Episode 480: The Pornography Crisis: How We're Accidentally Destroying Our Kids' Ability to Connect

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins.

You're listening to Habits and Hustle, Greg.

Hey, friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits and Hustle podcast, where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self.

So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up.

Before we dive into today's episode, I want to thank our sponsor, Momentous.

When your goal is healthspan, living better, and longer, there are very few non-negotiables.

One of them, quality.

And when it comes to supplements designed for high performers, nobody does it better than Momentous.

Momentous goes all in on NSF certification, which means every single batch is tested for heavy metals, harmful additives, and label accuracy.

And that's why they're trusted by all 32 NFL teams and top collegiate sports dieticians across the country.

Here's the thing: they don't sell every supplement under the sun because they believe in nailing the basics with rock-solid consistency.

And those basics are protein and creatine.

Momentous sources Creopure, the purest form of creatine monohydrate available, an absolute must for both men and women who want peak physical and cognitive performance so if you're serious about leveling up go to livemomentous.com and use code gen for 20 off just act now start today jen for 20 off livemomentous.com

The average kid today sees less sunlight and daylight daylight than a prisoner does.

So, your average kid today

gets outside less than what our prisoners do.

How crazy is that?

And they have two days, the prisoners have two times a day where they get to come out, take a walk outside, and do their thing.

And they, on average, get more time outside than our children do.

Here's another alarming one.

You know what the average age of a kid who sees pornography on the internet is?

What?

10.

10.

That's the average age a kid comes across some kind of nudity or pornography on the internet.

What was it 20 years ago?

Oh, I don't know.

I don't know.

But I mean, that's, that's terrible.

Oh, it's

it's but well, I was in high school when I saw my first dirty magazine, I think.

Yeah.

But we had like, you know, when we

saw one Playboy, you had like

five pages of the same, like this kid, if they go on the internet, it's like infinite crazy stuff.

Crazy stuff.

And so what we didn't say earlier about this was when you guys were young, you guys had playboard.

You looked at what, like some boobs and whatever.

But like now it is so nasty, raunchy stuff that like people, guys now believe that's what's like the norm.

So when they actually meet a girl in like in IRL in real time or whatever, in real life, or

they ex their expectations are so outrageous that nothing will ever match that expectation.

So they just rather go back to porn versus like dealing with a girl and her issues and like whatever like, you know, stuff that she has to deal with.

Classic, so

it's actually

worse than people realize because

it has drug-like effects, but it's also acting on a very strong natural driver that we need to have.

We're supposed to have this driver.

Yeah.

So what it's doing is it's manipulating this natural driver and distorting it.

And it's got profoundly,

profound negative impacts on our life.

And the data on this now is becoming super clear on what it does.

But what happens, like with all drugs, right?

Caffeine is an example.

You have one cup of coffee, I'm zooming.

Three days later, if I drink it every day, I need another cup.

Totally.

So what's happened, and the stats and the data on this is really interesting, is that pornography has gotten more and more and more extreme to meet consumer demand because of the

novelty effect is

they got to keep going.

And it gets worse and worse and worse

to the point now where it's some of the top viewed things are things that

allude to insexual relationships and stuff that is like, what is going on?

Right, just to kind of keep it as violence.

And yeah.

Because you're right, because you become so desensitized to whatever you are watching.

It's like caffeine, like you said, it's like, you know, we're wired to seek novelty as creatures.

We're wired to go out.

And if you're, if that's no longer novel, of seeing gangbangs every day, it's like, I need the next level, the next novel thing and so it just that's the natural progression and i don't think a lot of people i think it's something that uh

a lot of men are embarrassed about or don't share and don't talk about and so i think it's even worse than what we really

tell you right now

i am a grown man okay and i went off uh i completely went off pornography uh over a year ago um because i saw the data all that stuff plus i had a spiritual conversion went off it complete was actually great but i remember trying to go off it before and it was really challenging as a grown man i couldn't imagine being a 15-year-old boy with a smartphone.

