The Stats: Asians Hate Raising Kids ... Why?

Simone discusses why Asians reportedly find less joy in parenting compared to other ethnic groups, connecting this to the ultra-low fertility rates in many Asian countries. She delves into specific cultural practices, such as Korea's postpartum spas and elaborate first birthday ceremonies, as well as her and her partner's unique parenting styles. Using statistics and personal anecdotes, the video explores the complex interplay of cultural expectations, parenting joy, and societal pressures in Asian contexts.

[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello, it's Simone. I'm excited to be talking to you today. Today, we are going to be talking about why Asians seem to hate being parents. And the statistics are really clear. Like Asians do not get as much joy for being parents as other ethnic groups. They do not like being around kids as much as other ethnic groups.

They do not find it as rewarding as other ethnic groups. And you see this across Asian groups. And in addition to that. You see, no, you see this correlated heavily, I think, in part with why so many Asian countries have ultra low fertility rates or their level of income. I mean, if you're saying why, why are they so low fertility rate? Well, you know, it might have something to do with them not liking being parents that would obviously affect things.

And this is actually brought to my attention by Simone, which I thought was really interesting. The second thing we're going to dig into is interesting customs focusing on Korea as an example here because it is the lowest fertility of these countries. So we're [00:01:00] going to look at what it feels like to be an average Korean or what Koreans are saying in the polls right now.

And then we're going to go from that to some of the ceremonies that shocked me, these ultra expensive ceremonies that Koreans have to have. Although it's

Simone Collins: telling you about like first birthdays, things like that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, first birthdays, the postpartum. I didn't realize what percent of Koreans went to these like special postpartum spas.

It's like 80 percent or something. It's really hot.

Simone Collins: It's huge. And when one of their proposed pronatalist policies is to provide more coverage for payment for those, because people are like, well, this is so expensive. How can I afford it? But then no one else goes to them. This is a you thing. But whatever.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And Just before we go through all the stats, I'll also get to my explanation for why. So you don't need to, to, to stay and wait and wonder here. Why am I going to say, I think that the genetic thing could be part of it. See our episode is low East Asian fertility genetic.

There is an [00:02:00] evolutionary reason why it may be lower which would also tie to parenting joy.

But the second thing that I think it might be And I think this is probably the bigger thing is I think that we should divide the parenting on an axis, you know, like that political access chart. Oh, every time I hear

Simone Collins: access, I just think hot crazy. It's the only graph I ever think of. Oh, the hot crazy

Malcolm Collins: axis?

Yes, of course. The economic liberal, the you know, the conservative. Ah, yes,

Simone Collins: yes,

Malcolm Collins: yes, yes. So I think all parenting styles fall broadly on an axis of how high touch they are versus how low touch they are. Okay. And how loving they are versus how ruthless they are.

Simone Collins: Oh, so like helicopter to free range, tiger mom to Hippie dad.

Yeah. So,

Malcolm Collins: so, so, if you're talking about the various quadrants, the quadrant that is high touch and ruthless would be tiger mom. Yes.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You [00:03:00] see this in other Asian parenting, high touch, but very loving would be gentle parenting. Low touch, but very loving is a hippie parenting. Oh no, sorry.

Simone Collins: We're wait, we're, we're low touch, but loving.

Malcolm Collins: No, we're low touch, but quite ruthless for a lot of people telling kids that love is something that they have to earn. We don't even do birthday parties for them, Simone. We actually do what they actually

Simone Collins: enjoy because we really love them, which is we do their favorite activity of the day.

And then we take them to a store and they get to get anything they want. That's way better than you don't

Malcolm Collins: allow me to take the kids to store barely ever that on their birthdays. At least I do! Oh, on one day a year, they get to go to a store and choose one item under 15.

Speaker: I know you're not like other females. You like to think about things. You have opinions. Is that a compliment or an accusation? It's a fact!

Malcolm Collins: The point here being, Simone, is compared to [00:04:00] Most other people, and I would even say because I encourage our kids to fight, I encourage them to roughhouse, as you should compare, I, I think many would, people would see us, well, maybe not as aggressive or intentionally cruel as tiger parents.

We do things that are harsher than some of the things that Tiger parents do. So like when I look at my own upbringing. I referenced things like my parents being like, I was like, well, what if I get kicked out of school? Like, what if things get hard for me? And they're like, well, don't come home. I was like, wait, what?

