, Max, Like, who's a guy that you think is like, this guy is extremely divorced, not just literally but also in the way he behaves.
Well, the most famous one right now, I would say, is former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who famously got divorced I think last year or the year before that, and is now dating Katy Perry in a very public way, right like kind of fangirling out at her shows in Canada.
After sparking romance rumors with Katy Perry thanks to this outing captured by TMZ.
The politician was on hand for the Pop Stars of Montreal concert on Wednesday.
They're showing up at public events together.
Former prem Minister Justin Trudeau spoke at the Summit today. His girlfriend, pop star Katy Perry was there on the front row.
Initially I had come here thinking like, oh, we should talk about bezos who famously got married last year, also a majorly divorced guy. But Justin Trudeau, I think is like expressing textbook characteristics of what a divorced guy might do.
Yeah, so he's just like out in public a lot more. He's dating someone now who's kind of left field for a politician. I'm trying to think of of like some another example, Devin, do you have one.
I just thought of someone who's actually not divorced who has divorce guy energy, So that's helpful.
Former in New York City Mayor Eric Adams has divorced guy energy. Yeah, you know.
I was just like, wait a minute, because he's like, I don't think he's been in any like real long term relationship he has.
He's like he has like a long term domestic partner, but he definitely has the divorced guy characteristics. Publicly talking about his ex in like kind of embarrassed of old excess.
Yeah yeah, yeah, sorty from Far Rock, West.
I had a shorty that lived out here.
You know, you uhould come out, come out taking that long a train ride, you know, and the cold.
You know, love is blind and you know.
Talking in a big way about being out. Yeah yeah, party partying very publicly.
Showing you how much fun they're.
Having, showing you how much under having.
That is a great point, And I think that's a good, uh a great example of a divorced guy stereotype. It's like he wants you to know how much fun he's having.
Yeah, I am the mayor. This is a city of nightlife. I must test the product. I have to be out.
But wait, who is the one that my reaction was?
Kanye Kim.
I just got actually fed in my feed, my TikTok feed yesterday.
I forgot all about this.
It was him and Drake did some like joint Larry Hoover benefit concert, which I don't know if they actually went to Hoover. But and then during Runaway, Kanye's singing about wanting Kim to run away back to him a freestyle.
He's just doing right back to me.
He's doing to me, and I'm like, this is the most divorced guy thing ever publicly being like, come back to me.
I'm sorry. What might be?
What about like the fact that he also likes started dating somebody who looked like he was getting.
A couple of people that looked like him before he landed on his current wife.
Yes.
How does Kim Kardashian feel about Kanye West dating a look alike recently? Sources say quote, it's almost have spite to make him jealous, but she couldn't care less.
Sometimes you see someone date someone who looks like their acts and you're like, Okay, they've got a type. In this instance, it's like, Okay, now he's I'm making a statement here. He wants people to be talking about this.
Yeah.
My example is as a fictional character, Mia has been watching Breaking Back.
Oh yeah, and.
There's a whole season arc of Walt Walter White after his divorce and how he kind of feels this intense desire to reinvent himself. He buys a Dodge Charger, he buys his son a Dodge Charger, He gets an apartment and just like buys it as.
Is no, no, this one's fine, I'll take it now.
Unfortunately, this one is the model.
So yeah, I like it, like everything about it.
I'll take it as all kinds of shit that just it feels so left field for him. And I think the reason is because I guess you get a little bit more freedom to do things.
Yeah, And I think part of the divorce guy energy is it's just like where are your priorities?
Right?
Like you know, they'll buy like a car or a motorcycle. It's like a little kid spending money.
Yeah, oh my god. Yeah, it feels like kind of a I guess like coping mechanism or it is in the in this TV show. At least he doesn't know how to deal with getting divorced and does all this crazy shit.
No, but it is true to Devin's point.
It's a little bit of like all the stuff that you kind of wanted to do when you were a teenager or maybe in your twenties that you had someone around a mature force in your life saying like, no, we're not gonna do like post shirtless picks. You don't need to be doing that, or like we're not you don't need to buy a motorcycle or go on like a motorcycle trip with your boys or something like that.