Couldn't imagine what that would have done to me as a 15-year-old boy with that kind of access.

That would have been, you might as well have handed me cocaine every day and said, Here you go, good luck.

Let's see what you see what happens.

I can't imagine.

And this is what's happening.

When you're giving your kid a smartphone, you're giving them access to everything.

The world, not everything, all of its terrible

is in there.

It's really, really crazy.

And it's so, so, do you?

I mean, are you guys,

I'm optimistic.

I feel like,

you know,

there's more and more TED Talks and books that are coming out and more and more parents.

We have enough years now behind us and we're seeing all these things unravel and get worse.

And so I want to believe that.

We're in the thick of some of the hardest times when it comes to this because, you know,

and I feel bad for parents like you guys who, like, I have a five-year-old, so I had already read the book Irresistible, Unplugged.

I read those books before I had him, iGen.

So I was very like on top of that right away.

Whereas I can't imagine if I had a 19-year-old or 15-year-old when iPhone was brand new and everybody was celebrating how great it was, not realizing, like, I don't think a lot of parents that have got teenagers right now were thinking about these, how detrimental this was going to be.

Where I think it's a conversation now.

So I'm optimistic about where we're heading.

I think that we're just, we're barely just starting to create a lot of awareness around it.

And I want to believe that society will figure it out or will be, and I think it'll become more common that when you go to a bunch of parents like that, they're going to, I mean, I just experienced this with my son.

I told these guys on air the other night, or the other day, that

we went up to our truckey place up in Tahoe.

And we went with a couple that I never hung out with.

It was

my son's best friend at school.

And this is the first time I'm hanging out with them, so I don't really know the parents.

I'm getting to know them.

And we're like on the second or the third day.

And I make a comment to the dad.

I said, hey, I noticed your son hasn't asked for an iPad or anything this entire time we've been up here.

And he's like, oh, yeah, no, we, we, he works for Netflix.

And he's like, oh, yeah, we.

We won't even let him watch it or have it.

We've not introduced it to him.

And I said, I love that.

I said, silly.

Yeah.

So it's so cool to meet other parents that are aware of that and have just made the conscious choice to not even, and it's so cool because my son and him don't even, they don't even think twice about it because we regulate that really closely at our house.

And then here he is playing with another kid who doesn't.

So it's not a problem.

It's not hard because

he's with another kid who has parents.

So I'm hoping that we'll see more of this.

Well, I think also, well, to your point, Sal, about

basically surrounding yourself with people who are like-minded, like building that community is so important because it's very easy when you don't have, when you are, you basically are peer-pressured into doing things because as a parent, I also think it depends on where you live, right?

Like Los Angeles versus living in maybe Kansas is very, very different

in terms of different pressures,

what you kind of are around, what you're, you know what I mean?

Like to me,

that makes a major difference.

Well, you're in the belly of the beast.

You are the belly of the beast.

I am.

But what's going to say is what I actually find super interesting too is what you just said about the guy that you were with who works at Netflix.

What I find super curious is why is it that people who work for Meta, who work for TikTok,

I was going to say, isn't that interesting?

If you read so

they will not let they will not allow their kids to use it.

This is what blew my mind when I read Irresistible.

There's a great book

by Adam Alter called Irresistible.

And I remember sharing it on the podcast years ago with these guys.

And I was like, dude, and the guys who created this tech don't allow their kids to use it

because they knew how much they were making this to be a dick model

that they wouldn't even allow their own kids to use.

I said, what does that tell you?

If the creators of it

that's what I find to be so fascinating.

If the people who actually created it, it's actually what you were saying.

It's true.

What they do is

they basically mimic.

slot machines in Vegas.

That's how they created it.

People don't realize this is big.

These things are not made for you and i the users it's a marketing machine it's like that's why the algorithm picks up and tracks what you watch to give you more of it so they can make money off of you this is they didn't do this out of the goodness of their heart they didn't create instagram and tick tock say here you go be entertained for 24 hours a day they did it because they knew they can make money they can sell you all sorts of stupid random shit that you would otherwise never know about.