Like, you're my parents. It's supposed to love me unconditionally. And they're like, everybody only loves you conditionally. And I would treat my kids the same way. If they're not, Thriving if they're not living up to their potential as a collins then they don't deserve any support and even tiger moms gives her kids support when they're struggling so it's a but what I was going to argue here before we got very derailed Is I think that the high touch plus high risklessness category of parenting It's very hard to enjoy because you are doing all of the hardest parts of parenting and I think it's the [00:05:00] lowest fertility parent group, whereas I think our parenting group, the ruthless and low touch parenting group is the highest fertility of all the parenting groups because it's, it's both effective and requires very little time, but.

Let's go into this. So if we're talking about just the broad statistics here, like enjoyability, all right while black parents find being a parent enjoyable 39 percent of the time and Hispanics 39 percent of the time as well, Asians is only 13%.

Simone Collins: Yeah, they're not having fun. In whites,

Malcolm Collins: it's 18%. This is by Pew, by the way.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and this is their, their big caveat here was this is only for English speaking Asian parents. It doesn't necessarily speak for parenting in East Asia. But when you look at birth rates in East Asia, you're like, well, I mean

Malcolm Collins: No, actually, remember the study that we looked at? That was how important are various things to you in your life and it compared European countries and East Asian countries and in European countries, like, in the top, like, 3 was [00:06:00] always like family and South Koreans,

Simone Collins: especially put material wealth over.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, well, no, in fact, of where they rank things, if you look at the countries on earth that rank family the lowest in terms of the satisfaction it gives them, they are all in Southeast Asia. Well,

Simone Collins: and I don't know how accurate they are, but in K dramas, family and in law is typically the source of, they're the source of stress and drama and terrible Machiavellian action, not support, love and inclusion. So,

Malcolm Collins: If you're looking at how rewarding they find it black 45 percent see, it is very rewarding. Hispanic 45 percent seat is very rewarding. Asian 23%. And here you see whites in the middle at 31%.

I'd also put black parenting in the same category as our parenting, which is, I think, why blacks find parenting much more enjoyable than other ethnic groups.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I mean, when you look across it, and this is from the peer research centers, [00:07:00] like, it's part of a larger survey results report on race, sorry, on parenting in America today, but this is section 2 race, ethnicity and parenting.

It just looks like black families and hispanic families are just Way more family oriented, kid oriented. They enjoy it. They're into it and they're more likely to. Did

Malcolm Collins: you have a lot of Hispanic friends growing up?

Simone Collins: I had some, not a ton, but they were definitely more family oriented. Here's the really weird point I'm

Malcolm Collins: making is while they are more family oriented.

They are much more in the low touch, ruthless category of parenting than white families are. Yeah, no, their parents

were

Simone Collins: enforcers, for sure. And they were very low touch. What was really weird to me about, because most of my friends in high school were Asian. And then a few, I had a few white friends.

And the weird, the, it's just that, you know how in some kid cartoons, it's just all the kids and you never ever [00:08:00] see parents. Like, it's like, it's just too weird. Extent like these, these people feed you, you live, you live in their house. Why are they not in this show? That's how it was. With my Asian friends.

I, I, I did not,

Malcolm Collins: I think, you know, now that you mention it, I never met any of my Asian friends parents.

Simone Collins: And we just, what's really weird is when I can trust that with my white friends, I was like as much friends with their parents. As I was with them, I

Malcolm Collins: think like seeing them was seeing their parents not be indicative of parenting style, but indicative of parental racism.

I think that the kids may have felt that there would have been a degree of disapproval by bringing white kids around.

Simone Collins: I don't know. But they were just so, I know, cause that's, here's the weird thing actually is I would hang out sometimes at their houses. Their parents weren't there. Whereas I would hang out at like.

My white friends houses and their parents would serve me grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. And they'd be there and they're like, Hey, how are you doing? They'd want to talk with us. And the Asian parents just weren't [00:09:00] around. Like maybe they were working. I just, I don't know. They were like conspicuously absent for the most part.

Fascinating. Other

Malcolm Collins: people can say if they've experienced this as well, but I didn't have that many Asian friends growing up. I had Indian friends. I don't remember Indian friends. Parents

Simone Collins: were like, they were tiny. My Indian friends family. They weren't conspicuously

Malcolm Collins: absent. I'd say they

Simone Collins: were there. They were super there and they were super like cool and welcoming and friendly.

They were not

Malcolm Collins: as now as an adult, like, when I think upon the different ethnic groups of my friends as a kid.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: the white parents were like uncomfortably.

Simone Collins: Yeah, like hanging out with them was also hanging out with their parents. It'd be like, Hey, do you want to come out? Like, hang out with me and my parents?

