Raising three self-sustaining GenXers wasn't bump-free, but hindsight shows that Wifey and I gave up most of our hobbies to be home waayyy more often than not. Also, our house was where they and their friends hung out to have fun and learn about the small things. They ruined a pool table, carpet, two broken couches from wrestling, and about $5,000 in pizza and other foods - and it was worth every penny.
I have long wondered if advanced US weapons sold to foriegn countries come with secret 'kill switches' embedded deeply in the coding or firmware if the weapons were to be used against the US or Israel.
For example, some US client trys to attack Israel with US made aircraft and out goes a coded message. Suddenly, it is all the Muslim pilot can do to keep the plane at half speed in the air while his weapons refuse to arm. Attack aborted!
“Parenting in 2024 has become an all-consuming obsession. But the paradox is that our kids are, by many measures, worse off today than 30 years ago. They are more anxious than ever. They’re more depressed than ever. They’re more medicated than ever. Kids’ reading and math scores haven’t recovered since their decline during the pandemic. Childhood obesity has risen to 19.7 percent in America, where the average child spends 7.5 hours in front of a screen for entertainment each day. More kids are being raised without two parents in the home than ever before. And just a few weeks ago, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory, warning that parents are more stressed, worried, overwhelmed, and lonely than ever.”
Instead of talking to all these so called experts, podcasters and tic tok influencers, how about talking to parents from 30 years ago. If kids are doing worse, then just maybe those old folks living next door, in the nursing homes, seniors centers and at grandparents day maybe know a thing or two more than you and your neurotic generation. How about interviewing a few of those folks for your series.
I couldn't agree more with your sentiment. But I'm very familiar with Emily Oster and Jonathan Haidt (not the others), and rest assured these "experts" are indeed urging people to use a lot of the common sense from 30 years ago. And they are showing empirically why those approaches get the outcomes we want as parents.
This is a good chance to reflect on that staggeringly thoughtless essay under "What School Didn't Teach Us" urging young people to take up drinking alcohol.
A woman who develops a taste for alcohol, gets to drinking heavily, decides to become a mother, and then can't abstain during pregnancy is liable to inflict irreparable brain damage on her child. (Of course, smoking is even worse). A woman who never starts drinking avoids that risk and doesn't miss out on anything remotely as important.
Drinking alcohol is not a lifestyle choice. It's not a trendy partisan eat-your-peas bone of contention. Humanity's experience with alcohol is overwhelmingly negative: shortened lives, blighted families, wrecked careers, manslaughter.... On the other side of the ledger, nobody -- woman or man -- loses anything of great value by abstaining. The "joys of alcohol"? Please.
Non-drinking kids are fortunate kids. Let them be. When the time for parenthood comes, they'll have one less thing to worry about.
Thanks for your reply. Please follow up after you’ve collected a lot more anecdotes to counter the evidence against smoking and drinking during pregnancy.
Professor Oster opposed Lockdown tyranny? That's news to me.
Her own "Call for Covid Amnesty" implies otherwise. She seems to have toned down the hysteria which caused her to mask her small children and teach them to live in terror of human faces. But for at least two years, Emily was a very devout member of the Covid cult. She did NOT oppose the politicized hypochondria from the start.
I will admit to being a Covid cult person early in the pandemic because I'm a health care provider. I had confidence in the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics and that cute little Dr. Fauci. But then, as if coming out of a fever dream, I realized that Covid is probably a man-made disease bought and paid for by unknowing American taxpayers, and that closing churches and schools was an unnecessary assault on our freedoms and well-being. I was trusting and a bit gullible, just like when I flop into a chair to watch a late-night talk show and realize that the world is completely and probably irretrievably changed, and that instead of being entertained I will be lectured. I hope I can be forgiven for my blindness early on, and I think the new podcast should be given a chance.
I'm glad you can learn and are not too proud to admit you were wrong.
I had had a very negative experience with pharmaceuticals years before Covid. This helped me understand what was going on as I would not have otherwise.
I hope Emily has also learned. I'm just pointing out that she was not always so.
My 35 year old son recently said parents have obligations to their children just as children have obligations to their parents, suggesting some equality. I told him the parent obligation was that they gave the child life. Nothing equates with that. All the instincts that follow or should follow are to support the offspring, but even if the parents fail, they have given life. Don’t underestimate that gift you have given. As the mother, you have been the very factory of life, with the means of sustenance beyound the act of birth. It is such a special role, a gift to the child but also a gift to you.