Though that sounds sick to me. Yeah, so let's just distill a couple of characteristics from those examples. So like we've got someone who wants everyone to know that they're having fun. Yeah, We've got people who like try and reinvent themselves new wardrobe, new wardrobe car. Yeah, dating someone who you might not like, you know, someone who didn't think you might date before, like just trying trying new things.
There's like they're in the public discourse about divorce. There's like kind of a tone of like dating someone really silly, like dating someone completely inappropriate for you in a way that is not just like kind of like what are you doing? But that is comedic to us, Like the idea of Justin Trudeau dating Katy Perry when she is like going into space, you know, like like the stud just the stupidest commonation of of possible scenarios that I think is like plays into it.
It's their version of you know, normis my like like all of us.
Although you guys are like Apple Top Podcast whatever, new People of the Year, maybe you guys don't qualify anymore, but like, you know, normis like like myself. You know, if if I were to go through a very serious breakup, it would certainly result in me being on a few dates with someone who probably is not gonna end up being the love of my life and might to the general public seem you know, kind of silly, ridiculous, a little bit of a head scrutch. But the celebrity version
of that is like who do I know? Like, oh, former uh, you know, platinum pop star Katie Perry's like, that's the kind of people I interact with.
I guess.
Right, that's my next move. Well, that's a that's a good point, Max. It's a good transition because I wanted to ask the three of us, you know, in our previous breakups, just to really get to the to the heart of the this stereotype. Do you feel like you've ever behaved this way? I think like when you know, in previous breakups. I definitely can identify some of these behaviors from like the most famously divorced celebrities, things like partying way more, staying out way too late, maybe the
apartment starts to get a little messier. I'm living in my own filth a little bit. As shortly after a breakup, you know, wanting to appear this is the big one. Wanting to appear as if nothing as if it's not a huge deal. I remember after a previous breakup. It was like around the time of the World Cup in like twenty eighteen or something, and I was just posting as if nothing fucking happened. I'm looking at every day
I'm at a bar watching a soccer game. And I remember like a few months after that, being like, okay, so I was definitely attempting something, going through something, you know, subconsciously. But what about you ever try.
To reinvent yourself?
You know?
Yeah, I feel like I got like really into like working out post break.
Yeah, you know, a lot more time.
I'm going to really hit the gym.
There, that's a good.
Yeah.
So that's yeah. I don't think I've you know, definitely maybe some buying, some random new clothes.
Yah, for the blow up is a classic. Do you either have the glow up or the glow down?
Right, Like, like, okay, we haven't talked was keeping it together for you exactly.
Know exactly like we haven't we we haven't talked about the sad stereotypes as well, you know, such as smoking, you know, kind of appearing disheveled, drinking a lot more.
Yeah, drinking, Yeah, drinking.
Partying in a bad way, you know, not a very healthy way of partying, either staying up late at the clubs or at home not doing anything just up.
Until four I am watching gaming or being on Twitter or whatever. Movies.
But but but to your point, though, I do think like the physical uh reinventing yourself in a physical way. The classic I mean this is like after after a serious breakup that I went through, is when I decided I was like, oh, I'm gonna get into running, which is like one of it's gotta be like the number one thing that people do after going through a serious breakup, working out in some way, but specifically running. Yes, you don't start down that path if you're just a normal, well adjusted person.
You got to be trying to get away something, but then I mean it became something that's a big part of your life now running, which is like if you've run marathons and you're good at it. Yeah, sometimes some of these things can be positive.
I actually think like a lot of this stuff is is generally positive. Like I actually that's the thing about some of the stereotypes that I think are kind of silly.
It's like it's.
Actually kind of nice to you know, find rediscover kind of who you are by putting yourself out there and doing some stupid shit and like stuff that otherwise you might like at yourself.
For I agree with Max that like some amount of that I think is healthy. Like, you know, people need to find out who they are outside of their partner. And I think sometimes you're in a relationship for a while, you know, you start to kind of become one another. But I think there's like a healthy window for that. And I think when the vorce dad energy goes wrong is when that person gets stuck in that yeah, and it just becomes all right, you got divorce four or
five years ago and you're still acting this way. It's like, Okay, you're a forty five fifty year old man and a certain point, maybe you need.
To grow up.
Yeah, I think there's two obvious things we can do to figure out like what's going on in the brain of the divorce guy. One of them is talk to a psychologist, which luckily for you too, I've already done, and so you'll be hearing from them after the break All right, I'm Manny, I'm Max Devin, and we're about to hear from a psychologist to see if we can figure out what's going on, you know, behind the set of eyes of the divorced man.