Like it was

Malcolm Collins: weird. Like you had to like really bring their parents and their parents would like find excuse. Like as an adult now I'm thinking back on it. I'm like, that's a little creepy. Like, yeah, you were really doing

Simone Collins: the activity with them. Like I went to Disneyland with a friend and her dad [00:10:00] and I went to, you know, like you'd hang out with, it would be all together.

The meals would be all together. The activity would be all together. That's yeah, it

Malcolm Collins: really shows how conspicuously different different cultural groups are even though we haven't seen them in a long time. Yeah, that is interesting. Even just noticing these cultural groups differences, like now that I'm thinking through it historically and I'm like, Oh yeah, that was definitely a thing.

And I'm putting other graphs on screen here. This isn't just this people that found this. And there's something else from

Simone Collins: the pupil that I wanted to talk about that, which I found was really interesting, which was not just really how they themselves enjoyed parenting or saw it as the most important thing in their lives.

But the, the survey results on how differently they wanted to raise their children from how they were raised. And that really surprised me. That was that was super interesting. What

Malcolm Collins: did you say

Simone Collins: that despite really, really loving parenting? The Hispanic families are the most likely to say that they wanted to raise their children somewhat or very differently from [00:11:00] their parents because you'd think when you look at the other stats.

Oh, you know, I see parenting is a big deal. I love parenting. And yet they're like, but I've got to do it really differently for my mom and dad. That, that just surprised me. Cause I would just assume that like, you know, our whole thesis is you are, you have an 18 year sales pitch to your kids. You give them a great culture.

They had such a great experience that they want to pass that on to their own children. And here, what we're seeing is something very different. They're like, well, My experience sucked, but I'm really into doing it again,

Malcolm Collins: but an interesting thing I was just thinking about my Hispanic friends growing up in the same way that when you hung out with white people, there was always like their parents would come and join along when you hang out with Hispanic friends, they always bring along some like other friend group.

That they expect you to like immediately get along with. It's like all other Hispanic kids.

Simone Collins: I didn't experience that. I

Malcolm Collins: had this happen to me a number, especially when I was living in a boat. So I would go to like [00:12:00] Mexico or something or go to other Central American countries where my families would know like other wealthy families.

And they just pawn us off with the kids. And the kids would always be like, okay, we're going to go play soccer with all the other guys or we're going to go like, you know, And white kids would, like, never do this or very rarely do this. I, I, I very rarely had a white kid expect me to get along with another group of people just because I wanted to hang out with them.

Whereas with Hispanic kids, while it wasn't their parents that you were immediately expected to get along with, it was a. Separate social network that had its own dominance hierarchy, and it was really uncomfortable because you were always at the absolute bottom is the new guy. And I really hated that, like, just being forced at the bottom of some large social hierarchy.

It did. It did. I was like, I'd always rather be alone than at the bottom of a social hierarchy, but I think that you see the answer to this before we go further in this particular statistic, [00:13:00] which is

I might have lost the statistics here is Asian parents. Expect a lot more of themselves as parents than other ethnic groups. They just, and you'll see this as we go through the anecdotes here.

Speaker 12: Yes, we moving in for my son's new job. Oh, good. What job? Neurosurgeon.

Nice. How old your son? Nine.

Nice. My son's such a failure. He can't even cook rice.

Speaker 13: I got an A I have no hope of a future job career and will always be a farmer. But I got the highest grade in the class. I'm in the dumbest class in school.

I was late to school today. Please smack me with whatever convenient footwear you're currently wearing. I don't want to take piano lessons anymore. I hate you. Can I become a pianist? I aspire to be homeless. I want to take a gap year and go travel and go find myself.

I accidentally thought I was from a white family. I'm 18. I just got a girlfriend. I'm throwing away [00:14:00] all career prospects and going to live under a bridge. I'm 22. I'm still single. I have never talked to a girl and have no hope of marriage.

Malcolm Collins: They just expect to be putting in a lot, lot, lot more labor.

Simone Collins: Well, and this shows in, you know, when you were discussed in our podcast on Asians not having higher IQs per se. It's just a cultural thing. They are studying more hours a week. They work an average

Malcolm Collins: of 11 extra hours a week studying. Yeah,

Simone Collins: they do the work. And yeah, that's kind of cool. Going to be less pleasant, but the outcome is that they have a higher income, they have higher achievement, they have higher test scores.

What's interesting, actually, this is kind of unrelated. But Cremeux on Twitter tweeted about this. Someone did a study. On East Asian representation and leadership in the United States that despite their disproportionate, you know, earnings and higher IQ as measured in various ways, East Asians are uniquely disproportionately represented in upper leadership in organizations and the [00:15:00] researchers, you know, chalked it up to a collective cultural lack of assertiveness of memory serves, which is like really spicy to say, and Kirby was just like, wow, like brave, brave to do this.

