Submind YouTube summaries
Thumbnail for What Happens When Girls Grow Up Without A Father? - Sadia Khan

What Happens When Girls Grow Up Without A Father? - Sadia Khan

Watch on YouTube

Video summary

The podcast addresses a concerning cultural shift toward anti-child and pro-individualism sentiments, arguing that this trend deprives society of its primary motivation to live responsibly. The host contends that while modern alternatives like travel and fame offer distractions, having children provides an essential "will to live" by forcing individuals to save money, maintain their health, and take greater responsibility for their actions. This parental role acts as automatic therapy, compelling adults to address past traumas and self-sabotaging behaviors before they can reach their full potential. Without this anchor, the host warns that people risk becoming a "car wreck" with no one watching over them, whereas parenthood naturally fosters maturity and accountability in ways that age alone cannot guarantee. A significant portion of the discussion focuses on how fatherlessness impacts dating patterns and relationship choices for both men and women. The speaker explains that girls who grow up without fathers often enter relationships from a place of "survival mode," seeking older, wealthy partners to provide safety and stability rather than emotional connection or sexual attraction initially. Once they feel secure with an older man's financial support, these individuals may eventually seek younger partners based on genuine attraction but frequently end up in cycles where they cheat only to be taken back by the provider who pays their bills. This dynamic is exacerbated when single mothers encourage daughters to avoid men entirely and instead pursue wealthy suitors as a backup plan, leading women to prioritize socioeconomic status over character compatibility with low self-esteem older men. The conversation also delves into the complex issue of parental alienation and its long-term consequences on future relationship health. The host highlights that some mothers punish ex-partners by blocking their access to children, effectively depriving boys of a father figure while putting their mother on a pedestal as an innocent victim. Boys raised in this environment often grow up believing women are helpless victims who need saving, causing them to gravitate toward broken or abusive partners they believe they can fix. Conversely, the speaker notes that men sometimes prefer single mothers whose children have never seen the father, interpreting it as a green flag when it is actually a red signal of poor co-parenting and potential future conflict if the couple breaks up. The host challenges the common trope where women seek to "fix" broken or abusive men, arguing that this behavior stems from an ego boost rather than genuine care. He emphasizes that individuals are competing against childhood traumas they cannot overcome, noting that one is not a therapist but merely another person with their own wounds. Attempting to heal someone's past abuse while attributing their recovery solely to oneself is described as narcissistic and destined for failure because the root causes of behavior remain unchanged regardless of new relationships. The ultimate conclusion drawn is that healthy relationship choices require recognizing responsibility defined by care for others rather than age, avoiding partners who isolate children from fathers or mothers who prevent co-parenting, and understanding that true maturity comes from accountability not just years lived.
Read the full video transcript
why do you think there's this generalized culture of anti- Children and Family creation at the moment I wonder where that's stemming from I do think it's a sad reality I don't know where that's coming from I just think the reality is there's so many alternatives to having kids now you can travel you can really become something if you want to become famous you can become famous you can travel the world you can make a lot of money you can do all of these things but you know if you speak to people who have even you know scored goals in the World Cup they'll still tell you that their best moment of their life is when the child was born so I think it's a really negative thing to place um to kind of put on society I think the reality is when you know that you're going to have kids you have to take more responsibility of your life you have to save more money you have to look after your health it gives you a will to live now to remove that from you is a is a slow and steady self-sabotage when you don't have any children for the rest of your life and you think you're never going to have them essentially you could be a car wreck and no one's going to watch you whereas when you have children it's an automatic therapy you you have to fix your traumas you have to fix your self-sabotaging behaviors so you're depriving yourself of reaching your full potential when you completely write that off I I believe but I could be wrong with that I you were preaching to the choir I think that it's really great all of my friends that have become fathers they've stepped up in a way that I I'm impressed by like they were they were hitters before and they're even bigger hitters now yeah which is why it surprises me that there is this generalized anti-child anti- family creation culture it's really good like sometimes you know and they even do it with men that are in like you know uh in trouble with the law and stuff sometimes when they have children is the only way to get them off the streets because it's the only thing that gives them that Mo motivation that they can't find outside of it but so if you are feeling that maybe it's you need have a kid well I I understand what you mean as well that there