My name is MIKEA. Steinbwam, and I'm a clinical and educational psychologist.
So the first question I had for Micah is just like basic signs, like what is actually happening to our brains after a breakup.
Often people are very surprised at the intensity of what a breakup or divorce can feel like. They're overwhelmed by how bad they feel. So this is actually something that is surprising to people. The reason, first of all, it feels so bad is because we're a social species, and way way back in the lives of our ancestors, if we were shunned from the group, if somebody rejected us socially that often meant death. So our biology it didn't adapt as quickly to our modern life as we might.
So our body is pretty much the same as the body of the neanderthals. So when we get rejected socially, our bodies think, okay, tomorrow, I'll be eaten by the tiger or whatever animal was around. So to our biology, a divorce or breakup can feel something like this is life threatening, like I'm in a life threatening situation right now, Like I need to repair this, this needs to be fixed, like I'm in danger. That's what the biology feels like. And like on the chemical level, what this looks like
is that we've got more cortisol. Those are our stress hormones, so that's often why people can like have digestive issues or trouble sleeping, or just feel like constantly agitated and unable to calm down. And we've also got less of oxytocin. It's also called the cuddle hormone. This is released when we snuggle and it makes us feel warm and safe and relaxed. So if you've got more stress hormones less of oxytocin, that already kind of explains the stress situation
of the biology. And then there's also a really interesting study that did brain imaging and what they found is that after a breakup board divorce, there's a similar activation in brain patterns to people going through substance addiction withdrawal. So this is like the dopamine reward system that's activated,
and that is like it's a chasing system. So this system makes us want to chase whatever we lost, the drug or the person, and that's probably where the cravings come in and the obsessive thinking, the ruminating, the rescue mission of I have to get this person back, like what happened? Where did they go?
So I thought the most interesting piece of information in that was that we are like, biologically speaking, we were kind of behaving as if we're about to die, like we are outcasts from like some kind of safety net that we had, and our response is actually like thousands and thousands of years old.
The comparison it to it like withdrawal from drugs, right, because I think that speaks to like the stakes feel so high in the moment where you're like you can't imagine what your life will be like a month, two months, three months, Like each minute feels like excruciating at the time, and then when you look back on it, you're like, why was I feel like really?
Yeah, yeah, much like you know, a real withdrawal from like some substance. You know, you do start to do things you wouldn't normally do to try and get the high again. So that doesn't make a lot of sense. Yeah, So I wanted to get to the specific question about, like, you know, why is it the case that men seem to feel the need to want to reinvent themselves after a breakup? So I asked Michael what could be behind that urge?
Often the initial of a divorce or breakup is the woman, so I think that's where one of the main differences comes from. It makes a huge difference whether or not you choose to go down this path or if it's happening to you, So that means it's more intense. It also happens more suddenly for the man because if so, the woman is probably didn't decide this on a whim, so they've been preparing for that, maybe for years emotionally mentally.
But for the party that didn't choose the breakup is like from one day to the next, their whole life is shattered. So it's this very big sudden disruption of their life, of their identity, of their roles, of their daily structure. And I think that's where the search for identity comes from. It's like, who am I now now that I'm a divorced guy, and now that I see my kids maybe only every other week, and now that many of my friends won't talk to me anymore because
they feel like they have to decide. People internalize the rejection after and there's three ways of dealing with that in a not so functional way. So let's say something's not working for them and their emotional processing. It's counter attack, avoidance, or surrender.
So just to review, there are kind of three reactions you could have to internalizing a rejection. So let's say, for example, in this case, you know the men and these divorces were not the part of the couple that decided to get divorced. You could surrender and feel dejected. You could experience avoidance, which means you're just not going to talk to people again. And then there's the counter attack.
And I think that's really what we're talking about when it comes to the energy the aura of these divorced men. It's a counter attack in the sense that like something bad happened to me and I have to deal with it very publicly and show that it didn't happen to me, or like that you're maybe taking some kind of control back from the thing that you didn't have any control over. Does that sound right to you, guys?
