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Are the Kids Alright? · Mom Wars

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: From the front lines of the mom Wars. Here's Bethany
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Mandel and Kara Kennedy.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to another episode of your favorite podcast.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: My name is Bethany Mandel, and I'm not joined by
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: my co host, but she assures me, Kara Kennedy, now
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Mom of two, that she's coming back, and she's coming
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: back soon. We just have to find a time to talk.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: But I am joined this week by Emily Elkins, who
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: is Vice president and director of Polling at the Cato Institute,
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: and we are going to talk about some really interesting polling.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: I know those two words never really go together, but
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: I promise you it's so interesting that when I sat
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: through a briefing of this polling data recently at an
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: event that we were at together and Emily presented, I immediately
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: emailed her and said, I want to have you on
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: my podcast because I want to have a conversation about
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: all of these incredible and really depressing numbers. You guys
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: should really buckle up. But super informative, super interesting, And
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: it's exactly why I started this podcast, because I wanted
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: platform to be able to have these higher level conversations
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: about parenting and about motherhood. Emily, Thank you so much
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: for joining me.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Absolutely great to be here.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: So tell me, I don't want to misattribute. So you
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: did this polling in conjunction with anyone? Like what sort
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: of drove you to do this polling?
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: Oh? Okay, Well, to be clear, a lot of this
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: data that I presented at the briefing that we were
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: at comes from a wide variety of sources, including government
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: surveys and things from the CDC and so forth. So
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: it's from a whole source, a whole variety of sources.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: But what they have in common is they're trying to
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: understand the most important trends among young people in America today.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: If I were to describe this polling data in one word,
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: I think it would be depressing.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Yes, I think.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: I started the briefing by saying, you know who thinks
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: the numbers are going to be positive? You know how
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: many people think it's going to be negative? And then
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: you know kind of people thinking like, oh, actually, maybe
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: it will be more uplifting than I thought, and it's like, no, actually,
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry, he's not going to bet up.
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: Life even worse than you thought.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: So I was having a very interesting eye message debate
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: with one of my children last night, actually he doesn't
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: want to be religious when he grows up, and so
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: we were having this actually very good debate. He's a
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: very good debater. I don't know where he gets that from.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: And I think some of the most convincing I don't know,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: not information, but like points to make to someone like
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: him is we have a beautiful life, and we have
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: a beautiful life because we are religious, because we are
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: in this faith community. And what out of your data
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: can I extrapolate and text to my son about why
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: he should be religious when he grows up.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: Well, if we're just going to talk about the data,
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: I think the data shows or tells a very compelling
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: story out the protective effects that religion is providing young
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: people in America today. In the briefing, a lot of
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: the data I went over showed a dramatic rise and
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: loneliness and mental health problems that young people are facing,
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: like anxiety, depression, as well as other things like ADHD,
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: bipolar and so forth. And you know, these really started
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: to increase dramatic. I mean they've been increasing for decades.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: It's not just social media's fault for those that are
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: thinking that, but there.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Is so bad to me, he said, I wasn't planning
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: on putting my kids on Instagram at six.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Oh right, Well, but there was, but there was a.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: Hockey stick effect, meaning like if you look around the
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: time that there was widespread adoption of screens, there has
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: been a dramatic rise in a lot of these problems.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: So they were rising, but it accelerated these trends. But
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: there's some groups that have been less effective than others,
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: and some really interesting data that was publish actually by
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: Zach Rausch. He's the researcher working with Jonathan Hye. He
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: published this in the Boston Globe and the results showed
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: broke down four.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Different groups of young people.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: They broke them down by liberals and conservatives and secular
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: versus religious, and looks at them over time and the
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: percentage of them that have really negative feelings about themselves,
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: so for instance like I'm no good at all, or
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: other things that psychologists will measure will use to kind
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: of measure how people are feeling about themselves.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: And since twenty twelve.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: There's just then this steep increase in the number of
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: secular liberals who feel these very depressive symptoms over time,
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: the group right after them were secular conservatives, meaning their
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: trend wasn't as significant, but it also went up. And
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: then after them were religious liberals. And then there was
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: one group that did not have a drama increase in
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: mental health problems that they were dealing with, and those
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: were that group were religious conservatives, so young religious conservatives.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: And so you know, as you know Jonathan Hinen's researcher,
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: they personally, I believe, you know, are not religious.
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: Like they said this and he says it.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so he's not saying this because he's trying to
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: persuade people to join like his particular religious denomination. And
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: the way they have framed it is that religion seems
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: to be offering protective effects for young people from these trends.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: And so the allegory or whatever he'll use is he'll
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: say that when the rains of social media came down,
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: many of the kids were washed away, but the kids
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: that had this religious grounding were less affected. And you know,
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: there is a story he is making a reference to,
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: and that's about the wise men and the foolish man,
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: the rock versus the sand. When the rains came down,
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: the rains will wash one away if they're not firmly
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: grounded on something that can give them stability in their lives.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: And that's what that's the point he is personally trying
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: to make. And so I thought this data was fascinating.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: So some people say, well, this really demonstrates the power
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: that community has in helping young people stay grounded, whether
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: that's you know, OSK or church or you know, synagogue
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: or whatever it is that's giving them a youth group
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: and a community to stay attached to.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: And I think that that's definitely part of it.