But I thought that was really interesting, but like, like parents are breaking their backs to do this. Kids are working. We're working. way harder all week. They're, they're earning more. And, and they're, they're, they're performing really well, but also they're not leaders and they hate their parenting and they don't like their child.

I don't know. Like, I'm kind of wondering, like, is this culture worth it? Like something isn't working quite right here, at least in the United States.

Malcolm Collins: Well, let's talk about what's going on in Korea right now. I found this tweet series that you sent me really fascinating on the current situation of what it's like to live in Korea at the moment with like grass and everything.

So just to go over it. It's by

Simone Collins: Alexander for sharing that in his link roundup. I love his link. It's by Mark

Malcolm Collins: Takana. Yeah, Scott Alexander, a hero. Anyway, [00:16:00] so 83 percent of young Korean women think of South Korea as quote unquote, hell, and 80 percent of them want to leave Korea. Dwell on this.

Simone Collins: Can you imagine Americans saying that about America?

I guess the progressives do right now. 83

Malcolm Collins: percent of young women in South Korea think of the country as hell. And 80 percent want to leave the country and And then they say if your mental model of south korea does not match this It's your mental model. That's wrong. Not the data. That's wrong.

Simone Collins: Yeah, clearly

Malcolm Collins: And I I think that well, I mean I want to go over this chart more broadly because it's like more Weird or scary than that even so if you're looking at men versus women a younger generation versus older generation People who see South Korea as hell in the younger generation, it is 83.

1 percent of young women and 78. 4 percent of young men. So the majority of young people and but in terms of old people [00:17:00] who could be like, is it super lower? 64. 4 of older women and 63. 9 of older men So interesting about the same for the two older genders, but still well over half. They're not happy despite the incredible rise in living standards in the country just because the culture Is if you watch our other episode on low fertility rates in south korea is genuinely hellish in many ways.

I Would not Raise my kids in that culture on I lived there. I worked there for people who don't know that I lived there for like a year. I worked there for a really long time. I really like South Korea.

Simone Collins: What if you just homeschooled your kids? I feel like a lot. There are a lot of great child amenities in South.

I don't know if you're

Malcolm Collins: allowed to.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx): It's neither explicitly legal or illegal. We'll get into why it's neither because nobody would do it anyway.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay. Well, that's your

Malcolm Collins: kids in South Korea. You'd have to homeschool them just for that one test. And that one test determines everything about their future.

Simone Collins: I don't know. Well, no, [00:18:00] no. I mean, like, but in, in the modern world, right? Like we have come to agree. That our kids are probably never going to get jobs because jobs kind of aren't going to exist anymore Last

Malcolm Collins: people to accept that reality,

Simone Collins: right?

But if you and I were to just be living in south korea

Malcolm Collins: We

Simone Collins: teach our kids how to become entrepreneurs We enjoy korea's soul's amazing amenities for kids. I don't know like it seems I'd be okay with, but you have to be off the grid.

Malcolm Collins: So some South Koreans I knew in the country, like one of them who was a very successful entrepreneur in the country his parents did something similar to like our sort of ruthless low touch parenting thing that we've talked about doing.

And we've talked about this as part of our parenting is he dropped his kid off in Australia when he turned like of age and was like, come back in six months. Find out how to work, find out how to support yourself, find out how to get a house, and the kid had to do all of that. And that's, that's an example of very low touch, very ruthless, but that [00:19:00] leads to really high results.

Like, for example, the kid, if you can survive your Krypteia that was an old Spartan tradition, but I, I But

Simone Collins: then Some of your friends from South Korea have just left. They, they are raising their kids, but Oh, yeah, I see that. I'm saying a lot of North

Malcolm Collins: Korea who are just like, no, you don't understand.

Like, why don't I just like, my aspiration is to go to New Zealand and meet a guy, go to the U S and meet a guy. Like anyone is better than what's expected of me here. And. We'll talk a little bit about that. I don't think it's as I think that their view might be unrealistic of men from other cultures.

To an extent, but there is some truth to it that they've it's become expected that they take on a lot of the roles at work, but they. Are still expected to take on as many of the roles at home. As they did back when they were full time homemakers and it's really hard to be a woman in that sort of environment.

Well, at the same time, men are completely dehumanized by the female population. They really do not care [00:20:00] about the sacrifices that men are making. I've seen this in their writings. They just. Seem to have a level of like the gender fight There is a lot bigger than the gender fight in other areas.

Simone Collins: But

Malcolm Collins: there's other videos on that I don't want to get too far into that.