Yeah, because I think a lot of what we're talking about is all kind of like image management, right, Like the kind of internal stuff that you hear from like your friends who or have experienced, you know, from your friends who've gone through a breakup, or yourself you've gone
through a breakup or divorce or whatever. It's oftentimes much more of the what you would expect, the real sadness, loneliness, and like kind of vulnerability, Whereas what we see, you know, on our feeds when somebody breaks up is always the counter attack that the kind of messaging. Right now, As a media reporter, I'm sure you've run into this all the time where some news story came out something that was like an exposit or whatever, and you needed to like get.
A comment or something like that. Is that behavior kind of the same, where like they need to make sure actually that this thing that you heard about them is not true or that you know, it's not a big deal to them. Do you run into this that work.
It's spit, It's definitely yeah.
I mean, like there's the entire business of you know, spinning all of these things right. And part of the things that we all, I think are laughing at to a certain degree is is the spin. You know, whether that is just posting yourself you know, shredded selfies, you know, or dating somebody significantly younger or something like that. That's it's both those things are both for the soul but also obviously have to do with in some regards with image Max.
Earlier, you had a question about the difference between men and women at post breakup, and so I asked Micah about this.
I think a lot of the things that people sometimes think about may not be what's actually at play, Like there could be deeper things like like there's differences in attachment styles. So there's four different attachment styles. This is the way we show up in relationships, and there's one that's like the healthy one, it's called secure attachment. That's around fifty percent of people. And then we have the other fifty percent of people have an insecure attachment style
and there's three of them. There's five percent of people who have what's called disorganized attachment. That's a very unpredictable pattern of being in relationships. It's like the typical on off relationship. And then the rest, which is about like twenty two percent each is avoidant and anxious attachment. And men are more likely to have avoidant attachment. Women are lean more towards the anxious attachment side. And I think often when we see how men and women deal with
breakups differently, we think it's because of gender. Maybe gender also plays a role in what attachments to somebody has, but it's more the attachment style than necessarily gender. I would say that really influences what it feels like, what it's like. So and an avoidant attachment means bottling up emotions, not really being in touch with your emotions, but still being influenced by them and trying to cope with emotions. I mean the insecure attachment styles have unhealthy coping mechanisms.
And for avoidant attachment, that's like substance abuse or gaming or work addiction, kind of like any anything that takes your mind off of your problem. That's like the the person who doesn't really know what to do with these emotions and maybe also had some like mental health struggles
or not such great resilience even before the divorce. So this divorce is just the tip of the iceberg, and then it all kind of comes crashing down and the things that they never learned before are now really causing great, great havoc.
So it seems like when it comes to the gender breakdown, it has a lot to do with attachment styles, which is like something I see on social media a lot. I haven't really like tried to figure out what they mean. I don't know. Ye healthy, Yeah, I think I've probably got the healthiest attachment. If I had to grade myself.
The best one on there, I got that one. The good one is.
But yeah, I guess we didn't necessarily get to why why we don't talk about women having any kind of divorce energy. And I think what our psychologists here is saying is that they're less likely to have the different attachment styles or kind of counterattacks, uh that would lead to that in the first place.
I think too, you know what she was saying earlier in regards to like, in a lot of these situations, the woman is initiating the divorce.
Yeah.
Yeah, and as a child, you know, I think I'm the only child of divorce here, right, My parents are not yor so as someone who has seen this play out, there is a thing of like, yeah, and you think about it a breakups too. Right, There's one person who's like, I need to break up with this person. I need to find the right moment to do that. So they're mentally planning for that moment in their heads.
That could be years.
Yeah, it could be a long period of time. So when it actually happens, it's not like it's like, oh my god, what is happening Versus the guy in ali of situations who's oblivious to just how he was like, whoa wait, do you have an issue in our relationship? So to them, it's like a huge shock. Yeah, And if it's a huge shock to them and they having unhealthy attachment style, it's just like it's just like the snowball effects.
Well, how old were you when your parents got divorced.
I was in fifth grade.
So maybe not old enough to kind of like understand if your dad was doing the divorce kind of Oh.
He definitely had like he started, he definitely had divorced guy energy, Like he like started smoking cigars, which he never did beforehand.
That's a classic one.
And it was like some stuff was like the classic case of like my mom was the cleaner one of the two, so like when I would go visit him, his house would be like a mess and he just like less structure, Like it wouldn't be like like why are we eating at this time? You know, Like it was classic like divorce dad energy.