You now have multiple kids. You will see that they are not all alike; in fact, the next one fills the vacuum the first leaves. I mean, one will be calm and quiet, the next noisy and demanding. When you think you know what to expect, you find you are wrong. And I hope Emily says this is life and appreciate it. So my advice is don’t overthink things, do react, but remember to keep your authority position; if you don’t you never regain it. Oh yes, this is a hugely important job, for you, your family, and for everyone around you.
I don’t have children. I think I came into this world not wanting kids. My maternal grandmother gave home birth to 13 babies in a two-bedroom house without running water in Virgil, S.D. Two babies died in infancy. Maybe I carried my grandmother's cell memory with me and didn’t feel the need to procreate.
But I’ve always been curious about the way some pregnant females and their mates act like they’re doing something nobody has ever done before. The world population is 8 BILLION. How did we all get here?
This discussion is not about you. It is about people that chose to have children - how they can raise successful happy children, and how to navigate the different advice they get. Nowhere in this article does anyone suggest that there are not people who quite rightly for them make a different choice.
Sometimes I feel like screaming or just yelling at the constant stream of "news" about how many children are afflicted or in some manner having mental issues. Starting at an ever younger age according to articles that are published each day. It seems like from the time you give birth you should find your self and your child a mental health counselor. I easily admit and state none of my medical training gave me expert or a degree of expertise in psychology in todays world. So I can be easily dismissed as a head in the sand and uniformed of the "all the Data". Also easily stated is the truth that the birth of my first child and subsequent multiple grandchildren have tuned out to be the sustaining power grid and joy that guides my life. Growing up in a large family and eventually gaining, after multiple missteps as to what I wanted to be, my professions of being a doctor does give me some in sight. All through school in the late fifties and early sixties I had no friends, family or colleagues that were seeking and needing psychological help. Now, I ,sadly admit , virtually I know no one who does not talk about this issue regarding their children or grandchildren or friends children and grandchildren. What has happened???? The list of culprits can be valid, simple, absurd and to me frightening because I do not have an answer. The endless list contains: Culture changes, nutrition, diets, too many medications, not enough good medications given appropriately, religion, lack of religion, Vaccines, war, politics, poor teaching, too much pressure, bad parenting, drugs, cell phones, social media, porn, and of course racism and intolerance. Perhaps overly simple but I wish our children could just slow down and not be so incredible inundated with a jillion sound bites and images each day. So much of what they see and hear is virtually seconds long and often gone or outdated within days. They mimic and admire the celebrities on the various social medias. Lastly and somewhat tragically to me is what they focus on as important to their lives and that they think their problems are not their fault and SOMEBODY IS RESPONSIBLE and should help them and correct them!
Sometimes the war on men is quite irritating. You know – those men who literally built everything in the entire world and maintain it. But given men's importance, it all fades away in the face of the only job on the planet that really matters, and that is the one almost always done by women: raising the next generation. So looking forward to this series..
My goodness, back in 1978 my wife (okay, spouse, for those of you who have no discernable gender) and I attended Red Cross baby classes, Bradley delivery method classes, had the baby on the 12th of August, read a little of Spock, and the baby grew up so fast, played soccer and softball, became a competition swimmer, a "surfer girl," I was so proud. My wife was wonderful, the world was wonderful, a nod to Joel Grey. What's happened to you kids? Oh, yeah, the Grey quote is from "Cabaret," a musical about early 1930s German society falling into decadence. Ah, there's the connection. I apologize for being a downer on the article, it's just my mood nowadays. We actually did think having a baby, nuthin' to it.
Yeah, I was just looking on Twitter (X), and saw this:
" a number of people wrote to tell me that they would feel more included in the community if I used pregnant people, because they identified differently. I thought it seemed non-controversial."
One issue that TFP consistently skirts around is the side effects of the number of vaccines our children are now required to have, 72 vaccines, starting at birth. Fortunately, more and more doctors and even pediatricians are acknowledging the side-effects that are occurring, the sometimes chronic illness that occurs over time after vaccination, and then the debilitating side effects that occur as more shots are administered. Pediatricians receive "bonuses" based on the percentage of vaccinations given, particularly before age 2. So if 30% of a practice's patients are vaccinated, payouts are given for each patient; 50% even more, 100% and bingo! Payday. With a large practice, these payouts can and do amount to a million dollars or more. The source can be traced to pharmaceutical influence in all aspects of "health care."