And people just are not realizing this is not for them.

That's why people who create and make their businesses on Instagram, the smartest thing you can do is take your audience and take them off of Instagram, like get them into a different database so you can then, because

this is rented, not owned.

Like you don't own Instagram.

This is they're making money off of you, not vice versa.

I'm also hopeful too, I'm not big on government policy, but if enough parents band together and actually start pressuring

schools and

a lot of these places where, obviously, this is affecting kids to a degree where we saw the detriment of cigarettes and we saw the detriment of alcohol.

And we're like, okay, we need more restriction in access here.

And so you see a little bit of this in Florida where they're experimenting with like an age of, for social media at least.

And it seems to me that if this.

subject keeps coming up, we keep having these kind of conversations, more people bring that awareness to it.

It's like we need to all, you know, really start pressuring and affecting.

There's light at the end of the tunnel.

So there's a small spike or you're starting to see a small rise in kids who are getting flip phones.

They're actually wanting them themselves.

You're seeing.

I saw, I posted about that the other day.

Yeah, there's a rise in young men who are going off pornography.

There's groups online that talk about this.

And for the first time in, I don't know how many decades, you've seen declining rates of church attendance and Christianity, right?

The main religion in America has flattened out and started starting to reverse.

And the largest growth is in Gen Z.

The largest growth in that is Gen Z.

And they're going for the more traditional orthodox versions of Christianity, which to me points to the fact they need some structure.

They're looking for structure and discipline because they're like, I can do whatever I want.

This doesn't feel good.

I feel like crap.

I like going to this place that's like, here's how we live.

It feels much more secure and better.

And I'm getting some purpose in my life.

So there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

There are some schools also who are becoming phone-free.

In Australia, they passed a law

that you cannot bring a phone.

There's some schools already in the U.S.

that have done that.

But you know what?

It's bringing awareness.

And the more you talk about it and the more we educate people on the actual true data and effects that this is having,

hopefully the more people will kind of band together.

Kids thrive in an environment with a predictable, consistent structure love uh support and empathy um and where you allow them in an age appropriate way to overcome challenges and obstacles if you do those three things you've done like 99 of all of it if it's an inconsistent environment with no structure or discipline, you're going to raise a very anxious kid who doesn't know what to expect.

If you raise a kid with no love, that obviously, I think everybody understands, that totally screws them up.

And if you don't let them encounter challenges and actually feel the struggle of the challenge, you're going to raise a kid that's fragile.

And by the way, one of the ways that parents do this is you got a kid who's crying because they don't get what they want.

And one thing, a big mistake that parents made, I did this with my older kids, is you put on, oh, no, stop really looking up.

Let's put on your favorite show.

And what you did is you taught your child to disassociate from the challenge.

They're distracting themselves from whatever they were going through.

And then they become adults that disassociate from challenges rather than letting them be uncomfortable, which makes you uncomfortable as a parent.

So, you got to ask yourself, I do this all the time: like, is it me?

Like, my kids having a fit right now, and I'm having a problem with it, but I'm uncomfortable with it.

So, I got to let them sit through this and I got to, I'll be there with them, and I'll sit next to them, but I got to let them feel this

thing.

I got to deal with my own uncomfortable feelings around it.

So, a lot of this is actually training the parents to be uncomfortable with discomfort, also, right?

Like, that's what I'm saying.

Like, it's very interesting because it's like, it's a dual thing here, because it is very uncomfortable to watch your kid be uncomfortable and struggle.

Nobody likes to see it.

Of course.

And, like, I'm a Jewish mom on top of it, so you can imagine.

So it's extra hard for me, right?

It's extra, extra hard.

But I mean, being cognizant of what the issue is and working through it, because I, like I said, it's, it's very easy just to give in, right?

And like, we've trained our brains at us

to

know better, right?

And so we just have to kind of apply that with our kids.

Yeah.

And it's age-appropriate stuff too, right?

Like your one-year-old throws food on the floor, not a big deal.