For sing it's and it's funny. It was so obvious that you were in fifth Oh yeah, I was.
Like, Okay, there's this. My mom had all the structure here.
My last question that I asked the psychologist was, you know, if there's any divorced guys listening to this podcast right now and you don't want to appear, you know, this way, or you don't want to get like lean into any of the more unhealthy ways of dealing with a divorce, you know, what should they be doing? How should they deal with their breakup?
It helps to acknowledge that it's painful, because often what can happen is people will be like, what's wrong with me that I'm suffering this?
Much?
Like I should be over this. This shouldn't affect me as much. I'm such a loser for being this week, And to not have those kind of thoughts because you're already in pain, why make it worse with these judgments, and just really accept this is painful. It is for ninety nine percent of people going through this, and you're not alone in this, and it's completely acceptable to struggle
and not be okay. And then to make sure, because it's such a loss of control, to make sure that you really don't kind of chuck all of control out of the window, but try to stay on top of everything that you can stay on top of. So that means try to keep like a regular routine throughout the day, like try to sleep at the roughly the same time and get enough sleep, have regular meals, exercise, find a way also to have space for your emotions. Maybe that's journaling, meditation,
thinking about it when you're on walks. Socializing is important, meet up with friends, join communities, and even if you don't feel like doing any of those things or like pursuing hobbies. I mean, often people are like, I don't want to be a Debbie downer at the party, so
I'm just not gonna go. But that's not a healthy thing to do, and I think you can burden your friendships a bit like that and just not be the life of the party and just still come and sit in the corner and at least be part of it. Then just isolating at home.
Okay, after the break, we're going to talk to a sociologist and find out why divorced women actually spend less time on housework than they did before the divorce. All right, we're back and we're here with Jessica Calarco, Professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin. Jess thanks for joining us.
Thanks so much for having me.
Could you start by just telling us what you do for a living exactly?
Sure. I'm a sociologist and also an author. I've written a couple books on inequalities in family life and education, and the most recent one is probably the one that's most relevant to our conversation today, which is Holding It Together, How women became America's safety net.
Yeah, so I'm curious about this kind of argument in thesis. Could you tell us a little bit about it briefly?
Sure.
So.
Basically, in other countries, governments use tax dollars to fund social programs that help take care of people and keep them safe from harm. I'm talking about, you know, programs like guaranteed healthcare, universal childcare and elder care, robust unemployment benefits, paid sickly, things along those lines. In the US, we instead tend to tell people it's your responsibility to take care of yourself and keep yourself safe. You know, that's
not the government's job. The problem, though, is that there are plenty of people in our society who can't take care of themselves or keep themselves safe in those ways. I mean most easily that you could point to the children, the sick, the elderly, and so in those cases someone else needs to step in to take care of them.
And you know, certainly men could share equally in that responsibility with women, but most men in the US end up leveraging their privilege and their power in society to push that work onto women instead, and going further, particularly in married type relationships, a lot of men also leverage that same privilege and power to get women to take care of their needs, like with cooking and cleaning and emotional support, on top of the work that women are
already doing for themselves and for those who are too young or too old or too sick to take care of themselves.
How do you see that people's lives and relationships. Let's talk about like a place that has a strong safety net, like Norway or something like that, you know, Scandinavian country. I mean we're talking about, you know, heteronormative relationship. Here. Do you see a difference between the actual lives of in particular women in those countries and women in the US because of this lack of this safety net.
Absolutely so. Essentially what you see is that the gender inequalities in things like time on housework, time on childcare. You see smaller gaps between men and women in those other countries that have invested more in these kinds of supports than we see in the US. And at the same time, it's not because men are necessarily doing more than men here. You actually see both men and women in those other countries spending less time on things like
housework and childcare than you see in the US. And it's because there's less of that labor to go around. You know, there's more of that labor that we can turn to the state for support with, and so we don't need to take on as much of that ourselves.
Which means that you both see less inequality and more things like leisure time for everyone, more time for sleep, more time for fun because you can offload some of that responsibility to the state to kind of other paid caregivers that are better compensated than paid caregivers in the US.
In this episode, we're kind of endeavoring to get to the bottom of like the divorced guy stereotype. I'm curious about how divorce specifically, you know, plays a role in the dynamic you're talking about with these safety nets.