I want to go over this this graph more so it wants to leave the country Okay of young women. It's 79. 1 of young men. It's 72. 3 That's wild want to leave the country of older people. It's 64. 6 of old women. It's 66 of old men

Simone Collins: Yeah, it's not just that, like, the unborn are essentially leaving by never being born.

It's that those who are already alive are noping out or want to. I think most people are too lazy to ever leave, but

Malcolm Collins: So here's an interesting one. People born into poverty can never compete with those born into wealth. How many people in the country think this 89. 3 percent of young women, 81. 7 percent of young men, but the older generation, they agree.

[00:21:00] 88. 9 percent of old women, 83. 3 percent of old men. And I actually kind of like Having lived in Korea, the, it is, it is way at least perceptionally harder to move up within the country than it is in a place like the United States. Like, the systems are really quite against you. But I want to keep going with this.

They go, then if you have doubts about this particular survey or its results, note that it's consistent with other independently conducted surveys. They have one here in the Korean times. And then they have a 1 here that says good comment for the thread. And this person is saying having been here for two months, here are my thoughts.

I'm more aware of what the 18 to 35 age group thinks, but I don't really know about the older generation. It's obvious that this country has evolved very fast economically, but it's had some social issues that are not being addressed properly. Having the lowest fertility rate in the world is revealing something.

I think they're experiencing the same changes we observed in the West when we wanted women to work. [00:22:00] First, I believe they didn't give women the right to work because it's kind and progressive. I believe they didn't want 50 percent of the population not creating value.

I don't know why. That said, Korean women are working as hard and earning as much money as Korean men, but they're still treated As if they couldn't survive without a man. This creates a situation where the man has a very hard time seducing a woman for long term relationships. I spoke to some Korean girls, and some of them told me that they felt they were being treated like s**t.

One of them even used the term grape meat. Which shocked me, because if you're just traveling there, you wouldn't imagine this. If you take the list Work very hard at school to avoid being a failure and shaming your family. Once you're done military service for men, start working at a company. You're a junior.

You're not getting paid well. You're literally a slave to your N1 or your parents. Tint your car windows because social norms have restricted you from interacting with strangers unless they're A worker, clerk, waiter, colleague, or customer. Your goal is to [00:23:00] buy a Korean word and means home and never leave it surroundings for this.

You have to work 80 hours a week. If you're a woman, you're also getting harassed by men in your free time. If you were trying to divorce, get killed, be addicted to Korean dramas because this is the only thing you can relax with is rarely leave your home. If you're a man, you have a pretty bad opinion of Women who hang out and are not considering them for long term relationships Give your life to your job.

How are you supposed to meet and make babies? I still haven't understood how i've seen happy couples and how there's happy women and men Obviously as a stat show it's not working and their population might go extinct in 100 years. Nothing changes but yeah I, I really saw the same thing when I was in Korea, my company was as nice as a company could be to women. He was a high tier VC firm to work at. And even there you know, I wonder, do you motivate yourself? Like when you're just going to an office every day, An office life is so structured and there's so much office [00:24:00] theater.

Are you just living like a theatrical game of a life in a hope of not disappointing x or y group? Like no real dreams of, of, of improving things or making things better. I get it. Your thoughts before we go further with the specific practices in Korea.

Simone Collins: No, it just, I think this is a great example of a culture that has hit modernity and broken.

This is exactly why culture has to be updated.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, this is why you have to be flexible and be willing to update your culture because I do not think Korean culture as it is structured, and you'll see more of this in a second, could conceivably survive. No matter what they did, I don't understand how they're going to survive.

video goes into many more structural reasons for this. This is almost sort of like a, an addendum to that that goes over just like insane specifics. So here is one example of an insane specific additional cost for kids. [00:25:00] Korean postnatal hotels, also known as Chajwan, and I'll put some pictures on screen of this, are specialized.

They're really nice looking.

Simone Collins: Yeah, they sound great. Like we had nothing against the concept.

Malcolm Collins: I do. And I'll explain why in a second. They are specialized facilities that provide comprehensive postpartum care for new mothers in Korea. These centers offer a unique and luxurious experience for women recovering from childbirth.

Sajjwan provide a wide range of services to new mothers including 24 7 infant care, Trained nurses look after newborns in separate nurseries, allowing the mothers to rest. Specialized meals, nutritious meals, including traditional seaweed soup, are served to aid recovery. Massage therapy, various massages, including lactation massages, are offered to help mothers relax and recover.

Would that be kind of weird, having another person massaging your breasts? Would you Trust me.

Simone Collins: You haven't had misdiet or what is it called misdietus basically like if one of your ducts gets clogged once [00:26:00] your milk has come in when you're breastfeeding, the pain is intense. And so you'd, you'd

Malcolm Collins: appreciate other women giving you breast.