Your 10-year-old throws food on the floor.

It's different.

Yeah.

Right.

So like my four-year-old is a great example.

Like up until relatively recently, maybe a little while ago, every time we played a game, he would win because he doesn't understand losing.

He just understands if I win, I win, I win it.

But at around the age of three and a half or four is when they start to figure out or they need to figure out that they can lose.

So what do I do with them now?

We play Uno, right?

And so now we'll play Uno, and now every five games I'll win.

And he's, oh, okay, I'll try again.

Now, at two years old, he'll cry.

He doesn't know what's going on.

I don't want to play anymore.

You crush your kid.

So there's age-appropriate ways to allow your child to encounter challenges because you also don't want to do this.

There's also the authoritative, non-loving parent, which raises psychopaths.

So it's the parent that's like and it's the parent that raises the kid no no do it this way and that's it and you're you're whatever you raise a psychopath that way so there is a way to do this by figuring out the age appropriate ways to you know like your kid cries because uh they fell off their bike but they're five like okay that's fine your 15 year old falls down and cries every time they fall off their bike like we don't have to talk about this

well it's also like exactly but you know just to what you just said you know i never let my kids win at games ever ever ever yeah when they were one or two I'll be like, yeah, you won.

But like, as they get older, as they get older, like I would have, like, I played, I play rummy cube with them, I play Una with them, I play all those things.

And like, I'm trying.

Like, my kid beats me nine out of 10 times because they have been trained to like actually have to put effort and in it.

Because again, that's a microcosm for life.

Like, they're not going to win at everything and they're going to have to try.

And if I just allow them to just to kind of beat me every time, what am I really doing?

But it's important to learn this stuff too, like the age-appropriate, like I two, but I'm sure I'll do it.

Like two or three year olds playing together.

You know, you're just like, no, you need to share.

Two year olds don't understand that.

They play in tandem.

They play on their own.

Parallel play, yeah.

Four or five years olds.

No, now you can't always play what you want.

You got to play what other people want to.

So then you start, so it's age appropriate is important because what can happen is you can get the parents that are authoritative and abusive who hear this like, yeah, I, yeah, my kids, I smack them whenever they, whenever I'm, you're not doing the right thing either, buddy.

Do you guys think that the traditional values around gender roles and moving away from that has played a role in this also?

Because when I hear you guys, what we're communicating right now, too, there's a lot of qualities that mom just does a really good job of doing.

And the ones where dad, and it almost allows, you don't have to have this perfect balance.

Dad could kind of be the hard ass who's always doing that.

Maybe isn't the best at showing love and affection because mom comes back behind all the time and picks her son up.

Yeah, but makes him feel love.

You have an incons inconsistent environment when one person does both.

Is mom gonna act like a dad or mom today?

Is she hard or is she staying?

And that's very true.

You know, it's interesting.

Like when I, when I tell my kids not to do something, I'm like, don't do that.

Or if I'm yelling my kids to, but if my husband says it, they listen.

They like, they buck up really quickly and they'll listen.

And I get so annoyed as a mom.

Like, why would I say it?

No one pays attention.

But when you say it one time,

kids are naturally more scared of their father than they are of their mom when there's two parents like that.

It's true.

Like it doesn't matter, because I feel like

naturally there must be an instinction, like

instinctually

moms feel more like safe and comfortable.

And like the dad, they can't get away with it.

Did you,

I brought up a stat on, I told the guys the other day where a kid,

they did a study with teachers, mom, dad, grandma, all these people like, who do you think the kid, and they said, is most likely to misbehave in front of?

So think of every parent.

So mom, dad, grandparent, teacher, all these people.

And they studied all these kids, thousands of kids.

And there was one of them that stood out more than any of them that the kid was more likely to misbehave in front of.

The mom.

Yeah.

900% more.

900%.

900% more.

But that was the reason why was because the kid feels safe.

Feels safe.

And he can challenge boundaries.

