Raising Boys Without the Tough-Guy Act: Alex Tripper!

0:01This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required, compatibility and availability varies 18+.

0:31Elliott:Hello and welcome to To Be A Boy with me, Joey Braley. And me, Elliot Ray. Today's guest is Alex Trippier, a couples coach, founder of the Be A Happier Parent podcast and a dad of three. He writes honestly and often uncomfortably about modern fatherhood, the gap between the parent we think we are and the one our kids actually experience. His recent writing explores how so many of us were handed a blueprint for raising boys that simply doesn't work anymore. One built on authority, toughness and control rather than connection. Alex has learned some of those things the hard way and he's here to talk about what he's learned and unlearned along the way.

1:19Elliott:Alex Trippier, welcome to the podcast. Yay! Thank you guys. I want to be a boy. It's like the Oprah of our space. This is huge. I mean, I love that. What a start. We're thrilled to have you. We've been talking to you for a long time. We've known you for a while. We've been trying to get you on the podcast for a while. But, I mean, you are just blowing up on social media at the moment. Yes, going really well, isn't it? Yeah, it's flying. You're better known for talking about relationships, the mental load, the unpaid labour. And, you know, you do that in a way, I'd like to say thank you, actually, because you do that in a way that is really respectful to the women that have come before you that have been doing this work for years.

2:05Elliott:But you also are brilliant at talking about it as a man who lives this as a man. I mean, we're here to talk about boys mainly, but let's talk about relationships for a little bit first, because there will be lots of mums listening to this. who are struggling with their relationship, who are struggling with the mental load and really want to have a conversation with their partner about it but don't know where to begin. So could you firstly just, you know, say to the mums that are listening, where would they start with that conversation? What I am really trying to do at the moment is my big focus is can I take the blame out of this?

2:49And I think one of the ways that I can do that, because I've now got so much perspective and I speak to so many people now every week, is to basically, I'm going to tell you, Jolie, what has happened in your life, right? And you tell me where I've gone wrong. Okay, what's your partner called? Tom. Tom. Okay, so Jolie and Tom, they decide to have a baby. And even before anything happens, we've got to know that they're actually in quite a different place, right? since Jolie was born from all the toys that she's been bought and the stories that she's been told she's had this message that actually my wife's words that having children was going to be her ultimate destination yeah biologically she's also been aware of conception since puberty she's had a reminder every month that this is kind of part of her destiny she might have pushed back against those things but she has a relationship with it and and tom doesn't tom isn't talking to his mates about having kids tom isn't talking about getting married jolie might be like practicing her signature with other people's names right and actually that makes biological sense because for jolie finding the right partner is a really big deal she has a shorter window of conception also she has a finite number of times she can do it whereas Tom can have thousands of kids actually and he can have them into his 60s so there's already this imbalance before we even start then what happens is it's Jodie's body so Jodie starts researching like mad this is terrifying what's happening right it's like whoa she's already making choices about where to spend her energy versus looking after the kids.

4:38She's changing her diet. She's already a mum and Tom isn't already a dad. And Jodie researches how she wants to have birth and Tom might go along to the hypnobirthing or read certain chapters of the books that she puts in front of him. But she's doing all this research. Then the birth happens and Tom thinks, now this is me, I'm going to be a dad. But actually the birth is some level of traumatic and Tom is stuck on the outside of this mother-child dyad. Jolie's trying to figure out breastfeeding. She sets the rhythm of the house. Like, is there going to be feeding on demand? Are we going to do routines?

5:12This is all Jolie, right? Because it's very much her body. Tom, as we know, has to go back to work often within two weeks. And in that maternity leave period, Jolie is becoming the expert of everything, baby, everything in the home. She's becoming the manager of the house. and some of this is enjoyable this is really important I think to acknowledge that in the early stages there's like darling little socks to be bought and and swimming classes to be booked and music classes that's you're really new and exciting but there comes a point either when Jodie goes back to work or when there's a second child it's usually one of those where Jodie turns around and says hang on how come I'm the only person who's ever bought socks how come I'm the only person who has booked a class who's done any research why am i in charge of the development of our child and tom's response is one of three things he says that's not fair i have to work really really hard and i don't have time to do the things you're talking about and jody's like well i don't have time either that's why we're having this conversation or tom's like that's not fair a i'd love to be in charge of these things but you're a control freak and everything has to be