I am astonished at the "it didn't happen to my kid, so therefore it must not happen" and the gaslighting of the tens of thousands of moms who have had to stand by and watch their children suffer. It's hard to do any research beyond the media censorship (75% of media's advertising budget is derived from pharmeusectical advertising $$$$)
This is true. They keep piling on the vaccines and parents are made to feel that they are irresponsible if they don’t go along. Most vaccines are now required for a child to be allowed to go to school. We simply don’t know how this is affecting the health of children. When these children grow to be adults and have health issues, doctors will be unwilling and probably unable to trace this back to getting so many vaccines. Note that even with (because of?) all these vaccines, new illnesses keep popping up.The government telling parents that they should be giving their children covid vaccines is another example of the government, pharmaceutical companies and doctors working together to get parents to conform with no testing having been done. Vaccines that prevent the most serious illnesses like polio should be given. Delay giving vaccines as long as possible so that the child’s own immune system has a chsnce to develop. Use common sense.
The medical field is being very irresponsible. Remember when they told us that fat was bad? This was wrong. Our bodies need fat. Remember when they told us not to give babies peanut butter? The result was more peanut allergies. People should not simply go to the “experts”. Their track record has been spotty at best. This psychology has created great anxiety in parents that is transferred to their children. The natural instincts of mothers have been driven out by this intellectualization of everything. Our bodies are complex, so be as natural as possible in raising children and give lots of love. That is the best medicine for children.
Raising three self-sustaining GenXers wasn't bump-free, but hindsight shows that Wifey and I gave up most of our hobbies to be home waayyy more often than not. Also, our house was where they and their friends hung out to have fun and learn about the small things. They ruined a pool table, carpet, two broken couches from wrestling, and about $5,000 in pizza and other foods - and it was worth every penny.
"Experts say . . ." The most frightening phrase in the English language.
No kidding. Or, "I am from the government and I'm here to help..."
I have long wondered if advanced US weapons sold to foriegn countries come with secret 'kill switches' embedded deeply in the coding or firmware if the weapons were to be used against the US or Israel.
For example, some US client trys to attack Israel with US made aircraft and out goes a coded message. Suddenly, it is all the Muslim pilot can do to keep the plane at half speed in the air while his weapons refuse to arm. Attack aborted!
“Parenting in 2024 has become an all-consuming obsession. But the paradox is that our kids are, by many measures, worse off today than 30 years ago. They are more anxious than ever. They’re more depressed than ever. They’re more medicated than ever. Kids’ reading and math scores haven’t recovered since their decline during the pandemic. Childhood obesity has risen to 19.7 percent in America, where the average child spends 7.5 hours in front of a screen for entertainment each day. More kids are being raised without two parents in the home than ever before. And just a few weeks ago, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory, warning that parents are more stressed, worried, overwhelmed, and lonely than ever.”
Instead of talking to all these so called experts, podcasters and tic tok influencers, how about talking to parents from 30 years ago. If kids are doing worse, then just maybe those old folks living next door, in the nursing homes, seniors centers and at grandparents day maybe know a thing or two more than you and your neurotic generation. How about interviewing a few of those folks for your series.
I couldn't agree more with your sentiment. But I'm very familiar with Emily Oster and Jonathan Haidt (not the others), and rest assured these "experts" are indeed urging people to use a lot of the common sense from 30 years ago. And they are showing empirically why those approaches get the outcomes we want as parents.
This is a good chance to reflect on that staggeringly thoughtless essay under "What School Didn't Teach Us" urging young people to take up drinking alcohol.
A woman who develops a taste for alcohol, gets to drinking heavily, decides to become a mother, and then can't abstain during pregnancy is liable to inflict irreparable brain damage on her child. (Of course, smoking is even worse). A woman who never starts drinking avoids that risk and doesn't miss out on anything remotely as important.
Drinking alcohol is not a lifestyle choice. It's not a trendy partisan eat-your-peas bone of contention. Humanity's experience with alcohol is overwhelmingly negative: shortened lives, blighted families, wrecked careers, manslaughter.... On the other side of the ledger, nobody -- woman or man -- loses anything of great value by abstaining. The "joys of alcohol"? Please.
Non-drinking kids are fortunate kids. Let them be. When the time for parenthood comes, they'll have one less thing to worry about.
My mom smoked and drank through her pregnancy with me. And we never knew what a car seat was.
