{"id":6814,"date":"2009-11-02T20:17:03","date_gmt":"2009-11-03T02:17:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artofmanliness.com\/?p=6814"},"modified":"2025-11-16T17:53:50","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T23:53:50","slug":"the-art-of-manliness-podcast-episode-7-rules-for-my-unborn-son-with-walker-lamond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/relationships\/fatherhood\/the-art-of-manliness-podcast-episode-7-rules-for-my-unborn-son-with-walker-lamond\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of Manliness Podcast Episode #7: Rules for My Unborn Son with Walker Lamond"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"art19-web-player awp-medium awp-theme-dark-blue\" data-episode-id=\"69842f8e-4fef-400e-88aa-b7afdd054dcf\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<p>Welcome back to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. In this week&#8217;s episode we talk to Walker Lamond, author of the new book <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0312608950?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=stucosuccess-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0312608950\">Rules for My Unborn Son<\/a>. <\/em>Walker&#8217;s book is based on his popular blog, <a href=\"https:\/\/rulesformyunbornson.tumblr.com\/#_=_\">1001 Rules for My Unborn Son<\/a>. We discuss the inspiration for the book, wheelie luggage, and required listening for boys. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0312608950?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=stucosuccess-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0312608950\">Pick up the book&nbsp; from Amazon.com today! <\/a>Full of advice both insightful and humorous, I highly recommend it. It makes a great <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/lifestyle\/gift-guides\/stocking-stuffers-for-men-2\/\">stocking stuffer<\/a> this Christmas for any man in your life, not just dads.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0312608950?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=stucosuccess-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0312608950\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-6835 size-full\" title=\"rulesformyunborn\" src=\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2009\/11\/rulesformyunborn1.jpg\" alt=\"Book cover of &quot;Rules for my unborn son&quot; by Walker Lamond.\" width=\"308\" height=\"484\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Listen to the Podcast! (And don\u2019t forget to leave us a review!)<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-art-of-manliness\/id332516054?mt=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-49206 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2015\/07\/available-on-itunes.png\" alt=\"Available-on-itunes.\" width=\"250\" height=\"92\" data-pin-nopin=\"true\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-49207 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2015\/07\/available-on-stitcher.png\" alt=\"Available-on-stitcher.\" width=\"250\" height=\"92\" data-pin-nopin=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/artofmanliness\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-49208 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2015\/07\/soundcloud-logo.png\" alt=\"Soundcloud-logo.\" width=\"250\" height=\"127\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pcasts.in:443\/NwCI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-49655\" src=\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2015\/08\/pocketcasts.png\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" srcset=\"\" alt=\"Pocketcasts.\" width=\"225\" height=\"225\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/music\/managemusic?t=The_Art_of_Manliness\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-56926 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2016\/05\/google-play-podcast-e1464287132541.png\" alt=\"Google-play-podcast.\" width=\"250\" height=\"190\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/2vJHmWhhcMQRXtTruuFWTJ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-81682\" src=\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2018\/01\/open-graph-default.png\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 248px) 100vw, 248px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2018\/01\/open-graph-default.png 400w, https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2018\/01\/open-graph-default-320x168.png 320w\" alt=\"Spotify.\" width=\"248\" height=\"130\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/art19.com\/shows\/the-art-of-manliness\/episodes\/69842f8e-4fef-400e-88aa-b7afdd054dcf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer\">Listen to the episode on a separate page.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/rss.art19.com\/episodes\/69842f8e-4fef-400e-88aa-b7afdd054dcf.mp3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer\">Download this episode.