6:24Elliott:done your way or he says tell me how to do it tell me what to do give me a give me yeah yeah well then a bit under but this is actually half the things that you say need doing don't need doing and you're making up work for yourself these are the three defenses that we we come up with and we come up with them because we're having this moral question thing that is basically i'm a better person because i'm more caring and i do more but actually this this if we can accept that this imbalance happens to everyone I mean how did I do how did I do there telling you what happened in your life I love that you took it right from the beginning because I was actually talking about this yesterday that I was conditioned to think that my destiny was to get married and have children by my mum like she didn't do it on purpose but I look back and it was a constant drip feed of not thinking about career or jobs or it was you will get older you will get married and have children and you should build your life around that and how messed up that conditioning is and that then you just think that that's your worth is tied into having children and getting married and I have reached a point now where I reflect back on that and I feel quite angry about it like quite furious that so much of my youth was spent thinking that that's that was where I was headed so I love that you talk right from the outset and absolutely agree all of those stages I think are stages that every woman goes through and it's is impacted by our parental leave system is made worse by our parental leave system.

8:04Oh my god I mean totally and I guess but I guess you know in answer to the question how do we approach this conversation first what I'm desperately trying to do is be like actually no jolie you don't have the conversation tom you start the conversation elliot you start it like dads recognize that this is going to happen and the resentment is going to be really rough so just get in there but i think if i'm if i'm telling mums how to approach it it's really to take that morality out of it and just be like i want to talk about how we can run our home better what we're doing at the moment isn't working i'm constantly thinking i sleep badly i wake up every morning with like lists and i've got too many things let's sit down and work out what are some of the things that some of the things you'd be doing in your house if someone came in and audited it as a business they'd be like that's stupid why are you doing it like that why is she in charge of that and that and that doesn't make sense so just to just to approach it from a functional place rather than an ethical place goes a long way.

9:08So Alex, how do you think we can encourage men to think about what kind of dad they're going to be even before they're expecting their baby? So up in Manchester, there's an amazing service called Dad Matters, and they work with men all through the maternity process, supporting dads at every scan. They're there with conversations, resources, and they find that when the baby arrives, those men engage back in to the service so that's great but it would be good to start even earlier like before we even expect in our babies even as young boys thinking more about caregiving and what it means to be a dad and what kind of dad we want to be so how do you think we can do that obviously a big question big societal change um but it's got to be part of the answer what do you think i think i know you've had them have you had ruth whitman on the podcast yeah i love her so much and she has an amazing masculinity discussion group every month, which I always join.

10:02But, you know, she talks a lot about what are the stories that we tell children and that they are really quite heavily gendered and that basically boys get everything is a battle, everything's hero's journey. So the boy goes out into the world on his own as an individual and he learns a skill in order to defeat something and come back bigger and better. And that is, we've become really culturally obsessed with that story, basically, because it fits into feature film really well. So there's an author called Francesca Cavallo who wrote a book called Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls. Very, very famous.

10:46Tens of millions in copies. She did one for boys. Stellar Stories for Boys of the Future did much less well. It is incredible. I would get that book for your boys. They're amazing, amazing stories. It's brilliant. Sharks, pirates, all the stuff you'd expect. But they all involve caring, building a team of people to work together. They've just got a completely different thrust to them. And it's a huge question. But if I had like one piece of advice, if my boys were young, to read those stories and to start to find different stories that don't just make everything a battle.

11:25Elliott:Love that. That makes total sense. I also, I feel like the education system, I mean, we always go back to the education system, don't we? Poor teachers, God, who would want to be a teacher? But I feel like there could be something weaved into the education system as well that does some of this, that helps boys to think about roles as carers. But, and there just isn't anything. You do sex education and girls get taken off and talk to her about periods and that's it. And I feel like, you know, the only way you can counter the cultural embedded narrative that we all sit with of like, you know, you don't talk to boys about K, you don't talk to boys about being fathers, you don't talk to boys about babies.

