EP124: Why Dads Should "Parent Outloud": 5 Answers

Interview with Elliott Rae / Father Advocate

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Fathers need to step out and be more present, at home and in the office. This is the crux of the Parenting Outloud campaign that Elliott Rae has launched in London. He realized just how bad support for dads at work was when his now 8-year-old daughter was born prematurely. It started with having to leave his wife to go back to the office and got worse from there. He's set out to change that. Listen now.

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Transcript

00;00;00;05 - 00;00;42;01
Elliott Rae
If we are going to create a sustainable pipeline of women into senior jobs in our organizations, we have to support dads to be equal parents. It's really, really important for dads to we know that that's a happier and healthier when they have really good relationships with their children. And of course, it's good for the children themselves. You know, as the research shows us, that kids that have active, persistent, consistent, positive male role models and fathers in their lives have better outcomes when it comes to education and resilience and behavior at school, especially up into the age of five. Those early formative years.

00;00;42;04 - 00;01;03;29
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company of Dads podcast. After 120 plus episodes, we're doing something different. I'm still your host, Paul Sullivan, and we're still focused on lead dads, working moms, and how small changes at home or work can have a big impact on their lives. What's new is each episode now promises to deliver actionable advice on some area of concern at home or at work.

00;01;04;01 - 00;01;28;01
Paul Sullivan
Short. Direct. Again. Actionable. Five questions. Five answers. This week our guest is Elliot Rae, UK based founder of the Parenting Outloud program and also editor in chief of the Music About Fatherhood Report. He's a father of one daughter, aged eight, married, and lives just outside of London. Welcome, Elliot to the company Dads podcast.

00;01;28;03 - 00;01;41;01
Elliott Rae
Thanks for having me, Paul. I'm joining you from cloudy, England. I didn't want to. I was like, where you are, but around here is miserable. So it's great to be talking to you. And I love New York, I love America, so I might be back at some point. Who knows?

00;01;41;07 - 00;02;02;12
Paul Sullivan
Well, fortunately, you know, we're on the same page here because it's also, cloudy here. We have a hurricane coming up the coast, and so it's gritty, gray and gloomy. But but, Elliot, what we're talking about today is going to be anything but gray and gloomy. It's going to shine some sunlight on some of these issues. So five questions, five answers.

00;02;02;12 - 00;02;17;06
Paul Sullivan
Simple one. To start off, how did this all start? How did your background and your civil servant before? How did your background lead to what is now, the very popular, very actionable Parenting Out Loud program?

00;02;17;09 - 00;02;35;21
Elliott Rae
So I had a long career in the civil service. It was interesting. I started as a temp as many people do stuff as a temp, and 14 years later I was the head of diversity delivery at the Treasury. So I supposed to stay there for a few months? And that was for 14 years. But did loads of different people based roles.

00;02;35;23 - 00;03;03;19
Elliott Rae
That really helps me to understand inclusion in the workplace, change management, leadership, organizational development. And it was incredible. Kind of 14 years of learning. I worked with some amazing managers. I worked in four different departments, and that knowledge and experience has definitely informed my work. The reason I do my work is not necessarily that the reason I do my work is, you know, eight years ago I became a dad.

00;03;03;22 - 00;03;41;24
Elliott Rae
My wife and I had a very, very traumatic birth experience. My wife, my daughter was quite poorly when she was born, an infection called Group B strep. So we spent a really harrowing and difficult two weeks in Niku, the neonatal intensive care unit or we were finally given the good news that we could go home on the Friday after lots of ups and downs and scans and, you know, all these things that go on in Nikki finally got the good news that we could go home, had a weekend at home, had a day at home as a family, and as per the statutory paternity leave, which is two weeks, it meant that I went

00;03;41;24 - 00;04;14;02
Elliott Rae
back to work straight away and I haven't gone through a very traumatic experience, ended up suffering from postnatal from PTSD. And that looks like insomnia, flashbacks, anxiety, panic attacks in work meetings and stuff like that. Eventually. So sought help and support. And as part of my if you like it comfort, I started to write starts to write about being a dad.