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.omnycontent.com\/d\/playlist\/aaea4e69-af51-495e-afc9-a9760146922b\/6081eee7-c459-4e12-a1ab-aadc000fc4a7\/413a6904-4d72-4be8-9421-aadc000fc4ba\/podcast.rss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer\">Subscribe to the podcast in the media player of your choice.<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Read the Transcript!<\/h3>\n<p>Brett McKay here, and welcome to another episode of The Art of Manliness<br \/>\npodcast. Now, if you made a rulebook on life for your son, what sort of<br \/>\nrules would you include in it? Well, our guest today has recently published<br \/>\na book with rules that he hopes his son will follow in order to become a<br \/>\nwell-rounded gentleman. His name is Walker Lamond and he is the author of<br \/>\nthe book, &#8220;Rules for my Unborn Son.&#8221; Walker is a writer and television<br \/>\nproducer and lives in Washington D.C. with his wife and their newborn son<br \/>\nwho was actually born shortly after he finished his book, &#8220;Rules for My<br \/>\nUnborn Son.&#8221; Walker, welcome to the show.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker: <\/strong> Thanks for having me, Brett.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> All right, Walker. Well, first off, congratulations on the book<br \/>\nand congratulations on becoming a dad.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker: <\/strong> Thanks, I appreciate it. Now if we can just get him turned into<br \/>\na man, we&#8217;ll be in good shape.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> There you go. All right. So, Walker, what inspired you to start<br \/>\nthis project? From what I understand, you actually started this before your<br \/>\nson was even a twinkle in your eye.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker: <\/strong> Yeah, it was really years ago. I mean, the whole project<br \/>\nstarted back in New York as a single guy. It was kind of a back of a bar<br \/>\nnapkin type of thing where I just wanted to start keeping track of all the<br \/>\nthings that my old man had taught me growing up because I didn&#8217;t want to<br \/>\nforget it. So even long before I was married and long before I had a kid, I<br \/>\njust knew what kind of a son I wanted to have. So, I thought, well, let&#8217;s<br \/>\nwrite it all down now because I know that when actual fatherhood comes,<br \/>\nthere is a good chance that I would end up too exhausted or too overwhelmed<br \/>\nto remember all of the things that I always meant to teach him. So, I said,<br \/>\n&#8220;Hey, let&#8217;s just write it down in a book, and I can just give it to him.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett<\/strong>: Yeah. So, you actually started off as a blog, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker<\/strong>: Yeah. Absolutely. When I got a good number of these things<br \/>\ngoing, I said, &#8220;You know, let&#8217;s, I want to share these with some friends<br \/>\nand family.&#8221; Luckily for me, the Tumblr blogging platform had just kind of<br \/>\ncome out and it was so easy that even a guy like me could figure it out. I<br \/>\nstarted throwing them up on the Web. I really liked the way they had these<br \/>\nreally nice design templates, and I really just did it for a gasp. But, you<br \/>\nknow, the Internet is a funny place. It was like doing stand-up comedy, you<br \/>\nknow. Before I knew it, a few people were laughing, a few more people were<br \/>\nreading, and it turned into this everyday thing where I was getting more<br \/>\nand more readers. It just kind of encouraged me to keep adding.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> And is this how you, your book publisher found you was through<br \/>\nyour blog?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> Yeah. I mean, lucky me. You know, I didn&#8217;t have to write any<br \/>\nquery letters or any of that stuff that you had to do in the old days. Old<br \/>\ndays meaning probably, like, three years ago.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Mm-hmm. [laughs]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> You know, before I knew it, there were enough readers on there<br \/>\nthat it was getting passed to the type of people that are in charge of<br \/>\nmaking books. So, an agent contacted me and a couple weeks later we were<br \/>\npitching publishers. It was all done before I really knew what hit me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> [laughs] So, Walker, what are some of your favorite rules from<br \/>\nthe book?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker: <\/strong> There&#8217;s so many, you know. I&#8217;ve got lots of rules about how to<br \/>\ndress like a man, how to act on a date. But if I was just to flip open the<br \/>\nbook at any point . . . here&#8217;s one, &#8220;On a road trip offer to buy the first<br \/>\ntank of gas.