Simone Collins: Dude. Yeah. Because like it, you have to kind of learn how to unclog them and like how to how to manipulate the breast in the right way to like unclog it. And someone who knows what they're doing could have fixed that a lot faster for me. Before I figured it out and this is mostly for 1st or 2nd time mothers, there is value to where

Malcolm Collins: I think this is appropriate where I don't, but we'll keep going they do breastfeeding support.

They do exercise programs, like Pilates classes, they have mental health counseling services, and they have educational programs, the cost and duration. Can vary significantly. A two week stay at an average cost. One is around 2, 300. And for premium options, you're looking at around 28, 500 for a two week

Simone Collins: stay.

Okay. That's, that's pricey. And I wouldn't want to go to a cheap one.

Malcolm Collins: Around 80 [00:27:00] percent of new mothers use these facilities. And They are not traditional to Korea. It used to be that you would stay with like family members and they'd help you. But you know, this, this

Simone Collins: Yeah, I think in China, there's more of a tradition of having a, basically a post birth doula who sort of comes and they, they tell you what you're supposed to eat and they have a lot of sort of traditional remedies they'll do it.

And they would probably do the same kind of, you know, massage and they'd help you with breastfeeding and things, but it's someone who comes to your house, which may, it seems a lot more sustainable, much lower cost. I also, you know how I am though. I asked you to drop me off at the hospital and not basically talk to me.

You're serious. She asked me to

Malcolm Collins: not stay at the hospital and do something else. I'll take it. I think that

Simone Collins: there's really, there's something about just having space to yourself postpartum just because of the hormonal s**t you're going through. It's like having, it could be like having a bad trip. It could be like having a good trip, but doing it in sort of an isolated place that is low stimulation and very supportive is.

A good thing to do, whether you're [00:28:00] on psychedelics or having a kid.

Malcolm Collins: The first time you had a kid, I was like, I wish these existed in the U. S. I would totally love to send you to one because I wanted to send you to like a spa or something afterwards. But you're like, but then I'm away from the newborn.

Like, I don't want to do that. Yeah. Having had a number of kids, I'm now like, I'm really worried about anything that makes having kids not a routine that that over there's nothing about

Simone Collins: this that would inherently make it not a routine aside from the cost. The cost is really

Malcolm Collins: well, I mean, the average cost really isn't that bad.

I would happily pay like 1500. Why do you think it's

Simone Collins: not sustainable? I mean, I think ultimately women will want it less and less. because they just don't need it as much. I think this is great for making it smoother for first time mothers.

Malcolm Collins: Well, here's the reality of the situation. I think the, the, the, the truth is, is that if you went to these after like two times going, you probably wouldn't want to go anymore because you would feel more comfortable at home.

And I think that it varies

Simone Collins: and this is something that the women, cause you know, [00:29:00] You kind of get, it's not, okay, it's not really similar, but in, in, in us hospitals, when you have a C section, they typically expect you to stay a minimum of three nights, but sometimes quite a few more nights. Well, and yeah, no, I, I got out after two last time and the nurses were saying, oh yeah, like with, with mothers who have more than two kids, either they want out right away and they're just immediately out if they just had a natural birth, or they are, you know, minimum, minimum, minimum time, if they had a C section.

Or they're like, keep me in here as long as possible. I want my little break. Like they treat it as their hotel stay, their home time.

Malcolm Collins: I was making is the problem that these are fundamentally solving for Korean women.

What, you know, you're getting passed to a reasonable number of kids, like four or six or something like that, which like no Korean has I can't like my boss in the country was like super wealthy.

They had two kids, right? Like.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I think it's two. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Some of the wealthiest people in Korea, two kids. It's like, [00:30:00] why? Why not more kids?

Simone Collins: Well, I think it's super not normative. Like, I just, I think it's inconceivable. He also worked with his

Malcolm Collins: spouse. They had a spectacular relationship. I loved his wife.

I loved him. manage their companies together like Simone and I do. I think they had an iteration of Korean culture that could work, but they just didn't. But anyway, the point I was making here is that for you, home is to an extent, and you constantly tell me this, like your most luxurious Safe and pampered space.

Simone Collins: Well, and that's, and keep in mind, most mothers who have a lot of kids are also giving birth at home that, and it's their preference because it is just so much more comfortable than a hospital. So that is,

Malcolm Collins: that's normal. It is your safe space. Yeah. I feel like for these women. Home is not a safe space.