00;04;14;05 - 00;04;30;06
Elliott Rae
Very kind of light touch like heart at the beginning. Nothing too serious. I wasn't ready to kind of open up really at the beginning. So it was very kind of light. Touch wrote about music, work about fatherhood, wrote about football, and started a blog called Music, football, fatherhood.

00;04;30;08 - 00;05;16;27
Elliott Rae
Over the years, we were lucky enough to get some amazing kind of media attention. We tried lots of different ways of engaging dads, and years later now we have supported thousands of dads across the UK. We do amazing activities like teaching dads how to do hair, which is really, really funny. We do online group therapy and we partner with some of the biggest football clubs in the UK to create spaces for dads to have very immersive conversations all around wellbeing, mental health, gender roles in the house and at work, flexible working, parenting a neurodiverse child, mental health, co-parenting, race, you know, all of that.

00;05;16;27 - 00;05;36;12
Elliott Rae
So we bring all of those and issues into our spaces and create opportunities for dads to connect and have open conversations. So I was doing that alongside working, and it got to the point a few years ago where I had to make a decision because I was basically doing free full time jobs. I was working this awful service in a very senior role.

00;05;36;15 - 00;05;54;29
Elliott Rae
I was running music, football, fatherhood and obviously being a super involved parent. So it got to the point where something had to give and I had to take a bet on myself and I similar to you, you know, give it a go. And three years later is the best decision I ever made. And I love my work.

00;05;55;01 - 00;06;15;20
Elliott Rae
I love what I do, as well as running music, football, fatherhood. I work with a lot of the biggest companies in the UK and worldwide as well, to help them support working dads, to help them to explore kind of modern masculinity, to recruit new male allies and explore and improve men's mental health. So I love my work.

00;06;15;20 - 00;06;17;22
Elliott Rae
Such a blessing to do stuff like this. And I think.

00;06;17;22 - 00;06;39;12
Paul Sullivan
It's fantastic that I question two, are going to get to sort of the crux of this, and that's the Parenting Outloud program, which I love, because you're working with with companies. And I, like you, believe that, you know, look, change can come in many different forms. I happen to think that my level of expertise is working with companies, because I've spent a lot of time as a reporter, you know, covering them, spent a lot of time talking to them, you know, through my book.

00;06;39;12 - 00;06;55;16
Paul Sullivan
So I believe that change can happen at companies. And then, you know, the best companies will bring along, the less great companies. And hopefully we'll get a bigger change. But talk to me about what the Parenting Out Loud program is and what it hopes to achieve.

00;06;55;18 - 00;07;15;06
Elliott Rae
So the Parenting Out Loud program was launched in April. This year is something that I've been talking about, that the terminology I've been using for a while and made up a few years ago. But we really launched officially in April 2024, and we had a big billboard campaign across the London Underground, which was massive, you know, so millions of people travel through London every day.

00;07;15;12 - 00;07;36;06
Elliott Rae
We had big yellow pieces on the train platform. It was incredible. And the posters said parenting out loud. When dads are loud and proud about their caring responsibilities at work, and essentially the Parenting Out Loud messaging campaign is all about, how do we, first of all, encourage dads to be loud and proud about their caring responsibilities at work?

00;07;36;09 - 00;08;03;02
Elliott Rae
And second of all, how do we create businesses and organizations that support dads to parent loudly, loud, and proud at work? And the campaign really is about societal change. You know, there are so many dads now who are equal parents who are doing so much more in the home who, their desire is to be equal, an active parents, they want to spend more time with their children.

00;08;03;05 - 00;08;30;00
Elliott Rae
They want to change some of the generational models they have seen in regards to family life and fatherhood. But they struggle for examples. They struggle for legislation and culture that supports them to do that. So it's about how do we give people the language, the encouragement, the community, the motivation, the tools to be able to go to their workplace, be loud and proud.