&#8221; I&#8217;m a firm believer that men should never wear sandals, ever.<br \/>\nHow about this one? &#8220;Never pack more than you can carry yourself, and a<br \/>\nman&#8217;s luggage doesn&#8217;t roll.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett: <\/strong> Yeah, I love that. It was funny. Actually, before I read the<br \/>\nbook and read that rule, my wife&#8217;s uncle and I were talking about that. He<br \/>\njust can&#8217;t stand wheelie luggage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> And not only that, I mean, it&#8217;s one thing to see, you know, the<br \/>\ngolf-shirted businessmen rolling through the airport, you know, from gate<br \/>\nto gate, but have you seen, like, the fifth grade boys with their rolling<br \/>\nluggage backpacks?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> It&#8217;s absurd.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Yeah. It is absurd. Just going back to the golf-shirted<br \/>\nbusinessmen, you see them, you know, they don&#8217;t even have a big suitcase.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s just like a carryon.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett: <\/strong> And they&#8217;re still wheeling it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> Some people get upset when they see that rule. You know, this<br \/>\nis not to say that somehow, you know, wheeled luggage isn&#8217;t manly or, you<br \/>\nknow, you&#8217;ve got to be a tough guy. It&#8217;s really a rule to tell you, you<br \/>\nknow, &#8220;if you can&#8217;t carry it yourself, you&#8217;re probably packing too much.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett: <\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker<\/strong>: It&#8217;s more of a call for, you know, minimalism and paring down<br \/>\nyour life and your wardrobe rather than saying, &#8220;Hey, we all have to be<br \/>\nkind of macho tough guys.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> And that is kind of the point of the book. You know, a lot of<br \/>\nthese rules are earnest, and some, but a lot of them are a little tongue-in-<br \/>\ncheek. The idea is not to say, &#8220;Hey, I wish we were all, you know, turn-of-<br \/>\nthe century pugilists and everyone now is a, you know, a sensitive<br \/>\nponytailed guy.&#8221; It&#8217;s not really that type of thing. It&#8217;s more just saying,<br \/>\n&#8220;Hey, you know what? If you pare down your life a little bit and if you<br \/>\ngive yourself, in fact, less options, you&#8217;re going to have a form of<br \/>\nquality control.&#8221; You know, that&#8217;s really what the book is all about &#8212;<br \/>\nincreasing the quality of your life and what&#8217;s around you instead of just<br \/>\nthe quantity, you know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett: <\/strong> Yeah. Definitely. Here is another one I like, &#8220;Don&#8217;t<br \/>\npersonalize your license plates.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker: <\/strong> Yeah. I mean, it&#8217;s already kind of personalized, isn&#8217;t it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> No two people have the same license plate. It&#8217;s kind of<br \/>\nredundant to put on there, you know . . .<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Exactly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> . . . aviator pilot.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett: <\/strong> No, no. Exactly. Here&#8217;s another one. &#8220;The best thing you can<br \/>\ngive your neighbors is a well-kept lawn.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> Yeah. Some of these rules are inspired, sometimes I&#8217;ll see a<br \/>\nphotograph somewhere and I am sure you&#8217;ve seen that &#8220;Life&#8221; magazine finally<br \/>\nput all of their photos and outtakes up on the Web for use. You can just<br \/>\nspend days scrolling through that. You come across a great photograph, and<br \/>\nit might inspire a rule.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett: <\/strong> Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker: <\/strong> That was one of them. The pictures of classic 50s suburbia with<br \/>\nmen in their Bermuda shorts and a cold Schlitz pushing lawnmowers. I mean,<br \/>\nthat is truly the best gift you can give your neighbors.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Definitely. Definitely. One rule I thought should have been in<br \/>\nthere that my parents really harped this on me was, &#8220;Ask the girl who&#8217;s not<br \/>\ngetting asked to dance to dance.&#8221; I don&#8217;t know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> That&#8217;s a good one.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Yeah. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> That&#8217;s a good one. The blog continues and I keep trying to add<br \/>\nrules because who knows, maybe there&#8217;ll be a second edition, but mostly<br \/>\nbecause I&#8217;ve got readers who like to tune in and I&#8217;m asking them to always<br \/>\nsubmit new rules. I love to hear other people&#8217;s stories. People give me<br \/>\ngreat rules all the time. Along that same vein, you know, I added one<br \/>\nrecently that says, it was a first day of school rule. I said, you know,<br \/>\n&#8220;Eat lunch with the new kid.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> There&#8217;s just like some good throwback lessons there on just how<br \/>\nto be a nice person without just being a kind of Miss Manners type of . . .<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett: <\/strong> Exactly. Being a well-rounded civil person.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> So, you kind of mentioned a little bit how you came up with the<br \/>\nrules. Can you explain that more? You mentioned your dad handed some of<br \/>\nthese rules. I mean, where else do you get inspiration for them?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> Yeah. I mean the core, kind of the original group of rules,<br \/>\nthere&#8217;s probably like 50 of them. They really were straight from my dad. He<br \/>\nwasn&#8217;t like a strict disciplinarian. He just had a really good sense of<br \/>\nwhat he said, what made a good man, and what a good man did and what a good<br \/>\nman didn&#8217;t do. You know, some were little things, and some were clich\ufffdd<br \/>\nsports idioms about keeping your head down and persevering and things like<br \/>\nthat. Others were just kind of quirky to him. You know, the guy never wore<br \/>\nany socks. He never thought it was necessary. But at the same time, he was<br \/>\nusually the best dressed guy in the room.<\/p>\n<p>So, he had this group of rules and those are the ones that started me off<br \/>\nwith the list. Then I just kind of added to them using my own experiences.<br \/>\nYou know, every day walking in New York and every little embarrassing<br \/>\nepisode of your life you say, &#8220;God, I&#8217;m never going to do that again,&#8221; or<br \/>\n&#8220;I&#8217;m going to teach my kid to never make that mistake.&#8221; You just keep track<br \/>\nof those things and before you know it, you&#8217;ve got a rule for every walk of<br \/>\nlife. I mean, every time you go in the airport don&#8217;t you think, &#8220;Jesus, I&#8217;m<br \/>\nnever going to teach my kid to be like that person,&#8221; or something. So,<br \/>\nbefore I knew it. I was keeping track of all the things. Essentially it&#8217;s<br \/>\nlike wanting to make the world a little better place, you know?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Yeah. Yeah. Kind of make up for the lack of civility . . .<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker: <\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> . . . and good manners.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> Sounds ambitious doesn&#8217;t it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Yeah, it is, but I think you&#8217;re on to something here. You know,<br \/>\nI think there is definitely a desire for people to kind of counteract the<br \/>\ninformalism that has kind of crept in to American society. I think a lot of<br \/>\npeople are attracted to that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> Yeah, I agree. I mean, you know, I say something in the<br \/>\nintroduction about at some point rules got this bad rap, you know. I mean,<br \/>\nin my opinion, rules are this really effective way to pass down<br \/>\ninstitutional knowledge, you know. I mean, if generations of people have<br \/>\ndone something a certain way, and they&#8217;ve taught us to do it the right way,<br \/>\nthe most effective way to pass it down is just make a rule about it, you<br \/>\nknow. Don&#8217;t run a red light or whatever. Hey, that works and now we&#8217;re all<br \/>\nsafe. Somewhere around I&#8217;d say, not to blame anybody, but the Woodstock<br \/>\nGeneration, you know, all of a sudden rules became synonymous with &#8220;The<br \/>\nMan&#8221; and authority and it was looked at as a barrier to freedom,<br \/>\nindividualism, and creativity, which is just not the case. I think they<br \/>\nkind of threw the baby out with the bathwater.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> Before you knew it, you&#8217;ve got a generation of men wearing<br \/>\nsneakers and T-shirts to the office and having haircuts like they did when<br \/>\nthey were 12, you know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Yeah. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> So, I am all for freedom and living your life however you want,<br \/>\nbut it wasn&#8217;t a great model for young kids, because when they don&#8217;t see any<br \/>\ndifferentiation between their parents and them, where is the inspiration to<br \/>\nachieve more than they achieved, to grow up?