It is a place of work in demands. And the women who are like, I want a break. You wouldn't ask for that because there isn't something you want a break from. You [00:31:00] knew if you needed me to do more, you just ask me to do more. And I wouldn't like treat it as like cashing in chips or something. I'd be like, you just had a kid.

Of course. Like you do so much for me whenever you want to answer more, you always get more. And I don't think that in Korea, women would expect that as much.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I don't think there is a cultural expectation that if I ask for. Help from my husband. I'm gonna get it for sure.

Malcolm Collins: No, there is a cultural expectation You said you don't think that there is

Simone Collins: no, I don't I don't I don't think if a lot of Korean women Yeah, I mean in Korea.

They think like hey if I asked my husband to like handle all of the Whatever for this period of time that he did Probably like the expectation is you wouldn't do it. I don't think that's the reality. I think that there's a lot of young Korean men who'd be happy to step up and handle all the infant care and give their wives a break.

But there's not that cultural understanding and that certainly isn't the cultural norm [00:32:00] historically.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, and I think that Koreans are much less likely than other groups I've seen to compromise. On cultural understandings and here I'd love to be told the story before I get into this about this One year birthday in this couple.

Simone Collins: Oh, gosh. Yeah. I need to find the youtuber's name. She was described I didn't know this was a thing. So you and I already knew about weird korean weddings south korean weddings where you go

Malcolm Collins: Doshichi the thing that you're describing. Yeah,

Simone Collins: there are like literal wedding complexes where you, you go to them for your wedding.

They specialize in executing on weddings. They, they have packages set up and everything. I didn't know that there were also facilities for first birthdays. And that's what I learned from her, that it is expected that your first birthday party for your kid is not at your house or in your backyard. If you have one.

Or in some park, it is at one of these first birthday facilities and the YouTuber in question who I don't think grew up in South Korea, but married a South Korean husband would have been happy to [00:33:00] have her family come out and just celebrate the first birthday in the house. But her husband insisted on having the sort of traditional culturally understood first birthday, because it would otherwise be shameful to not do it.

So she picked out a place that was approximately 3, 000 US dollars, which is insane. It's like, it's like, it's so insane. Yeah. And he was like, no, this, it would be humiliating for us to have the birthday here because everyone would know how cheap it is. And he wanted to do one that was at like a 16, 000 place.

And I just cannot. Imagine, I mean, and this is a first birthday and this must be indicative of how you

Malcolm Collins: have eight kids. If you're doing this, like you don't,

Simone Collins: you don't, you just don't. So this is the tip of an iceberg in South Korean culture of just insanely unsustainable parenting. But I also think this, this, there's no way that this has been normative or expected for a long period of time because they're just.

And [00:34:00] there hasn't been the infrastructure to support this industry for that long. This has to be a new cultural expectation. And I do think that we are on track. To that world in the United States with how other

Malcolm Collins: parents expect me to be treating my kids and the way that that viral video about the little girl throwing a tantrum at the store and throwing all the stuff on the ground.

And when people tried to stop her, they were like, if you stop her, we'll call the police on you. If you, if you try to stop her, they're like, you don't know what she's going through.

Speaker 7: To go. Ooh. Ooh.

[00:35:00] Oh s**t. Don't y'all do that to a little girl. Y'all don't know what she's going through.

Malcolm Collins: And it was like, okay, this is clearly not healthy to let her play out this, but, but there, no matter what, when people hear about me doing s**t in public and they're like.

Oh, he must be like being harsher on the kids or the kids must be, you know, not actually being that bad. And he's overreacting. I think you can see from this video that that's not true, that it is actually that like the world's gone insane, at least in the U S about kids should never experience any punishment at all, any restraint on their actions.

And at least in Korea, they haven't gone, like, it's interesting the way the two different countries indulge in their, in their child rearing craziness. But the way we have in the U. S. has gotten really bad as well. But, I mean, our birth rate is also going down, just less in the regions where people act like this.

Simone Collins: And, unchecked, it will get worse.

Malcolm Collins: So I want to get into the specifics of these parties, because I found it really interesting, and the kids in them are [00:36:00] so cute. Have you looked up any pictures of these? No.

Okay,

So, first birthday parties in Korea, known as dalchi or dal, have become increasingly luxurious events, with many families opting for high end venues and services. The expenses and luxuries associated with these celebrations can vary widely from honest gatherings to abstracting affairs. These two Waukeil's super spa suite package starts at around 1, 140 on weekdays.

So this is how

Simone Collins: embarrassed. Oh my God. It's

Malcolm Collins: so cute. Like a little like Buddha or something and you're surrounded by like money and other like,

Simone Collins: now I've realized I've seen a bunch of videos of these on Instagram and I didn't know. That they were this. Oh my gosh. But no, honestly, though, this should not cost that much money.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, they, they, what happens at them is what?