I've heard of this stereotype that I think the answer here is maybe a little bit complicated because these these trends kind of work in complex ways. So you see, inequalities in housework and childcare are one of the primary reasons why couples in the US tend to get divorced
in the first place. That the more unequal couples are, that puts a strain on relationships and can actually, particularly if women are financially in a position to be able to leave a relationship like that where things are very unequal, it's highly likely that they'll do so. And actually after divorce things tend to get a little better for women,
at least on the housework front. Basically, divorced women spend less time on housework than married women do because husbands are actually creating a lot of housework for women, and so you know, after they get divorced, women don't have to spend as much time taking care of men, and so they're actually no seriously and this is part of why women are happier after divorce than men, is because they don't have that one extra person that they're spending a lot of time taking care of, and so there
is sort of this complex relationship here. At the same time, you know, there are complexities here in the sense that after divorce, women do tend to take on more of the caregiving the child care responsibilities in households with kids, and so it does save some time on the houseworkfront, but it can create some more challenge is on the care workfront at the same time.
What an incredible indictment. So like, after a divorce, you're mentioning that women do take on more responsibility in terms of not necessarily housework, but childcare. Do you think that plays a role into this stereotype we're talking about, where you know, could it be the case that women would be leaning into this stereotype if they had the time to do it.
Yeah, and this is another place where the data are a little bit complicated in the sense that we actually know that even before they get divorced, if couples are still married, if we're talking about you know, men women types of couples, married men actually get a lot more leisure time already than married women do. On average, it's about two hours more per week that men are spending on leisure time that when they're married and when both
partners are working full time. And those gaps actually get even bigger when you put kids into the equation, So it's almost three hours a week difference between married moms with young kids and married dads with young kids in terms of how much time they're spending on leisure time for themselves. And so, you know, basically, even though we often think of divorced dads as the ones who are getting all this time, married men are actually already getting this bonus at the same time when it comes to
things like hobbies. And this is another place where things get complicated, because divorced moms are actually better off leisure time wise than married moms that married moms are the ones who are in the worst place when it comes to things like leisure time, in part because, especially if they have shared custody arrangements after divorce, moms might have a couple days off a week or every other week where they're not with the kids, and so they can
invest more in hobbies. They don't get as much time as divorced dads do, but they do get slightly more time than moms, and so it is kind of this
more complex relationship. The other complicating factor for divorced moms, though, is that compared to dads and because of gender pay gaps, they tend to have much lower incomes, and especially for moms who've say, taken some time out of the workforce to care for their kids while they were young, or taken a step back career wise, and so even if they have a little bit more time to invest in leisure time activities, they have less resources compare to dad,
and so they end up doing things that are more stay at home types of activities, reading more books or watching more TV, as opposed to say, going out and joining clubs or doing other things that you know, cost money. When it comes to their.
Leisure yeah by buying a motorcycle.
For example, not so likely here, So, Jess, mostly we've been talking about, you know, heteronormative relationships, but obviously you know, there are a lot of queer relationships where I would imagine some of these expectations are inverted, or some of the norms and habits might be a little bit different. Can you talk a little bit about how queer relationships might be a little bit different than some of the straight relationships we've been talking about.
Yeah, and part because same sex marriage is legally more new than kind of more heterosexual marriages, we don't have as much data on what happens post divorce, for example,
with these couples. But what we do know from these couples more generally is that queer couples tend to have more egalitarian divisions of labor when it comes to things like housework and wildcare, in part because they don't bring with them the same gender baggage you know that comes into men women types of relationships when it comes to pressure to be the breadwinner versus the homemaker, and so they can push those stereotypes in ways that allow them
to find arrangements that work better for them as individuals. At the same time, that doesn't mean that things are always perfectly equal. Some of the same sex couples that I've interviewed in my own research, for example, talk about the stresses that they feel, especially once kids are added, that you know, if one if they can't find childcare. For example, I talked to one couple with two moms who they really wanted to split everything equally, and yet
they struggled to find child care. The first spot they could find was a part time spot when their daughter was nine months old, and they only had a couple of weeks of paid family leave, and so it was this, you know, how do we make things work in the meantime, And one of the moms ended up, you know, first dropping back to part time work and then dropping out of the workforce entirely to care for her daughter because that was the only way they could make it work.