00;08;30;00 - 00;08;51;24
Elliott Rae
Request flexible work can take all the paternity leave that is available. Be honest with their line manager when they have to stay at home. When a child is sick, to use it out of office to talk about their childcare responsibilities, that's really about encouraging dads to do that. And secondly, it's about how do we actually changed organizations to support dads to do that?

00;08;51;24 - 00;09;17;15
Elliott Rae
Because we know that with the best, all in the world, if dads aren't supported to parent out loud at work, it's very, very, very difficult to do so. So a large part of the work has to be working with HR departments, leaders, DNI leaders, and just businesses and employees as a whole to really create that culture change which supports dads to parent loudly at work.

00;09;17;18 - 00;09;39;13
Paul Sullivan
It's great. Question number three here. What is the key thing that fathers need to do at work? To parent out loud and break it up into whether you're, you know, a father who is a manager, and has, some power, obviously. And you're a father who is earlier in his career and perhaps, is looking up to that manager.

00;09;39;19 - 00;09;44;06
Paul Sullivan
What are the key things that fathers can do to parent loud and proud at work?

00;09;44;06 - 00;10;07;01
Elliott Rae
Yeah, there are a few things before I did I just want to touch on quickly why it's so important. This is this is very important. You know, it's very important for for women, women's equality, gender equality. We know that in the UK, 80% of the gender pay gap is the motherhood penalty. If we are going to create sustainable pipeline of women into senior jobs in our organizations, we have to support dads to be equal parents.

00;10;07;04 - 00;10;35;08
Elliott Rae
It's really, really important for dads to we know that that's a happier and healthier when they have really good relationships with their children. And of course, it's good for the children themselves. And as the research shows us that kids that have active, persistent, consistent, positive male role models and fathers in their lives have better outcomes when it comes to education and resilience and behavior at school, especially up until the age of five, there's very formative years.

00;10;35;10 - 00;11;00;11
Elliott Rae
So that's parenting out loud is is critical for families, for the business, for healthy societies. How can dads do that? Well, I think let's start with, junior dads. So you're a new dad. You're maybe quite young. You in your organization? I would say, first and foremost, it's being very clear when you are applying for jobs how you want to work.

00;11;00;13 - 00;11;03;14
Elliott Rae
And we are seeing that so much more now is dads choosing.

00;11;03;14 - 00;11;15;00
Paul Sullivan
And please give me an example of that. Give me an example of the way that that junior dad you know, is careful and states, you know what his expectations are. But, you know, look, there's also reality. You still need to have a job.

00;11;15;02 - 00;11;38;02
Elliott Rae
He needs to have a job. But I think there are so many employers now that do support flexible working. There are so many employers that support remote working, so many employers that support and offer enhanced paternity leave, so many employers that are open and honest and clear about their family friendly policies on their website and through the recruitment process.

00;11;38;04 - 00;12;03;24
Elliott Rae
So if possible, if you have those options, then of course it's about choosing an employer that from the start is open and honest about how they support parents, and that's employers that offer that networks, staff networks and whatnot. So I think it's about first and foremost, if you can, making that choice. Yeah. If you are in an organization, you become a dad and all of a sudden this is an issue for you, then what can you do?

00;12;03;26 - 00;12;26;13
Elliott Rae
I would say it's important to be part of a community. So, so many more organizations I'm working with now are forming that staff networks as a subgroup of their parenting network or gender network. I would say plug into that. There will be maybe not visibly, but there will be other dads in the organization that are thinking how you are thinking.

00;12;26;16 - 00;12;48;25
Elliott Rae
So it's about how do you kind of form relationships with them, connect with them, be part of a supportive community? Definitely. Secondly, I would say no, your rights. In the UK now we have new legislation which gives all employees the right to request flexible working, and employers have to respond to that within a certain amount of time.

00;12;48;25 - 00;13;20;23
Elliott Rae
If they can't fulfill your request, they have to find a alternative. So it's about knowing the policy, the legislation, government policy, also knowing what is available to you locally, what is your business offer and actually taking that up. Thirdly I would say is relationships, you know, build a strong relationship with your line manager. So much of our experience at work, yes, is down to policy and leadership, but a lot of our experience comes down to our line manager.