12:11Elliott:The only way you change lots of kids at the same time is through the education system. if we had a better understanding of the helpers high the high you get when you help other people and it's the big three right you get oxytocin serotonin and dopamine i mean if you sold that festival i'd buy it right it's like it's like the best like it's like that that that that is the humans the human story is not an individual story darwin never said survival of the fittest our story is survival of the most collaborative that's why we're the dominant species it's like we know how to work together in these big groups and if we can start to teach like that helping other people makes you feel great because it's what you're supposed to do as a human being I think we can get that in early I love that yeah yeah that is so true you you recently wrote a really beautiful piece for the eye paper called the day I scared my son away from home and in it you describe grabbing and shoving your 11 year old out of the door and you write in it that you still carry shame about that moment it's a really worth thing alex to admit publicly what made you decide to write about it that um

13:33Elliott:sorry it's like i'm sorry okay i still get rid of my We love a few tears on the podcast.

13:41This is the goal, to get our guests crying. Right. We got that really quick. You know, that incident and what I learned from it were one of the most important things that's ever happened to me in my life. But just to start a bit smaller, I think, when I told my mates what had happened, I was like, I lost my shit. I grabbed him. I picked him up off the floor. I was like, get out, it's ridiculous, go to school now. Like, you know, big, scary, physically, you know, shoved him out, he was scared. They were all like, that's fine. Like, come on, compared to what we got from our dads, that's nothing.

14:20And look, I get, they were doing something beautiful for me, right? And I think that mums sometimes use rough touch and they lose their shit and they shout because we're all human and often they'll speak to friends and friends will tell them it's fine, it happens. but there was something more going on here than just helping me feel better there was a kind of you've done a good thing this is a good thing that you've done and you've done him a favor and I was like you're not hearing me just drop the morality and talk about functionality it didn't work yeah it didn't work so you can stand there and be like well actually that's to the dad's job and you've taught him and I said, forget that.

15:02He went to school and then he didn't come home. He wouldn't come back into the house. Because he was a child. He wouldn't come back into the house with me, innit, right? It was awful. It was awful.

15:15Elliott:Yeah. And because he's such a willful little shit.

15:21He's such a willful boy. And he went to stay at his aunt's and then he wouldn't come back. And I was left with this choice, right? It's like, you know, I yo-yoed between, God, what have I done? I've destroyed our relationship. And being like, this is ridiculous. You know, I am going to make that kid go to school. And luckily, my little brother, I told him, he was like, look, I remember with our parents, once I was very, very upset with our dad. And I sulked. I wouldn't smile at him. I took away my love. It was the only thing I had to punish him. and he bullied me out of it he was like you will come downstairs and you will sit at the table and you will smile you know no i love my dad to bits it's all he knew right my dad got hit every day by his dad until he was 17 right it's all he knew and he was a wonderful father but my brother was like i still haven't really forgiven him don't do it and all the gabber mate stuff right is like trauma isn't rupture trauma is when you do not allow a child agency to to be themselves so i just i had to take my medicine i had to beg his forgiveness and i had to accept that even though i was sure that i knew what was best for him i couldn't make him do it i couldn't make him do it And that was incredibly humbling and so valuable.

16:54And I was reading this, just luckily, I was reading this amazing book called When You Care, which is about the magic of caregiving by Elisa Strauss. She's the only person I've had on my podcast twice because it's such a rich book. And basically, the underlying point is that all of us, men and women, going back to what we were talking about earlier, we don't accept that caregiving is a place of productive friction. in the way that we understand with say work or exercise that these things are going to be hard and difficult but we will grow and that's that is that is what was happening I was like this is really really hard it's painful and I'm growing and I'm growing alongside my son and I'm you know that boy's amazing he's going back to school full-time next year and I'm so happy we've been through that together yeah thanks for sharing that i think um it's so tricky to unlearn a lot of the experiences i think that we've had growing up um so my dad similar to you amazing father he was also beating when he was younger and used discipline with us nothing extreme but it was there of the time and earlier this year me and my wife had a big argument i think jolie you may remember but it's been my while I had a big argument.