And so I think it's important to note that these these kinds of structural conditions that that make it harder for families. This lack of childcare, for example, or a lack of paid family leave is also affecting same sex couples, but it's at the same time they're often more creative than different gender couples when it comes to finding ways to make that work in more equal ways.
I spoke to a psychologist about this kind of stereotype with the divorced guys. I'm curious, from a sociological perspective, what do you think is driving this stereotype. Are there sociological factors at play here that don't have to do with what's happening in the brain, for.
Example, That's a good question. I mean, I think this is one of those places where the stereotype is often what gets portrayed, you know, in terms of media and
particularly now social media as well. And so we can certainly imagine that if you know, mom's post divorce are mostly staying home and reading books or watching movies, or you know, maybe getting together with their friends every once in a while, whereas dads are going out and buying motorcycles or you know, taking trips, that those things are more instagrammable, you know, it's the kind of thing that they're going to put out there more maybe to show
that they're having fun. So there could be some image projection going along with this, particularly if that's reinforced by the way that divorced ads tend to be portrayed in the media, So even if things are a little bit more complicated in real life, the way that media and social media tend to amplify things might help to reinforce these stereotypes, even if even if the reality is more complex.
You're saying, the shirtless pictures at the gym are projection.
That's interesting.
I mean, it seems likely.
I'm curious, though, like, do you have a theory about why there is not a divorced woman stereotype? And is that like a I don't know, is that a bad Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
I guess that's a good question.
I mean, I think there are stereotypes of divorced women, but they're often not very positive ones. They're often seen as sort of bitter and angry. They're often portrayed as despite the fact that they are on average happier, despite with the data show. And I think that is a way that the sort of stereotypes that do ex of divorced women, I would argue are used to punish divorced women, are used to say that, you know, you should be married. We live in a culture that still very much valorizes
marriage and parenthood. You know, for all people, We've had decades of policy money dumped into marriage promotion programs, for example.
And so I think these kinds of stereotypes when we do see divorced women portrayed in media, the sort of angry, grumpy, wine drinking mom who's sitting at home all the time, exactly exactly, this sort of greedy stereotypes here too, really portray this in ways that are designed, I would argue, to discourage women from divorcing, even when they're in these kinds of unequal relationships that they might be inclined to want to leave.
I think back to that Jade Vance got in trouble for that clip of telling women basically saying that you should stay together for the kids.
And this is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual Revolution pulled on the American populace, which is this idea that like, well, okay, these marriages were fundamentally you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy, and so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that's going to make people happier in the long term.
And maybe it worked out for the moms and dads.
Though I'm skeptical, but it really didn't work out for the kids of those marriages.
In media, and I think in real life people have this, well, couldn't you just like stick it out? Sort of like mentality to women a lot of times like how bad could have possibly have been?
And certainly the idea as you were suggesting this, this perception that it's better for the kids if parents stay together, and really that's not with the data show, particularly if we're talking about high conflict marriages, if we're talking about marriages that have a risk of physical abuse or emotional abuse or financial abuse, that these kinds of situations, it is much better for kids if their parents separate and
are not in that situation together. You know, it may be hard in the short term, but in the long term that the kids are are highly resilient and are able to navigate through those kinds of separations and divorces and it can ultimately lead to better out comes in the end.
By the time this episode comes out, I will be in a relationship that has a child in it and congratulations, thank you. Kind of a weird way to announce that, but I first at first, At first I was going to say that I'm about to have a kid, but
by the time this comes out, I will have a kid. Anyway, I'm curious, you know, what are some of the factors I could be thinking about more that I could be more aware of to make sure are to at least, you know, get a little bit better in stopping some of the disparities that we've been talking about, especially like at home, like in the home.