00;13;20;25 - 00;13;45;15
Elliott Rae
And, you know, for me, from my personal experience, due to having good relationships with my line managers, due to being a high performing colleague when I was at work, due to being transparent and supportive with other people, I was able to get a lot of grace in regards to my flexibility. And there's arguments for and against that because we shouldn't need that grace.

00;13;45;15 - 00;14;06;18
Elliott Rae
It should be government policy and consistent. But I think the reality is that so much of how we do things and how we work is based on relationships. So I would say try to build a strong, transparent relationship with your manager. Talk to them about what you need, talk to them about the impact of your flexibility and ability to parent loudly on your family.

00;14;06;20 - 00;14;31;02
Elliott Rae
Work out how you can still perform and do your job in a way that works for the business, but also for yourself as well. And sometimes that looks like looking at examples from across the organization where other dads, parenting loudly and working flexibly and taking paternity leave. How do they manage their work? How do they communicate with their stakeholders?

00;14;31;04 - 00;14;48;05
Elliott Rae
How do they use that out of office? Yeah. What kind of working patterns do they do? So trying to find examples around that kind of put your business case together about how you want to work and how you want to operate in a way that works for the business. Obviously that's important, but in also in a way that works for you and your family as well.

00;14;48;08 - 00;15;12;15
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, I love that you talk about out of office. We talk a lot at the company dads about, you know, parenting through your calendar and putting stuff on your publicly, searchable calendar that just doesn't say simply, I'm out of office. It says I am doing X with my child from during this to our block. And particularly when you're managers, we've seen it happen over here where that has a cascading effect of like, oh, well, that person there is a CMO and he's a partner.

00;15;12;15 - 00;15;29;25
Paul Sullivan
And if he can do that, well, maybe I could do that or let me reach out to him as, as a leader. And that kind of will dovetail into question number four. You know, we've talked you talked about managers. I've, I've long said change starts in the middle and chances are not at the CEO level, but those those people managers.

00;15;29;25 - 00;15;46;27
Paul Sullivan
But when you think about this, when you go into companies and you've been in many companies, you've told them what can they do better? What is it low hanging fruit for companies so that they can do better by fathers, mothers? And let's face it, you know, caregivers in general.

00;15;46;29 - 00;16;11;14
Elliott Rae
There's so many things. There's so many things. I think, you know, flexibility is a psyche. So it's about thinking about how do you create a quality in who is asking for flexible working and who has those requests approved. So we know in the UK, dads are far less likely to ask for flexible working. And when they do, they are less likely to have those requests approved.

00;16;11;17 - 00;16;34;25
Elliott Rae
I think that comes down to bias in decision making from decision makers, middle managers mostly. So it's about really thinking if you are a middle manager, what is it that you are on doing to make sure that people in your team, everyone on your team, knows they can access this flexibility and when they do ask for it, making sure you are removing bias from that decision making process.

00;16;35;00 - 00;17;01;06
Elliott Rae
So there is equity and equality in who gets to work flexibly. Secondly, I would say you can role model. You know, I think for for all parents in middle management leadership positions, what you do is so powerful. So as you mentioned, pool putting it clearly in your calendar year, the school pick up responsibilities out of office flexibility. Just talking about your parents, your responsibilities at work.

00;17;01;09 - 00;17;24;16
Elliott Rae
You know what you're doing on the weekend. Just being open and transparent, I think is so powerful and given permission to other dads, especially to do the same. I would say it's about knowing your policies. I'm always surprised when I speak to some clients and they are not aware of what their policies are, so they may have a quite generous paternity leave policy.

00;17;24;21 - 00;17;48;15
Elliott Rae
Eight weeks fully paid, maybe, but not everyone knows that. And so there is that gap in knowledge. I think as a middle manager, it's about knowing exactly what the company offers. It may be paternity leave, it may be leave for neonatal care or miscarriage or, you know, whatever it is, unpaid leave for, for for, holiday times. It's about as a manager knowing what is available.