And part that's part of life is his kids are are part of raising kids is learning what I can and can't do they feel the most safe and protected with mom and so they're going to stretch those boundaries dad is not that way dad is more the authoritarian more the disciplinary more that person and so that's the same thing in my household too Katrina will drive her crazy she's reminding him to do something like that and then all I have to do is step in and say max listen to your mom and then and then they listen yeah then he gets right up and she's just like I just said that to him like seven times and then you come over and do that so crazy crazy.

It's 100%.

I didn't know it was 900%.

That's crazy.

900% more likely to be scared in front of moms.

Yeah.

Wow.

I think the challenge with

why the gender role issue has caused such an issue isn't because it's two reasons.

One,

we devalue the strengths that each person has and we pretend like there are no weaknesses sometimes either in either side.

So we overvalue sometimes mom or dad, depending on the situation, and we don't realize they both have value.

They're both very important.

Like, how many times have moms told dads, don't wrestle with the kids before bed, you're going to rile them up?

No, no, no, don't rile them up.

What do you mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you know how important it is?

Are they how valuable it is that dad gets to do that with their kid, like the skills that they learn?

You know, or the dad to the mom, oh, come on, stop coddling when he's crying.

That's important that mom can provide that.

It's okay because you provide the other side.

Yeah, so there's a balance.

Yes.

That's my point.

That's the point of why I like, do you think I believe that it's played a role?

And I know that's a controversial controversial thing to say because we've tried to eliminate traditional gender roles, but there's something to be said about how valuable, how organically it used to happen because dad just was that guy.

Dad didn't have to be better about.

coddling and empathy and doing those things because mom was so good at it.

And so he could get away with being, you know, dad who works all day long and then he just comes around and he disciplines all the time and they still raise a decent kid.

Well, yeah, that's because mom did such an organic job, great job of balancing that out and vice versa, right?

Like she didn't always have to be the one who's hard, disciplined, all time, because she knew her husband could come in and do that.

And it's, it's unfortunate that we have shamed people for so long about following these kind of traditional values and gender roles when there's a lot of value that comes from that.

And it's not to say that you can't have a dad who has more empathy or a mom that has more discipline.

That's not the point of this conversation.

It's just that we've eliminated that so much or we've shamed that so much that, oh my God, that traditional is so old school and so bad.

And we point out all the bad.

And it's like, well, okay, there were some really good things that used to happen when mom had her role and dad had his role because we are different and we have different strengths.

And those strengths feed and play into raising a kid.

And by the way, like.

After everything we've just talked about on this show, right?

Like there are very, there are gender roles, in my opinion, for a reason, right?

I feel like the world works better when that's the case, even with when it comes to dating, when it comes to socializing, when it comes to raising a child.

That's why it's a natural instinct.

And what we're trying to do is eliminate their natural instinct and create this other form of being because it's more progressive.

And

to me, that's when we've had this demise in

every way,

like walk of life.

We've had this demise in

raising children.

We've had this demise in dating and cohabitating.

We've had this, in relationships, we've had this demise in work life, in work, in professional, like in every way, there's been a demise because we are trying to like, we're trying to create this other instinctual way to be, which is impossible.

Right.

And this is not me being like a, you know, like this like super hardcore, right-wing, traditional.

No, like I'm super malleable in a lot of ways, but I do believe that like there are roles for a reason.

Like women, like for women, we talked about this last time, it was even on the podcast.

Like there's certain like

there's certain traits that women should have and there are certain traits that men should have for the world to work better.

Right.

Like in order for a woman to be attracted to a man, men have to have certain traits beyond just being tall.

And they have, like you were saying, bravery, you know, like

leadership, confidence, like security, security.

Like, duh, who wants a weak guy?

I don't really care what you say, right?

But and women, like no matter what, like women should have to have like some sense of softness, some nurturing, some like maternal instincts.

Like you don't have to be a total like, you know, Stepford wife.

Yeah.

Obviously not.

Like, do I look like a Stepford wife?

No.

But there are certain things that are, I think.

The world's lied to us a lot and it's sold us a lot of lies.