The Horror!
Thanks for your reply. Please follow up after you’ve collected a lot more anecdotes to counter the evidence against smoking and drinking during pregnancy.
Once we outlaw drinking altogether, what is your next gig? Red meat?
Thanks for your reply, but I said nothing about outlawing drinking. Is that how you understand "Let them be"?
No, it is how I read "drinking alcohol is not a lifestyle choice." I took it as opposition to the choice itself, but perhaps I misunderstood.
I get your point now. I ought to have written, “not just a lifestyle choice.”
Cheers!
Professor Oster opposed Lockdown tyranny? That's news to me.
Her own "Call for Covid Amnesty" implies otherwise. She seems to have toned down the hysteria which caused her to mask her small children and teach them to live in terror of human faces. But for at least two years, Emily was a very devout member of the Covid cult. She did NOT oppose the politicized hypochondria from the start.
I will admit to being a Covid cult person early in the pandemic because I'm a health care provider. I had confidence in the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics and that cute little Dr. Fauci. But then, as if coming out of a fever dream, I realized that Covid is probably a man-made disease bought and paid for by unknowing American taxpayers, and that closing churches and schools was an unnecessary assault on our freedoms and well-being. I was trusting and a bit gullible, just like when I flop into a chair to watch a late-night talk show and realize that the world is completely and probably irretrievably changed, and that instead of being entertained I will be lectured. I hope I can be forgiven for my blindness early on, and I think the new podcast should be given a chance.
Thank you.
I'm glad you can learn and are not too proud to admit you were wrong.
I had had a very negative experience with pharmaceuticals years before Covid. This helped me understand what was going on as I would not have otherwise.
I hope Emily has also learned. I'm just pointing out that she was not always so.
Any chance we could read these columns instead of listening to them?!
My 35 year old son recently said parents have obligations to their children just as children have obligations to their parents, suggesting some equality. I told him the parent obligation was that they gave the child life. Nothing equates with that. All the instincts that follow or should follow are to support the offspring, but even if the parents fail, they have given life. Don’t underestimate that gift you have given. As the mother, you have been the very factory of life, with the means of sustenance beyound the act of birth. It is such a special role, a gift to the child but also a gift to you.
You now have multiple kids. You will see that they are not all alike; in fact, the next one fills the vacuum the first leaves. I mean, one will be calm and quiet, the next noisy and demanding. When you think you know what to expect, you find you are wrong. And I hope Emily says this is life and appreciate it. So my advice is don’t overthink things, do react, but remember to keep your authority position; if you don’t you never regain it. Oh yes, this is a hugely important job, for you, your family, and for everyone around you.
Parenting Guru 😂😂😂😂
I don’t have children. I think I came into this world not wanting kids. My maternal grandmother gave home birth to 13 babies in a two-bedroom house without running water in Virgil, S.D. Two babies died in infancy. Maybe I carried my grandmother's cell memory with me and didn’t feel the need to procreate.
But I’ve always been curious about the way some pregnant females and their mates act like they’re doing something nobody has ever done before. The world population is 8 BILLION. How did we all get here?
This discussion is not about you. It is about people that chose to have children - how they can raise successful happy children, and how to navigate the different advice they get. Nowhere in this article does anyone suggest that there are not people who quite rightly for them make a different choice.
Sometimes I feel like screaming or just yelling at the constant stream of "news" about how many children are afflicted or in some manner having mental issues. Starting at an ever younger age according to articles that are published each day. It seems like from the time you give birth you should find your self and your child a mental health counselor. I easily admit and state none of my medical training gave me expert or a degree of expertise in psychology in todays world. So I can be easily dismissed as a head in the sand and uniformed of the "all the Data". Also easily stated is the truth that the birth of my first child and subsequent multiple grandchildren have tuned out to be the sustaining power grid and joy that guides my life. Growing up in a large family and eventually gaining, after multiple missteps as to what I wanted to be, my professions of being a doctor does give me some in sight. All through school in the late fifties and early sixties I had no friends, family or colleagues that were seeking and needing psychological help. Now, I ,sadly admit , virtually I know no one who does not talk about this issue regarding their children or grandchildren or friends children and grandchildren. What has happened???? The list of culprits can be valid, simple, absurd and to me frightening because I do not have an answer. The endless list contains: Culture changes, nutrition, diets, too many medications, not enough good medications given appropriately, religion, lack of religion, Vaccines, war, politics, poor teaching, too much pressure, bad parenting, drugs, cell phones, social media, porn, and of course racism and intolerance. Perhaps overly simple but I wish our children could just slow down and not be so incredible inundated with a jillion sound bites and images each day. So much of what they see and hear is virtually seconds long and often gone or outdated within days. They mimic and admire the celebrities on the various social medias. Lastly and somewhat tragically to me is what they focus on as important to their lives and that they think their problems are not their fault and SOMEBODY IS RESPONSIBLE and should help them and correct them!