00;17;48;15 - 00;18;10;09
Elliott Rae
And don't wait for that person to come to you to ask for it. Actually go and propose to them. Have you seen what we offer? You know, just letting you know I'm here if you need to take it. I know the policy. So there are some actionable things. I think that can be done. I think last year as well, I would say, is to support the formation of that networks in the organization.

00;18;10;11 - 00;18;35;08
Elliott Rae
And this is a new development, probably since the last couple of years, definitely since Covid lockdowns, is that we are seeing so many more organizations now having parenting networks, parenting and caring networks, and subgroups of fatherhood networks. Normally they are started by dads who are just passionate, who have been through an experience themselves. You feel empowered and they started off as very small.

00;18;35;08 - 00;18;58;12
Elliott Rae
It's a teams chat is an informal zoom every month, great. But those groups can be so, so, so powerful in regards to supporting a dad to parent out loud, to speak up, to ask for what he needs. As a middle manager, it's about being aware of those support networks around the organization and again, not waiting for your staff to come and ask for you, for you to go to attend.

00;18;58;12 - 00;19;08;25
Elliott Rae
It's about saying to your staff, hey, this is going on, have you seen it? Maybe you should go along. It will be helpful for you in regards to your thinking about career and also work and parenting as well.

00;19;08;27 - 00;19;33;14
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. That's excellent. I mean, we've seen it here in the States where a lot of the parenting groups, you know, historically, parent groups that they've been just moms, they've been working moms, and more and more, you know, a lot of what you're saying is what we say over here, that when you get men, you know, to step up as, as lead dads or as you would say, it is fathers who are parenting, you know, loud and proud that has this transformative impact on the rest of the organization.

00;19;33;14 - 00;19;51;26
Paul Sullivan
Because no longer is parenting something that is gendered. It's not like, oh, the child is sick. Well, the mom has to leave. Well, you know, they say there are only two things that moms can do. The dads can't. And that's carry a child, for nine months and give birth. And if that woman so chooses breastfeed, all the rest of the stuff is not gendered.

00;19;51;26 - 00;20;16;05
Paul Sullivan
But it's hard for us. You know, I think you're working on I'm working on it to change those ingrained biases, at companies. And, I mean, that leads into our fifth and final question, which probably the first one here for you, Elliot. And that, you know, you've talked about what what, you know, employees can do. You've talked about what what managers could do in the UK.

00;20;16;05 - 00;20;47;03
Paul Sullivan
You've talked about, you know, the the actual policy that's in place in the government level to allow people to ask for flexible work. But, you know, question five here, what holds managers and employees back from parenting loud and proud. And how can we, you know, best get past that. You know for years you know on from from Covid where, you know, we've all seen that we can work differently and be productive.

00;20;47;06 - 00;21;11;26
Elliott Rae
These issues are you know, they're they're societal. You know we are when a that comes to work, he's not only just influenced by what's going on at work, he's influenced by his own upbringing, his childhood. You know, what his family life looked like when he was younger, his wider family and community, social media, traditional media, and for years we've had traditional gender roles.

00;21;11;28 - 00;21;36;16
Elliott Rae
We've had quite strict gender roles. You know, it's very unlikely that for many people listening that their parents, their granddad was at the birth of their parents, for example, it was very likely that a lot of people listening, their parents grew up in a single income household because in the 60s, 70s, we had quite rigid gender roles in general.

00;21;36;23 - 00;21;59;28
Elliott Rae
You know, the men would go out to work hunter gatherer, and the the woman would be the kind of caregiver and, and see the children and the home and for for generations. That's what we have seen. I guess it's only really recently in the last couple of decades, but even more so since Covid, really have we been having a national global conversation about the role of dads.

00;22;00;03 - 00;22;21;15
Elliott Rae
Our natural instinct as as men and dads is to care for our children. As you mentioned, anything we can't do is carry a child in and breastfeed. But our natural instinct to react, to respond, to soothe our baby, to bathe our baby is there as humans is that some men even experience a drop in testosterone when they become a dad?

