If, over the past few years, you heard it’s OK to drink wine and coffee (in moderation!) while pregnant—you’ve got Emily Oster to thank. You also might know her as the economist who had the guts to say what every parent was thinking during Covid: school lockdowns were going to harm children and that masking two year olds was foolish. She didn’t approach it with partisan rage; she’s an old-school liberal herself. She approached these topics as she approaches everything: calmly. And these days, she’s finally getting credit for being right.

Now Emily Oster is teaming up with The Free Press for a show that is catching fire. Introducing Raising Parents.

If, over the past few years, you heard it’s OK to drink wine and coffee (in moderation!) while pregnant—you’ve got Emily Oster to thank. You also might know her as the economist who had the guts to say what every parent was thinking during Covid: school lockdowns were going to harm children and that masking two year olds was foolish. She didn’t approach it with partisan rage; she’s an old-school liberal herself. She approached these topics as she approaches everything: calmly And these days, she’s finally getting credit for being right.

Now Emily Oster is teaming up with The Free Press for a show that is catching fire. Introducing Raising Parents.

Every day, Emily gets asked a lot of questions. Some of which are easy. Like will breastfeeding make my kid a superhero? (No.) Or, can I get botox while pregnant? (Yes.) Or, will sleep-training harm my baby forever? (No.) Or, are time-outs bad? (Yes and no.) Should I really feed my 6-month old baby peanuts and eggs? (Yes!)

But you know how they say little kids, little problems, big kids, big problems? It’s true. And it’s not just that they’re bigger. It’s that there are a lot more of them to worry about. The internet! The danger. The confusion, and...really, really important.

They are deep, difficult questions like: Are we too soft on kids these days? Why are so many teen girls unhappy and anxious, and how can we make them happy again? Why are boys being left behind? Is marriage important for raising kids? Should you even have kids at all?

These are the kinds of questions where the information we have is often imperfect, possibly misleading, and usually provides more questions than answers. They are also the kind of questions that might make parents nervous. Why? Because parenting—making choices about how to raise human beings—is perhaps the most high-stakes thing we do. That’s why everyone is so quick to judge, but then everyone has baggage—their own childhoods, their experiences, their biases—so what does it mean to think about how to raise kids with any of that.

They are also more urgent than ever. Because parents know: by many measures, kids are worse off today than 30 years ago. They are more anxious than ever. They’re more depressed. They have more diagnoses. They’re more medicated than before. More kids are being raised in homes without two income today. Fertility rates have dropped at an alarming rate. Kids and people are being asked to take on more and more, including the Covid pandemic. Childhood obesity has risen to 19.7%. And on top of everything, kids are grappling with unprecedented new stressors like screen time overload and social media.

How do we raise good people in this strange, new world? That’s what this show will tackle.