Simone Collins: No, [00:37:00] I mean, it's kind of a great, you know how I think there's this one type of woman. Who at first their life is planning for prom, you know, and then after that it's planning for a wedding and after that it's planning for a baby shower. And after that, you need shampoo and then you get this.

I kind of understand, but

Malcolm Collins: so the. The preparation and decor. The baby is dressed in a traditional Korean clothing called a habok. A special table called a dalsang is prepared with various symbolic items and foods. The venue is decorated often with seamed elements and traditional Korean motifs. The dalsang, this is the table, It's fruits piled high to represent prosperity, various types of teok, rice cakes symbolizing purity and harmony, five colorful silk pouches representing a vibrant life, traditional foods like seaweed soup the celebration, several symbolic items are placed in front of the baby, the child is encouraged to choose one or two items, the [00:38:00] chosen items are believed to predict the child's future career or traits.

I don't

Simone Collins: I love this. This is great.

Malcolm Collins: The items in front of the kids are a, a pencil or brush, which means scholar money, which means wealth, a thread, which means long life and a book, which means wisdom. Um,

Simone Collins: Oh my gosh, you can buy this set on Amazon. Oh my gosh, this is so cute. Okay. So you can buy this on Amazon and they have a little stethoscope, a soccer ball a bunch of little, Oh, this is, this is so cute.

I think that's a fun idea. But on Amazon, this costs 39.

Malcolm Collins: 98. Can we do this for our one year olds? I totally want to do this for one of your birthdays. Our kids would love this.

Simone Collins: Here for it? No, I was just thinking, like, I want a modified version of this. Like, a rocket ship. Like, a genetic like, helix.

Malcolm Collins: Like a rocket ship, a bible, a,

Simone Collins: a A genetic helix.

What else? Really just want them to go into rever Oh, maybe some kind of survivalism [00:39:00] thing. Oh

Malcolm Collins: yes, some sort of survivalism. A gun. Put a gun on the table next to the baby. Everyone will be freaking out. I

Simone Collins: love it. No, but see, this is, this is something you can do all these things so affordably. So I don't understand how like the cheap version of this would cost 3, 000.

Malcolm Collins: Remember what the guy said. They'll know. Right. They just need

Simone Collins: to know that you spent the money. It doesn't matter that the money gets you anything. It matters that you spent

Malcolm Collins: it. Yeah, actually, you know,

Simone Collins: the, the, the context in which I heard about this tradition, the YouTuber presented this under the hook of there being this dating show in South Korea, and this one, like, star character within it.

It's kind of like The Bachelor. And there was this one Girl in this reality TV show who wore all these designer clothes and was beloved. But then it came out that they were all fakes and she just got hard canceled because this concept that she hadn't actually spent the money was so insulting. And then that's where she brought up this whole first birthday thing.

So I think you're right. I think [00:40:00] it's that you have to like, you have to actually have spent the money. It can't be affordable. It can't be a fake. It can't be a knockoff. You have to actually have like Lost all your money and gone into debt and have no savings.

Speaker: It's not about money. It's about sending a message.

Simone Collins: Their kids. Oh

Malcolm Collins: my goodness.

Simone Collins: I want to make a techno Puritan version of the first birthday, though, with objects.

Malcolm Collins: I love it. We will work on it and we will send it to you, the audience, when we put it together. Because it's going to be so effing cute.

Simone Collins: Definitely a rocket ship and a double helix, but I just, and a gun but I don't know.

And

Malcolm Collins: this is the thing, steal things from other traditions, but make them better.

Simone Collins: Exactly, like we don't hate South Korean culture. We hate the toxic elements of it that don't work in modernity. There's a lot of really cool stuff here.

Malcolm Collins: And I will say that like, it's Simone. I know that you don't understand how ruthless we are as parents because you think of yourself as so loving and you can be ruthless and loving.

You can be a tiger parent and love your kids. [00:41:00] You're doing the harder thing for them. But when it comes to things like birthdays, consider how we decided. Cause we talked about this internally. When they're younger, I get them like one moderately priced toy of their choice. And when they are older.

They get because I went to a birthday party recently for, like, somebody else Octavian's age and I was like, this is stupid. Like, what? I don't even know. I was not having

Simone Collins: fun. Like, the important thing is we've gone to other kids birthday parties and they're either clueless or not having fun. And what's the point?

Like, I actually want our kids to have a lot of fun on their birthday. Hence, we do their favorite activities. So for Torsten's birthday, we went to a store, he got to pick out whate