18:09You took out the dog. And I went away for, the dog was involved. Yeah, the dog was involved. It wasn't his fault, but the dog was involved. And I went away. So I was working in Ireland for a few days. And when I came back, my daughter, she's 10, like she was really scared of me. And the argument was just between me and my wife. We were shouting at each other. But my daughter was like really scared, actually. And we kind of intimidated by me for a little while. and like you I had to apologize to her I had to work really hard to like get her to trust me again had to buy her lots of Starbucks and Costa coffees that worked but it was that kind of unlearning of like yeah my my parents would not have done this right if my dad had done that come back he would no way have apologized no way of tried to rebuild that the expectation would have been you just get on with it right it's life we had worse growing up but now we're in a new world we understand trauma we understand relationships we understand what kind of dads we want to be and it is humbling and it is it does take a lot of introspection and and checking your ego um to apologize and to rebuild that relationship because i think we're probably for most people we're the first generation of men who are doing parenting and fatherhood in this way for so many of others this this is this is unheard of it's a new way of doing things yeah we're making up these new models in real time and road testing them at the cold face and obviously loads of it doesn't work and that's it and it you know it's it's a confusing time to be a dad but god it's an exciting time to be a dad isn't it like do you know what i mean this sort of versatility we're allowed and actually the growth the growth is just amazing so just

19:58Elliott:like with what happened do you think then we you and i have talked about this before actually alex but i was i told you about a friend of mine who has a son that's school refusal won't go to school and um part of me often thinks you go upstairs and you drag him out of his bedroom and you say she's a single mum you are going to school you're not if you don't go to school then i don't know you take away everything you take away all his screens you take away anything that he finds enjoyment from until he goes to school there is a part of me that thinks that I don't know because I'm not in this situation so it's very easy for me to judge from a distance as to what you would do where's the line do you just let them get away with whatever they want or is there some cases where you have to be quite forceful to say no this is not good for you you need to do go to school or whatever it is where's the line so i think you know one of the beautiful things about being a a parent now is that we're encouraged to see our children as people from early on and i have this enormous benefit where i still teach loads of little kids and i've got you know when my kids business was at its peak i'd see a hundred thousand thousand families every week and they are people from the minute they come out you know this when you've got multiple children right they come out and you're like oh hi you're completely different to that other one like already it blows the nature versus nurture thing out of the water obviously so the idea that I could tell anyone what's good for their child I can't all I can say is that when I looked at my boy I'm like what am I afraid of here do I think that you the character that you are is going to just bunk off school and never pick it up again and no because you're really competitive there's no way you're gonna not get better GCSEs than your sister you won't have that I just know you won't.

22:08You just won't. And you're super smart. And I think one of the things that we're wrestling with around this school issue is we've started to question whether a traditional education is more valuable than their mental health. And a lot of the time we're saying no. And I think if I thought my son going to school every day was life or death, maybe I'd been happy to put him in a sack and drag him there. But actually, I didn't. And I think this is tricky. because we don't know what we're supposed to be educating kids for. So we don't have that conviction that my parents had, which is kind of, you go to school, you're not supposed to like it.

22:47You work really hard there. Then you're going to get into a university. And then that is going to open this world of non-specific opportunities, job done. Like we're really not sure that that is the right path anymore. So, you know, I think we've, we've gained empathy and we've lost certainty and that's exhausting, but it's also really valuable. What do you think about anger? I kind of feel like obviously boundaries and sometimes I'm a big believer in sometimes you do need to tell children what's best for them because they're not going to know because they're children. And my dad was very strict with me and I thank him at times actually for the decisions he made to stop me doing things and make sure I stuck to certain things in my life.