Sometimes the war on men is quite irritating. You know – those men who literally built everything in the entire world and maintain it. But given men's importance, it all fades away in the face of the only job on the planet that really matters, and that is the one almost always done by women: raising the next generation. So looking forward to this series..
Referencing a war on men is a silly rebuttal to this article, which cannot reasonably be understood to be relevant to any such putative conflict.
It is not a rebuttal. Read it again - this time for content. Let me know if I need to explain it to you.
I was being kind in assuming you were trying to somehow be germane to the topic. My bad.
Your are correct. Your bad.
My goodness, back in 1978 my wife (okay, spouse, for those of you who have no discernable gender) and I attended Red Cross baby classes, Bradley delivery method classes, had the baby on the 12th of August, read a little of Spock, and the baby grew up so fast, played soccer and softball, became a competition swimmer, a "surfer girl," I was so proud. My wife was wonderful, the world was wonderful, a nod to Joel Grey. What's happened to you kids? Oh, yeah, the Grey quote is from "Cabaret," a musical about early 1930s German society falling into decadence. Ah, there's the connection. I apologize for being a downer on the article, it's just my mood nowadays. We actually did think having a baby, nuthin' to it.
Emily Oster doesn't know that men cannot get pregnant. Is someone seriously expecting sane advice or rigor in thinking from such a confused person?
Yeah, I was just looking on Twitter (X), and saw this:
" a number of people wrote to tell me that they would feel more included in the community if I used pregnant people, because they identified differently. I thought it seemed non-controversial."
Really?
I hate that! Pregnant people indeed. Men can’t get pregnant. End of story.
One issue that TFP consistently skirts around is the side effects of the number of vaccines our children are now required to have, 72 vaccines, starting at birth. Fortunately, more and more doctors and even pediatricians are acknowledging the side-effects that are occurring, the sometimes chronic illness that occurs over time after vaccination, and then the debilitating side effects that occur as more shots are administered. Pediatricians receive "bonuses" based on the percentage of vaccinations given, particularly before age 2. So if 30% of a practice's patients are vaccinated, payouts are given for each patient; 50% even more, 100% and bingo! Payday. With a large practice, these payouts can and do amount to a million dollars or more. The source can be traced to pharmaceutical influence in all aspects of "health care."
I am astonished at the "it didn't happen to my kid, so therefore it must not happen" and the gaslighting of the tens of thousands of moms who have had to stand by and watch their children suffer. It's hard to do any research beyond the media censorship (75% of media's advertising budget is derived from pharmeusectical advertising $$$$)
Start here: National Safety Information Center:
https://www.nvic.org/vaccination-decisions/know-the-risks
I am a believer in vaccines. However, the number of vaccines administered so rapidly to newborns could have side effects.
Could. That does not make me a monster.
This is true. They keep piling on the vaccines and parents are made to feel that they are irresponsible if they don’t go along. Most vaccines are now required for a child to be allowed to go to school. We simply don’t know how this is affecting the health of children. When these children grow to be adults and have health issues, doctors will be unwilling and probably unable to trace this back to getting so many vaccines. Note that even with (because of?) all these vaccines, new illnesses keep popping up.The government telling parents that they should be giving their children covid vaccines is another example of the government, pharmaceutical companies and doctors working together to get parents to conform with no testing having been done. Vaccines that prevent the most serious illnesses like polio should be given. Delay giving vaccines as long as possible so that the child’s own immune system has a chsnce to develop. Use common sense.
The medical field is being very irresponsible. Remember when they told us that fat was bad? This was wrong. Our bodies need fat. Remember when they told us not to give babies peanut butter? The result was more peanut allergies. People should not simply go to the “experts”. Their track record has been spotty at best. This psychology has created great anxiety in parents that is transferred to their children. The natural instincts of mothers have been driven out by this intellectualization of everything. Our bodies are complex, so be as natural as possible in raising children and give lots of love. That is the best medicine for children.