And what it's done is

it's over, it's glorified the attributes

that men provide and it's completely undervalued.

I'm talking about the world, right?

Society, undervalued the attributes that women provide.

So it's like,

like, let's celebrate the first woman to build a

skyscraper, first female, you know, astronaut, first whatever.

And so it's like, you know,

it's celebrating these big conquests.

Meanwhile, like moms that raise incredible children, build incredible communities, that provide emotional support, which women do exceptionally well.

Like all great people were raised probably by a great mother to an extent, or there's a great mother there.

We've undervalued that.

And now I think it's starting to change, but it's to the point where, like, my wife stays at home with the kids.

She doesn't hear this so much, but I remember my mom, my mom will stay at home.

She almost felt embarrassed saying that when people would ask, What do you do for a living?

Oh, I'm just a, I'm just a homemaker because it was so undervalued.

I love that.

I'm just a, you know, it's crazy.

It's crazy.

It's like, by the way, I mean, I'm obviously not a homemaker by any stretch, but I will tell you, that's the hardest job in the world.

Of course, because when I have to stay home for two days with my kids, my children alone,

I'm running back to work.

There's nothing more challenging.

It's the hardest thing in the world.

And

to raise a good human being, it's incredible.

Is there anything more important?

I think there's nothing more important.

There's nothing more important.

No, there's nothing.

I work so that my wife can raise my kids, most importantly, and my work can change.

I'm not going to switch my kids out for better kids or whatever.

That's the most important thing.

But my point is, the world's lied to us, and it's lied to us, and it's undervalued what we tend to do best.

There's nothing wrong with being, you know, a little more masculine, a little more feminine, whatever you want to label it or whatever.

There's nothing wrong with that.

But

there are tremendous values in these things that we provide, especially as parents, especially as parents.

And that's why I think like single parents have it real tough because you're trying to figure out doing both and it makes it a bit inconsistent.

I've got to be a little bit more let, a little bit more like that.

But it's, you know, traditionally it's the dads that provided a lot of that, that kind of that, that discipline,

a little bit of that challenge, the rough and tumble play, the kind of tough it up a little bit kind of attitude thing typically came from dads.

And when dad's not there, mom's got a, she's got a real difficult choice.

Okay,

who am I going to be?

And she's probably,

she's probably going to default to the thing that she's best at, which is not those things, which is more of the safety and comfort nurturing, which can become by itself without the other side of it, a little toxic in the sense that now my kid, I fix every problem.

I talk to every teacher that my kid has a struggle with.

I don't like, oh, they're not.

I mean, just like what would happen if the opposite was true.

If the dad, with just the discipline and the get up, you're fine attitude with no empathy.

You got a bunch of psychopath kids, you know.

So, so there's a, there's, there's, they're both extremely valuable.

I just have way more single moms and single dads because dads tend to bounce.

But, you know, that's the case.

Anyway, good time.

Yeah.

Let's see how controversial this podcast is.

You always have controversial podcasts.

You know what, though,

but I love, I love talking to you about about it because

you're not coming from the traditional right-wing Stepford mom.

You're this businesswoman, like badass, and you work your ass off.

And so coming from you, it's such a good person to talk about it because it's not like you're over here trying to say too, oh, me just being a mom, staying home is more important than all these women that go out and work.

It's like, no, listen, I crush work.

I love business.

I do that stuff.

But I also recognize these traditional values that we've had with, you know, the way the woman would run the house and how the man would run the house and why we need each other.

And also, thank you.

I appreciate that.

And I think that's why it's really important, right?

Because I'm not like a, I'm not a stay-at-home, I'm not a stay-at-home mom, as you said.

And I think that these are all, these are challenges that most people in the world like face, right?

Because most of us have to work, unfortunately.

And it's, I'm not saying I'm perfect.

God, like, I struggle with these things every day.

So if I feel I'm struggling, I'm sure a lot of other people are struggling, which is why I think it's important, like I said, for us to band together and educate and tell people and build a community around what's really happening so we can better it later on.