is this kind of mass individualism um I think some of the most common reasons as to why people aren't getting into relationships at the moment uh working on myself right right now just don't feel ready uh sort of Bing my time so to speak super childish though it's just it's a focus on the individual um and it's very isolationist it's very atomized it's all about the individual on their own and don't get me wrong you know if you spend your time maybe you're working working from home postco um maybe your job doesn't actually require you to interact with that many other people or maybe you're doing it all through slack and through Zoom you don't need to really leave the house that much anymore you can door Dash your food you can Amazon Prime whatever it is that you need you can stay on the couch and watch Netflix we've become more isolated and I think that that Trend almost causes us to justify more isolationism uh and it also it's called extended adolescence or slow life strategy that Jee Tangi found and this is just never really getting to the stage of growing up you know young people are getting their driver's licenses later they're starting work later they're moving out of the house later like the most common living arrangement for men under the age of 30 is still being at home with their parents and this is one of the things I I you know I get a lot of slack on for online because I talk a lot about age gaps and sometimes young women you know they go for older men and they'll say yeah but he's 40 I know I'm only 22 but at least he'll be more responsible and he will settle down responsibility well maturity is not defined by age it's defined by how much responsibility you have and I always say if he's got to 40 no kids no under his belt he's chosen that Peter Pan lifestyle no 23y old is going to come along and wake him up he's chosen to be that man are you sure you want to be with him you're better off with a 30-year-old that's got more responsibility than a 45-year-old who hasn't because if you think a number defines maturity you're lost the reality is is the amount of responsibility particularly responsibility and care for others so if he's supporting family if he's supporting an ex-wife or he was married or he had kids it does something to men it kind of creates a a level of responsibility and accountability that they can't get without that so I do always tell women um don't be afraid of being with a man that's had kids or a man that's you know been married they're better than the ones that have had no baggage because baggage is responsibility which is then accountability for a man do you think that the same is true in Reverse no unfortunately it doesn't work the same way with women not always it can sometimes but it doesn't always work the same way because women when they have children and good women with healthy women actually prior her children first and foremost and if she does one of the priorities is becoming then super cautious of the man that she allows to enter into the man's world and her if she's a really good mother she tends to keep a good co-parenting relationship with the ex and a lot of men don't feel comfortable with that but the true good woman like the single mom that you should be looking for is the one that's got a good relationship with her ex-husband what men do is they prefer the woman that has no contact with the ex and the kids have never seen the ex and they think oh I'll go for that girl at least they baby father is not around that's a signal that she deprives or prevents children from connecting with their father that's not a good thing that's not a green flag that's actually a red flag so what men are doing is sometimes they're selecting women and thinking she's got children but she she doesn't let the kids see their dad and they not in his life and he was a bum but what does that tell you about her selection process and what does that tell you about her ability to co-parent it's an insight into what would happen if you two broke up you won't exist for those children that's not a healthy mother a healthy mother is who cheated on me who was a before he was a wreck but the kidss need their father I drop him every Friday that's the healthy mother but men don't interpret single motherhood the way they should yeah do you have any idea how fatherlessness impacts boys and girls behavior and what they what they look for when they grow up and start dating um with women they definitely here's the problem women have when they grow up without a father fig and if they really feel it is they'll always date a lot older men so they'll be 17 18 years old and they're looking at the the 30-year-old and a 35-year-old and they're getting older and older and there's a huge gap between them now my experience of working with women that go for these age Gap relationships is they are in survival mode without a father they need that safety and comfort and the conversations that we normally find really boring coming from our father about mortgage rates and like you know saving your money they sexualize those conversations so when they hear it from an older man they're like oh he's so responsible if they're not used to it so they end up initially going for that older man and falling in love but once they feel safe and they've got the money and they forgot the safety they then look for men around their own age they end up it's like it's almost like having a safe secure base once you've got an older Father Figure in your life then you go on to see what you're sexually attracted to but until you've got that secure base you're in survival mode you're looking for who can make you feel safe not who can make you feel who you're attracted to so they confuse they blur the lines between attraction and safety and they end up looking