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Yeah. Definitely. So, you mentioned, Walker, that some people<br \/>\ndidn&#8217;t like the no wheelie luggage rule. Were there any other rules that<br \/>\ncaused some controversy or that people just, you know, you got emails<br \/>\nsaying, &#8220;I can&#8217;t believe you put that in. That&#8217;s stupid,&#8221; and whatever.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> Yeah. It&#8217;s funny. I mean, you know, it&#8217;s a really subjective<br \/>\nlist. You know, I am an East Coast city kind. So when I wrote that, &#8220;If you<br \/>\nare tempted to wear a cowboy hat, resist.&#8221; Yeah, I caught a little flak<br \/>\nfrom some of the westerners from Colorado and Texas. I think in the next<br \/>\nedition, we&#8217;ll make a caveat that says, &#8220;Unless you actually own a horse.&#8221;<br \/>\nYou know, then we can satisfy the Texans. You know, it&#8217;s funny when people<br \/>\nfeel like they are getting criticized for their personal style, it can get<br \/>\na little touchy. I have a thing against facial hair. My dad always taught<br \/>\nme that men with facial hair have something to hide. At the same time, I&#8217;ve<br \/>\nkind of come around a little bit thanks to Art of Manliness on a good,<br \/>\nclean mustache.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> There you go.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker: <\/strong>You know, so, I&#8217;m coming around a little bit on that one. It&#8217;s<br \/>\nfunny when you get emails from people, I seem to get a lot of emails from<br \/>\nCalifornia. A lot of guys in California saying, &#8220;What do you mean I can&#8217;t<br \/>\nwear sandals, jog shirtless, and grow a goatee?&#8221; I just let them be. Not<br \/>\neverybody&#8217;s going to want to follow these rules.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Yeah. Exactly. We get that a lot, too, on our site. In fact,<br \/>\nyesterday we did a post of how to get a &#8220;Mad Men&#8221; haircut. You know, with<br \/>\nthe part and the . . .<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> I saw it. As a matter of fact, just yesterday. I went across<br \/>\nthe street to my mom and pop pharmacy and bought a tube of Brylcreem.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Oh, yeah. Have you used it yet?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> Yeah. I used it last night.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> What do you think?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> It&#8217;s not bad. I think you probably have to throw a lot more in<br \/>\nthan I did. I was a little gun-shy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Yeah. I don&#8217;t think that the phrase, &#8220;a little dab will do<br \/>\nyou,&#8221; is actually . . .<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> No, I think it&#8217;s about a softball sized dab will probably do<br \/>\nyou.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Yeah, exactly. See, when we did that post, we got a lot of<br \/>\ncomplaints. Some emails from people saying, &#8220;What are you talking about,<br \/>\nyou know, that my hair that I&#8217;ve had since high school is not manly or<br \/>\nridiculous.&#8221; A lot of the stuff we do is subjective. People get kind of<br \/>\naffronted. Especially with our site, since it is called The Art of<br \/>\nManliness. When we say something is not manly, then people get really upset<br \/>\nbecause they do that thing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> Yeah. Also, what I am sure you&#8217;ve experienced a little bit is<br \/>\nthere is still a very strong voice, especially in like college-age kids,<br \/>\nagainst traditional gender roles, as people like to say. You know, because<br \/>\npeople worked really hard to kind of loosen the restrictions of what it<br \/>\nmeans to be a man and a woman and a girl and a boy. All for the good. I<br \/>\nmean, I am not disagreeing with it. I think this book and a little bit of<br \/>\nwhat Art of Manliness is doing, it&#8217;s not trying to revolt against the<br \/>\nprogress that people have made in equality and all of those things. It is<br \/>\njust an idea of getting back to some level of quality control.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> I see it in earlier generations. I am not saying that<br \/>\neverything that is old is good. I am saying that we might want to look back<br \/>\ninto our recent past for ideas on how to have higher quality goods and<br \/>\nhigher quality of life rather than always trying to reinvent ourselves and<br \/>\ncome up with something new. Three-quarters of the stuff we are trying to do<br \/>\nhas already been done and done better.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Yup.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> Just look back a little bit and figure it out.