00;22;21;16 - 00;22;42;21
Elliott Rae
Nature's way of helping us to bond with our baby. But society tells us suppress those feelings. Society tells us our role in life is to provide for your family, for your family. So we are kind of working against all of that at the same time. When we go to work, we do see a lack of senior role models parenting loudly.

00;22;42;23 - 00;23;05;10
Elliott Rae
And one of the biggest things we can do to kind of break down that, that traditional ideas of gendered parenting roles in the, in the, in the workplace is to have senior leaders, who are parenting out loud. There's a survey as a piece of research that was done in the UK and by the behavioral insights team that said, that body of the civil service, they worked with a bank called Santander.

00;23;05;10 - 00;23;26;21
Elliott Rae
There is an A and B testing around their paternity leave. So had a really generous paternity policy about 16 weeks paid for dads. And they broke the the test into two parts. Their first group A will call them. They told their manages the leaders not to really talk about the policy. Don't promote the policy too much. Don't speak about it in that communication.

00;23;26;22 - 00;23;53;02
Elliott Rae
Just need to introduce a policy and let it happen. The second group, they told the leaders to talk about the policy to if you are to become a new dad, take the for 16 weeks and talk about it loudly, how it was for you, to meet expectant dads and speak to them about the facts that the Bank offers this policy in that the leadership really encourage you to do it, and your job will be here when you get back and will encourage you, and you can even get promoted while you're on paternity.

00;23;53;02 - 00;24;25;08
Elliott Rae
You know, they saw a massive increase in that second group of dads taking the for 16 weeks paternity leave because they saw role modeling, championing advocacy from the people at the very top of the organization. I think fundamentally we are pack animals. We want to belong when we see our leaders behaving in a certain way and speaking about things and championing causes, it gives us the permission to do the same thing as well.

00;24;25;10 - 00;24;45;07
Elliott Rae
So I would say the number one thing of how we go about changing that is really recruiting those leaders that the leadership as advocates and champions, and that's difficult to do for a variety of reasons. You know, some of those leaders, the reason why they got there sometimes is because their family was designed in a certain way. They were the provider breadwinner.

00;24;45;07 - 00;25;16;14
Elliott Rae
They did work long hours. They had a stay at home partner, mother, wife, and they probably grew up in households that looks the same as well. So for them to break out of this and understand the new world and understand that so many young dads under the age of 30, definitely leading the drive towards equal parenting. And they want to work flexibly and that, see, they're looking at their life and success as not just how much money they make and material goods, but their relationship with their children.

00;25;16;16 - 00;25;39;18
Elliott Rae
For those leaders to understand, that can be a challenge. And so it does take deep work with those leaders to, first of all, unpack their own experiences and their own bias and ideas, you know, and that can be a challenging conversation. And then it's about saying, okay, once we've done that, how do we sell the business case for why this is important to their business outcomes?

00;25;39;20 - 00;26;10;07
Elliott Rae
And then it's about what do we actually need them to do that's going to be effective to change the behavior across their organization. And so that takes someone at the top table that can facilitate that process. And that's sometimes where I find the sticking point, because not everyone has a champion who has the ability for people like us to go in and work with those leaders in a way that takes them through that process, that supports them in being the allies and advocates that the organization needs them to be support.

00;26;10;07 - 00;26;11;14
Elliott Rae
That's the parent out loud.

00;26;11;16 - 00;26;29;07
Paul Sullivan
You know, I love that you said that because it's something we talk about a lot. I'm a huge student of and fan of behavioral finance. And you know what? Of course you're talking about this confirmation bias. Like, I got to this level by doing one, two and three. And so therefore you should do the same. And you know, what is interesting is, you know, my wife is a senior female executive.

00;26;29;07 - 00;26;44;12
Paul Sullivan
And as a management and she talks about it's not just the dads, but sometimes the moms who've been quite senior as well, you know, they haven't had that, you know, they got there in a certain way and they weren't super transparent about it. Even if they had a caregiver at home, they said, well, I just did it.