for it in an older man but then cheating on him with a younger man do you think that they over prioritize socioeconomic status in that regard rightly so I understand why because they don't have a backup plan when you grow up with your father you know at some point he'll help you and things get rough or he'll leave something for you and stuff and it naturally creates a level of safety they don't have that safety and usually they if they come from a single mom home she's also encouraging her to look for a rich man because it benefits her as well yeah there's usually some kind of like support network okay you can come live with us and so on and so forth so they come from a culture of you know you don't have to a man all men are annoying and they're difficult so just choose one that's going to give you a good life so they end up focusing on social econ economic status but they also end up with men with low self-esteem because a man with high self-esteem at 40 years old would recognize he's got nothing in common with a 22y old who makes Tik to all day he wouldn't have any intellectual intimacy so she ends up with an older man with low self-esteem who when she does cheat on him will still take her back and so on and so forth who who pays every bill or whatever it is she so again she ends up with a man that she does doesn't respect in the long run but really admires initially because he provides her with that safety she's been craving yeah you you told me about this book you'd been reading to do with parental alienation what's that well the thing is I was looking into parental alienation only because I see it so much going on but one of the things um punishments women use for a man that's been that she feels has let her down is depriving her him of access to the children now the problem I see happening is with the children of such mothers especially the men of such mothers they go on to have very very abusive relationships so men who grow up with single moms who blocked access they end up with women who are very abusive either they're Unfaithful or they financially abuse them or they just they're physically abusive they grow up with very they end up selecting very abusive uh women and from my observation and from what I'm reading it looks like what happens is when you've been deprived of a father and you've only heard Mom's side of the story what happens is they put their mom on a pedestal they think Mom's women are the innocent victims of harsh men so what will happen is they pray to women that need saving they always gravitate towards women that they can save and help and nurture and say oh yeah that man was terrible i've got you I'm going to help you I'm going to show you what life looks like because I've been doing that to Mom my whole life the problem with those women is they are broken Beyond you you can't fix them most women can't be saved they they haven't something broken that they need to fix themselves but the man that thinks he can save her is is the one that's a little bit more delusional and he gets his self-esteem from seeing her now love him so unfortunately he ends up going for very broken women that end up re abusing him and he he ends up not having those boundaries that he needs with women so they end up in very poor relationships when they've been raised by a mother that blocks access to fathers you often hear about the reverse about women who look for the guy that's broken but I can fix him and I can hold on why do you think that happens hear it a lot with women it happens in men as well we hear it a lot in women because it's a huge ego boost knowing that a man used to be a player but for you he changed or he used to be in and out of jail but for you he changed here's the reality you're competing with people's childhoods not other women if I've got a man that's really broken and he sleeps around and he's doing drugs or whatever it is and I think I'm going to fix him and I'm going to be the special person I'm competing with his childhood traumas you can't compete with somebody's childhood essentially you're always going to lose now whatever caused that add Ive Behavior or that abusive Behavior still exists before you you are not the therapist and you are not the cause of the wound so don't take on that role you're only going to hurt yourself the best thing you can do is support them while they heal it but to attribute his healing to you as a person is a form of narcissism you're wanting to feel good by his healing not for the sake of him healing but for you to get an ego boost to know that you could do it and it's not the way to do it we'll get back to talking to seru in one minute but first I need to tell you about element stop having coffee first thing in the morning your adenosine system that caffeine acts on isn't even active for the first 90 minutes of the day but your adrenal system is and salt acts on your adrenal system element contains a science-backed electrolyte ratio of sodium and potassium and magnesium that plays a critical role in reducing muscle cramps and fatigue whilst optimizing brain health and regulating your appetite they are the exclusive hydration partner to Team USA weightlifting and relied on by tons of elite athletes around the world best of all they have a no BS no questions asked refund policy so you can buy it and try it all and if you do not like it for any reason they will give you your money back and you don't even need to return the box that's how confident they are that you love it head to the link in the description below or go to drink LM nt.com slod wisdom to get a free sample pack of all eight flavors with your first box that's drink LM nt.com slod wisdom what's happening people if you enjoyed that then press here for the full unedited episode and don't forget to subscribe