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett: <\/strong>Yeah, exactly. That&#8217;s what we do with the site. Go back into<br \/>\nhistory and take the good and apply it with the things we&#8217;ve learned today<br \/>\nand the progress we&#8217;ve made. Yeah, I think you&#8217;re actually right. You know,<br \/>\nnot everything old is good, but there&#8217;s a lot of good stuff there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Okay. So, one of the things that you have on your site and also<br \/>\nin your book is a list of music called &#8220;Required Listening for Boys.&#8221; I&#8217;ve<br \/>\ngot to say, it&#8217;s been fun listening to your list on your website. What are<br \/>\nsome of the songs you have on your list and why did you pick them?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> I&#8217;ve tried to give my own little very biased 20th century<br \/>\npopular music short course or something. My theory here is that if my kid<br \/>\ncan master Woody Guthrie, a little Elvis, a little Ramones, then he can<br \/>\npretty much bring home whatever noise he wants to listen to. You know, when<br \/>\nhe turns 16, I am not going to be able to stop him. If screech metal<br \/>\nhappens to be hip that day, I may be enduring some painful stuff. As long<br \/>\nas I feel like he has given Dylan and Springsteen their due and a little<br \/>\nSmith and a little this and there, then he&#8217;s got every right to go listen<br \/>\nto whatever he wants to. That&#8217;s kind of what my dad always did for me, you<br \/>\nknow. He was an Elvis man. He loved Frank. He loved Nat King Cole. That&#8217;s<br \/>\nwhat I listened to when I was a kid. My mom turned me on to Stax records<br \/>\nand soul music. Between those two, I got this bass. When I was coming home<br \/>\nwith the Ramones or the Sex Pistols or, you know, early discord record<br \/>\nmusic, my dad didn&#8217;t understand it, but he let me listen to it because he<br \/>\nknew that I had gotten there on my own.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> It&#8217;s my own personal greatest hits.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett: <\/strong> Very nice. Now, would you, what about movies? Are there any<br \/>\nmovies that you would include on a required viewing list for boys?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> You know, I thought about putting in a required viewing list<br \/>\nbecause I love movies. I worship them. It&#8217;s almost, it&#8217;s one of those<br \/>\nthings that it is so hard to pick your favorite movie. The list was getting<br \/>\nlonger and longer and longer. It was also sounding a little bit too much<br \/>\nlike AFI&#8217;s greatest movies. I figured there are enough good movie critics<br \/>\nout there, he can find his own list. Some of my favorites, surely, &#8220;Annie<br \/>\nHall&#8221; is still one of my favorite movies. I love Wes Anderson movies. I<br \/>\nlove &#8220;Armageddon.&#8221; I love a good John Wayne movie. My interests are all<br \/>\nover the place. I like what most people like.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> You like good stories. I am a big fan of crime novels and crime<br \/>\nfiction. I love mysteries. I love movies like &#8220;Sunset Boulevard.&#8221; Those are<br \/>\nmy favorite types of movies. I am not a movie snob particularly. As long as<br \/>\nit is under 150 minutes and has a good looking lead, I&#8217;m in.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Very nice. Very nice. Now, I am sure you&#8217;ve gotten requests to<br \/>\ndo, or maybe I&#8217;m wrong, to do a book called &#8220;Rules for My Unborn Daughter.&#8221;<br \/>\nIf so, what sort of rules would you include in it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> God, it&#8217;s, you know, people ask me that and I have such a hard<br \/>\ntime getting, I was like, &#8220;Yeah, it sounds like a great idea.&#8221; Except I can<br \/>\nonly think of one rule and it&#8217;s pretty much, &#8220;Never leave the house.&#8221; I<br \/>\nthink we could come up with some. As a matter of fact, I just wrote a few<br \/>\nfor a magazine down in Charleston. I think a few on the list were like,<br \/>\n&#8220;Always keep champagne in the fridge and ice cream in the freezer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Very nice.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> That&#8217;s sounds like something a girl would like.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker<\/strong>: &#8220;No vans in the driveway.&#8221; Other things of that . . . Oh, how<br \/>\nabout, &#8220;When you&#8217;re on a first date, order the steak.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> There you go.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> There you go. Watch your date&#8217;s eyes get really big, you know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> Right. So, we could probably come up with some. Who knows, if<br \/>\nthis book sells, then I will surely get to work on that one, no doubt.