00;26;44;14 - 00;27;00;14
Paul Sullivan
And, you know, it's like, how do we become more honest? And a lot of it is how do we become more honest with ourselves, even if you were that that man who's in his 60s and had that traditional setup acknowledge that, you know, lean into it, say, this is what I had, but that may not be what you have.

00;27;00;16 - 00;27;23;20
Paul Sullivan
And that's important. One last question, but Elliot Ray, UK based founder of the Parenting Out Loud program, editor in chief of music, football, fatherhood, father of one year old daughter. As a dad, daughter, dad of daughters. Love that. This has been wonderful. The last question is, you know, if there's one word that you could change the definite shift of what?

00;27;23;20 - 00;27;44;14
Paul Sullivan
What would it be? And for me, I'll go first. I always wanted to change the definition of the word provider and the provider or the word provider. Too often is seen as you had said it. You've said it in this podcast. The hunter gatherer, the person who goes out and earns money and the the providing is, is is money is, is.

00;27;44;16 - 00;28;03;12
Paul Sullivan
And that, of course, is important. Without money, we don't have a home. Without money, we don't have food without money, we don't have new sneakers. But of course, at the company dads, we push for a broader definition of provider. We're provider is also about love and caring and equal parenting and being of the dad being out there.

00;28;03;12 - 00;28;18;28
Paul Sullivan
So, Elliot, if there's one word, that you hear getting tossed around a lot in the companies that you're doing work for, among the dad, you're talking, if there's one word for which you could expand or change the definition, what would that word be?

00;28;19;00 - 00;28;47;05
Elliott Rae
That's a great question. You're testing me here, and I love what you said there about changing the definition of provider. I would say for me, it would be masculinity. We all have our own definitions of what masculinity is, and I think it has evolved. I think masculinity should mean that we can be providers, but we can also be provided for that.

00;28;47;05 - 00;29;16;10
Elliott Rae
We can be breadwinners, but we can be caregivers. We can be leaders, and we can be led. We can be protectors, and we need to be protected, too. I think masculinity traditionally was rigid. I think now for not just a nice to have, but actually for the survival and for men to thrive and live long, healthy, happy, productive lives.

00;29;16;12 - 00;29;52;27
Elliott Rae
We need to allow men to be all things at all times, depending on what is needed from us, from our friends and family, and ultimately for ourselves as well. There is some research by the World Health Organization that found that countries that have better gender equality have better outcomes for men's health. They live longer. They are less likely to be depressed, less likely, less likely to die by violent death, more likely to have protected sex.

00;29;52;29 - 00;30;11;29
Elliott Rae
I think broadening the idea of masculinity and allowing men to be fluid and who they need to be and be safe in doing that, is really key to the. Health and longevity of all men, and that's as well.

00;30;12;01 - 00;30;25;25
Paul Sullivan
That's great. Thank you Elliot. For those of you want to find learn more about Elliot. Elliot ray.com tools to tease r a e. Elliot, thank you again for being my guest today and company of dads. Okay.

00;30;25;26 - 00;30;30;29
Elliott Rae
So much. Thanks, everyone. Thanks for listening I enjoyed it, I loved it.

00;30;31;01 - 00;30;52;25
Paul Sullivan
Thank you for listening to the Company of Dads podcast. I also want to thank the people who make this podcast and everything else that we do at the Company of Dads. Possible. Helder Mira, who is our audio producer, Lindsay Decker, handles all of our social media. Terry Brennan, who's helping us with the newsletter and audience acquisition, Emily Servin, who is our web maestro.

00;30;52;25 - 00;31;12;09
Paul Sullivan
And of course, Evan Roosevelt, who is working side by side with me. And many things that we do here at the Company of Dads. It's a great team. And we're just trying to bring you the best in fatherhood. Remember, the one stop shop for everything is our newsletter, the dad sign up at the Company of dads.com backslash.

00;31;12;09 - 00;31;14;02
Paul Sullivan
The dad. Thank you again for listening.