Ah, this is a great question that I wish every new dad was asking this is this is a great question. So I think, you know, there's one of the things that you can do is pay attention to the cognitive labor This is one of the easiest things to overlook that it's easy to see the housework, it's easy to see the childcare. The parts that are easier to miss are the worry work that goes into raising children and men a household. Who is thinking about when is the
next doctor visit coming up? Do we have it on the schedule? You know, do we have the right medications? You know, when is my kid following all of the developmental milestones? Are there things that we need to be watching out for, you know, the kind of worry work that often falls to women, and we think of it as, you know, well, that's just women being you know, more anxious, women being the worriers. But it stems from the fact that women know that they're going to be the crisis
management team. They're going to be the ones who have to fix it if stuff goes wrong, and so if their kid gets sick, they're going to have to be the one to take them to the doctor more, they're going to have to be the one to do more
of the care work. And so if men can take on more of that worry work or more of that cognitive labor of figuring out what needs to happen, monitoring for potential problems, figuring out potential solutions, you know, contributing to the logistical you know, planning and carrying out of tasks and not just waiting for the list to show up.
You know, that's a great way to do this. And sometimes you can do that by offering to take over domains, you know, saying I'll handle everything related to you know, health care, or I'll handle everything related to figuring out childcare. Some couples it works really well that way. Other couples like to have a hand in everything together. There's not one right way or wrong way to do it, but making sure that it's not just about waiting for a list and being ready to kind of step in and
help create the list on the front end too. And I think the other piece is pushing back against stereotypes. It's very easy for men to face criticisms if they're taking time off at work, if they're you know, leaving early to go to a doctor's appointment, for example, and being willing to say, hey, no, I'm a new dad,
I should be there, this is my role. We know from research that when men who are in high up positions in their companies like CEOs and other executives or other high profile positions, when those men are willing to demonstrate you know, no, I'm taking time off or no, I'm going to be an active and involved dad, that not only benefits their own kids, but it also helps to change the culture in the organizations that they work for in ways that can help to make that a
model for other men. So, especially being in such a visible, you know, high profile position, you can be a model not only for the other men that you work with, but all the men who are listening to you too.
Wow, did you hear that, Devin? I think I'm gonna take more time off.
Well, I was gonna say, you guys are already setting a model for that. Noah's not here today, You're gonna be gone soon. These guys, these guys love to take time off to subvert gender stereotypes.
I love it.
Jess, thanks so much for joining us. This is super illuminating.
Thanks so much for having me.
It was great to chat with you.
All Right, we just finished our conversation with Jess Calarco. I thought it was super interesting. What what was something you guys found interesting about that?
Well, it makes so much sense.
And I guess I saw some of my own life we were talking about before, of like when couples get divorced, how women actually spend less time on housework because they're not cleaning up after Yeah, and yes, I.
Make a lot of sense, you know. Seeing my dad leave alone, I was like, oh.
Okay, yeah, this is what happens if someone is not cleaning up. Yes, you Yeah, And I think her advice to you was really really good of just like we do think about like, okay, guys, how do you help out let me do to lungry.
Let me do the dishes.
We don't think about the things, yeah, like doctor's appointments and like as my child developed, hitting these milestones like things like that, which our work.
I think the other thing that was interesting that she said, uh, was about the fact that actually divorced women are tend to be happier, Yeah, and divorced men. And I believe that men tend to be sadder, which is really interesting because obviously that flies in the face of, uh, you know, this kind of divorced stereotypes, which I guess the divorced stereotype kind of is the the presumption is that all of this is for show and underneath, uh, there's.
A deep sadness that's happened. But you really don't.
But but but Jess was right that, you know, you don't the stereotypes that exist of divorced women generally speaking, are you know, it's kind of more of a negative. Yeah, it's it's a little bit of the kind of right what, there's a little bit of the kind of wine drinking wine, kind of bitter. There's some like eat prey love type of stuff sometimes as well, which all like could be true in certain scenarios. But it's interesting to see, uh that actually the reality.
Is that women are happy.
God, guys, it must be such a huge, you know, weight off the shoulders. Honestly, as he's a thing, No such thing as a production of Kaleidoscope Content. Our executive producers are Kate Osborne and Manes. The show was created by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and Devin Joseph. The theme and credit song is by me Manny, and the editing and mixing for this episode was done by Steve Bone. Thank you to our guest host, Max Tani and our experts Micah Steinborn and Jessica Calarco. Be sure to check
out Max's pod cast over at Semaphore. It's called Mixed Signals. Check out doctor Steinborn's YouTube channel at Doctor Micah Steinborn, and check out Jessica Calarco's book Holding It Together. If you like what you're hearing, be sure to leave us five stars wherever you're listening to this podcast and we'll see you next week.
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