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Awesome. All right. Walker, both of our sites and our books, we<br \/>\nkind of talked about this a little bit already, they both kind of have that<br \/>\nvintage and traditional feeling. Kind of harken back to the old days a bit.<br \/>\nI&#8217;ve noticed there is kind of a trend of men going back to that. Why do you<br \/>\nthink men these days are attracted to this traditional manliness<br \/>\nmasculinity?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> Again, I think it has something to do with a yearning for<br \/>\nquality. It&#8217;s a quality. It&#8217;s a quality that I think a lot of discerning<br \/>\nmen today saw in their father&#8217;s generation or maybe even their<br \/>\ngrandfather&#8217;s generation. A time when, you know, the majority of your<br \/>\nhousehold goods were made in America.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett: <\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> Or you needed two suits because they lasted you ten years. Or 3<br \/>\npairs of shoes as opposed to 25 different types of running shoes, you know.<br \/>\nSo, maybe it is just a sign of the times. We&#8217;ve come out of this kind of<br \/>\nperiod of luxury and excess, and maybe people are feeling like, &#8220;I don&#8217;t<br \/>\nenjoy the disposable culture as much. I think I want something that is<br \/>\ngoing to last a little bit.&#8221; So, I think it is natural for us to look back<br \/>\nto a period in our culture when things did last a little longer. To me,<br \/>\nit&#8217;s like right around the &#8221;30s, 40s and &#8217;50s seem like the cool period<br \/>\nwhen America was really peaking and creating really great products. For me,<br \/>\nlike when I was designing the book, I always loved the look of old &#8217;50s<br \/>\ntextbooks and schoolbooks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Mm-hmm. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker:<\/strong> You know, the kind of book that you put up on your shelf and<br \/>\nyou don&#8217;t mind it sitting there forever. I looked at the tables and I saw a<br \/>\nlot of the books today and, you know, not just being paperback but with<br \/>\nmodern contemporary graphics and things, it actually really dates it after<br \/>\na couple of years. I wanted something that looked like it had been there<br \/>\nforever. I also wanted something small enough to fit in a blazer pocket,<br \/>\nwhich was the only other requirement I had for the book designer. That<br \/>\nworked out.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett: <\/strong>Very nice. Well, our guest today was Walker Lamond. He is the<br \/>\nauthor of the book, &#8220;Rules for My Unborn Son.&#8221; Walker, thank you for your<br \/>\ntime. It&#8217;s been a pleasure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walker: <\/strong>Thank you, Brett. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for<br \/>\nyour site. I love it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett:<\/strong> Thank you. That wraps up another edition of The Art of<br \/>\nManliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice make sure to check back<br \/>\nat The Art of Manliness website at ArtofManliness.com. Remember, we&#8217;ve got<br \/>\na book on sale, too. It&#8217;s &#8220;The Art of Manliness: Classic Skills and Manners<br \/>\nfor the Modern Man.&#8221; You can find it at Amazon.com or any other major book<br \/>\nstore. For more information about the book, check out the website at<br \/>\nArtofManliness.com\/TheBook. Until next week, stay manly.<\/p>\n<p>[theme music]<\/p>\n<p>This transcript was brought to you by www.SpeechPad.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Welcome back to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. In this week&#8217;s episode we talk to Walker Lamond, author of the new book Rules for My Unborn Son. Walker&#8217;s book is based on his popular blog, 1001 Rules for My Unborn Son. We discuss the inspiration for the book, wheelie luggage, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":48408,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[253,156,42285],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-6814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fatherhood","category-podcast","category-relationships"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2009\/11\/walker-lamond-538x280.jpg","reactor-320":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2009\/11\/walker-lamond-320x232.jpg","reactor-640":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2009\/11\/walker-lamond-640x465.jpg","rpwe-thumbnail":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2009\/11\/walker-lamond-45x45.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6814"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169513,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6814\/revisions\/169513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6814"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=6814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}