23:29I think I wouldn't be here now if it wasn't for my dad having that approach with me. I definitely needed it. But I think there is something when it comes to men and anger because it's not necessarily like what you're doing but how you're doing it and i think sometimes with the men i see as well it's not that what they're doing is necessarily like wrong like being strict with their kids it's maybe how it's the the aggression it's the shouting it's the physicality it's the things where you're not listening where you're not respecting and you're just kind of being the authority and that sometimes comes from a place of anger because we're just so angry we want to be heard and we haven't got the patience to to listen what do you think about that in regards to like men controlling their emotions a little bit better and not leading with anger when they're trying to parent i think it's very difficult it's the only emotion we've ever really been told we're allowed to express and then it's suddenly like and we basically have all agreed right that it doesn't it doesn't really belong it belong in the home and And then, well, you know, what's left to me when I'm not happy?

24:28That's the only one I had. So I get that. It's really, really difficult. For me, it's about what's the cost, right? If the only leverage, we're talking about leverage here, right? How do I get my kids to do things that I think, because I've lived longer than them, that I think are going to be good for them? the only leverage I have comes through my relationship. It comes through trust. It comes through them trusting me and credibility. So anything I do that takes away from that loses me leverage. And we know that if I start shouting at you now, Elliot, this is adults as well, actually you can't hear me.

25:14You go into fight or flight. If we're having an argument, I mean, all you can think about is starting to kind of top the reasons that I am wrong. You go straight into place that you can't hear it. So when you acknowledge those costs, then you're like, right, I've got to find something else, don't I? I have to.

25:34Elliott:I think it's great that you've acknowledged that every kid is different with this, because I think that's really important that, you know, there is no one size fits all with anything that we're talking about. And my eldest is lazy. Like, he will be lazy. I mean, he's like me, right? If nobody tells him... You're, like, the least lazy person. That's so funny. You're just like, yeah, I'm just going to sort out another march in Trafalgar Square this weekend. Yeah, Joni, you're a lot of things, but you're not lazy, Joni. You can't have that one. Okay, when I was younger, I was definitely a lot lazy.

26:12Elliott:and we so we we're really into into sport I say we I am not in sport at all my partner's really in sport and played loads of sport when he's younger but we both think it's good for two boys to play sport like there's you know lots of stuff around teams dedication working together and it's better than them sitting on screens in the house so they both play absolutely loads of sport which is bloody exhausting because it means we're constantly back and forth taking them places And I remember my eldest was in a football team at the time. He's not anymore, but he didn't want to go one day. And my partner was like, you're just going.

26:51Elliott:There's no excuses here. You are part of the team. You do not let your team members down. You are going. And that's it. And he absolutely refused. And there was lots of shouting. and then he ended up everything got taken away from him he just stayed it had to stay in his bedroom for the rest of the night because he wouldn't go and I hated it because I hate seeing them sad obviously I hate seeing them upset I hate arguments I hate all of that makes me just shut down but he never he's gone every single time never not gone to a practice or to a match since then and so it was it was in hindsight probably the right thing for him and and and also behind that you know so if we compare that to the school thing there is that utter conviction there that you do not you are letting your team down this isn't about you you see that's then so actually no I'm going to go all out on this and I'm going to punish you if you do it because I fully believe what's behind it.

27:55Yeah.

27:56Elliott:Yeah, but it's just such a fine line, isn't it? And I rarely lose my shit. I am quite a chilled out person, but I have obviously lost my shit on occasion. And the guilt, the guilt that you feel afterwards, the self-flagellation that I will do after losing my shit. But I judge my partner when he loses his shit. I really do judge him. and a lot of it i think the kids like our kids pay the price of just our stress i know when i lose my shit with my kids it's because it's not because of them most of the time like it might have been something they did but if they'd done that the day before i wouldn't have lost my shit it's because i've got a big talk tomorrow that i haven't prepared for and i haven't finished the slides or it's because i've got a million things next week that i'm that's big and i haven't i haven't had the time to do the work for it or whatever's going on it's that stuff and so I find like it's so important for us and it's easier said than done I am not there but it's about caring for ourselves first and foremost making sure we are rested exercised fed all the stuff that we need to do and then we can approach parenting with more calmness and patience but in the modern world that's really bloody hard to do when there's a million one things to think about and going back to that mental load piece, Alex, that you were speaking about as well.

29:14The mental load falls predominantly on women, but the mental load for everyone is massive. Maybe for men, they're thinking about work, they're thinking about whatever. It's so big now. And I find with parenting, when I'm in a space where I'm feeling okay, I'm such a better parent. I think it's really important for dads to understand how much harder what you just described is for mums. And I think a lot of the time mums can be actually the snappier one or the one who who lose their shit more often is because what you're talking about there is capacity, right? Like the kid drives you over the edge, could have done the same thing yesterday, it wasn't a problem, but it's because you're at capacity.

29:53And because mums carry more of the mental load, they're closer to capacity the whole time. And also they've internalized this terrible message that we don't have, which is good mums don't do stuff for themselves. You sort of get this thing at the end, a woman you can't pour from a from an empty cup it's like yeah but don't say that at the end after telling me i've got to do all the other stuff it's just this afterthought and you know like you elliot i have no problem connecting me feeling better and exercised and doing all that stuff with me being a better parent i think that's just a harder link for mums to make because all their messaging is that they get is about sacrifice sacrifice sacrifice yeah i see it in my own house Like I'm telling Sneny all the time, like, so she's, she's, she's such a giver of her time.

30:43And my eldest loves a bedtime story at 10 PM on a school night. And I'm like, look, there's no, you're not getting me doing a bedtime. Are you crazy? Like no way. But I feel so much easier saying no. Whereas my wife, she, cause she's such a giver. And I think going back to what you were saying, the, the conditioning from young, she finds it so hard to say no to people. She wants to give. And I think sometimes we see it, but it's at the detriment to your own health and wellbeing. but again it's the conditioning from young we don't have that i wasn't conditioned to give unconditionally to everyone in my life i just wasn't yeah study and play come together on a windows 11 pc and for a limited time college students get the best of both worlds get the unreal college deal everything you need to study and play with select windows 11 pcs eligible students get a year of microsoft 365 premium and a year of xbox game pass ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller.

31:38Learn more at windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last, ends June 30th. Terms at aka.ms slash college PC. Uncovered windows can make your home feel up to 20 degrees higher. Stay cool and save up to 45 % off custom window treatments during the 4th of July VIP access sale at blinds.com. From outdoor shades to room darkening blinds, finding the perfect fit is easy. Get free samples, expert design help, and professional measure and install services. Or DIY with confidence and support every step of the way. Shop up to 45 % off site-wide right now during the 4th of July VIP access sale at blinds.com.

32:18Elliott:What would you say, Alex, to moms that are listening who are in a heterosexual relationship and their partner resorts to shouting and anger as a way to get the kids to do what they want and they don't like it. They struggle with it and they want it to stop. but they don't know how to approach it because if they say to their partner I really want you to stop shouting and I really want you to stop using anger as a way to get the kids to do stuff then the partner may think that they're soft or may think that they you know that they just have different parenting styles and that that's okay that the dad uses force and anger the mum uses a different tactic so you know we need to just to allow that to happen what would you say to mums that want to have that conversation they're really healthy i think i think again let's come back to functionality right let's get one of the studies up there's loads of them about what happens in the brain when someone's shouting at you and let's take this away from like this is bad or immoral but like i just don't think it works they can't hear you when you're doing that and i also think there's a longer piece zoom out piece which is about resilience that that this stuff can work in the short term right but what happens when you take it away and my best mate just just fiercely intelligent man who i was at university with and he just didn't do very well at university he just didn't go to his lectures and he just kind of but and he's so clever he's ended up doing really really well and he talked to a therapist about it and he was i just don't i don't know why I just my mates would get up and they'd all go in and I just sort of sit in the house looking like out the window.

34:05And his mate was like and the therapist was like, well, what happened when you refuse to do stuff when you're a kid? Back of the hand, every time, nothing. I would just never, never refuse. Like everything, everything was run like that through authority, threat of violence, rage, anger. But when you take that away, you realize that you've actually never really learned any self-motivation at all. And self-motivation and resilience are hard to build, but you cannot build it by shouting at someone. And I think, you know, we don't know what the world's going to look like for our kids. Everything's so uncertain.

34:47They're going to need to be resilient. It's a biggie to go out, be able to go out and fail and do stuff when you don't particularly want to do it. But they've got to come to that by themselves. We can't body them into that.