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: But we found data that suggested that it goes further
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: than that, and that actually something a bit more spiritual
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: may also be at work here too. We found that
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: young people who said they felt highly connected to a
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: higher power were significantly more likely to be flourished to
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: say that they were flourishing in their lives compared to
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: those who felt like they were not at all connected
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: to a higher power in their life. So I think
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: there's two things. It's community and it's a relationship with
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: a higher power, and those two things seem to be
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: offering a protective effect for our nation's young people and
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: globally obviously.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it makes logical sense. And that was,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: you know, stuff that I was saying to him. You know,
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: we have a beautiful thing here that you don't know
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: is not normal. And I said that to him, that
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: our lives are not normal, and you don't understand how
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: abnormal our lives are the fact that we you know,
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: I got in like a very minor car accident when
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: I was pregnant with my sixth baby, and we had
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: neighbors run into our house finish giving our kids a
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: bath because the car acci going to happen right outside
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: my house. We had neighbors run inside finish bathing our children.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: Different neighbors came and stayed with them, and then another
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: set of neighbors, a third set of neighbors came to
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: do a shift, and then we had people bringing us
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: meals for the next couple days after I got out
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: of the hospital after that car acidit, And then three
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: weeks later when I had the baby, we had three
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: more weeks of meals coming every other night. And I said,
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: that's not normal. And if that had happened and we
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: were not in this religious community, we would have had
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: no one to help us. We have this community because
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: we have the synagogue. And he's a very logical thinker.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: He's a very black and white thinker, and I think
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: that's why he's not, you know, feeling the faith. And
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: I can feel that I understand that completely and we
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: have very similar mindsets. But I said, think about it logically,
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: do you want to raise your kids in a similar
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: way that you are being raised? And thankfully he said yes,
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: and he would tell me if he didn't feel that way,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: because he.
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: Shares his opinions freely.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: And I said, well, this is this is really the
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: only way to do it. You're not going to have
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: this sense of community without religion, without having a home
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: base to have, you know, a synagogue to have if
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: you wanted to send your kids to school, we personally homeschool,
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: but even homeschooling, we still have this really tight knit
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: community that's really beautiful. So I thought that that was
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: a really interesting component of everything you had put together.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: But there's so much more here. I mean, this is
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: fifty pages of data. What to you kind of if
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: you were to pick up the most troubling aspect of
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: like the kids are not all right? Because like every
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: generation things, the kids are not all right. I think
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: that we're actually in a pretty good position to say, no,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: this is a true inflection point that we're at. What
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: of this data would you kind of point to to say, like,
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: this is not us being hysterical, karens like there is
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: something deeply wrong and deeply amiss here. What would you
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: point to within your data to sort of buttress your argument?
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: Okay, so I would say kind of two things. There's
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: lots in here, but I want to kind of get
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: to the big picture. So the thing that I think
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: is most tangibly and clearly concerning is the rise in
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: mental health struggles that young people have. And let's sort
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: out all the criticisms that we often hear, which is like, well,
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: maybe this is better diagnosis, maybe that the problems are
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: the same, but that people are getting more help, better help,
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: better treatment. Okay, there is some truth there, I'm sure
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: of it. But also it goes beyond diagnoses. And here's
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: how we got one is that in surveys, we'll ask
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: people about symptoms, and those symptoms reveal differences over time
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: and specifically between say liberals and conservatives, or women and men.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: Right now, if you look at young people, so like
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: young people have more symptoms they have more struggles with
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: anxiety and depression than older people, women more than men,
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: white women more than black, Hispanic and Asian women, and
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: then liberal white women more than conservative white women. You
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: can kind of see how it goes down. These are
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: the symptoms they're reporting in a given week. Okay, so
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: that's one thing, is the symptoms. The second is hospitalizations
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: for self harm attempted self harm, so this could be
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: you know, attempted suicide or just some sort of self harm.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: Those have risen that and dramatically, And to me, that
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: was the first data point that I learned about that
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: made me take this seriously because I too thought, well,
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: maybe you know, so many more people will go. There
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: used to be a stigma around mental health. There isn't
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: as much now, so maybe people are just going more
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: often and that would result in more diagnoses. But it's
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: more than that, because more people are trying to hurt themselves.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: And so this made me take the data seriously, so
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: that I think is a real trend and very concerning.
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: But I'm going to zoom out to the other thing
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: that I found really concerning. This is about this concept
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: of personal agency and in the psychological literature, it's called
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: the locus of control. And the idea of the locus
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: of control is is, how do people explain the events
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: in their lives?
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Do they explore Do they explain.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: Them as being the consequences of their choices or random
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: spontaneous events that happened to them?
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Now, what's the reality? Both both are true.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: Things happened to you that you had no control over,
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: and you also made choices that influenced your outcomes. Now
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: the question, though, is what do you emphasize. Like if
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: your son got a bad grade on a test and
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: he says well, and you say, well, why why didn't
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: that go the way you wanted? And he's like, well,
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: my teacher's not very good teacher. Well, you know you
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: didn't give me a quiet place to study, that would
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: be in it. Those would be external locus of control reasons.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: But if he said, you know, mom, honestly, I just
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: didn't study hard enough, or I was chit chatting with
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: my friend during class and I didn't hear the teacher,
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: those would be categorized as internal locals of control. Because
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: those latter things your son could control. He could study better,
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: he could listen up better next time, Right, he has
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: some agency in it. The other is it's your fault
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: or it's the teachers fault. Okay, So this has been
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: long studied in psychology, and what's very very evident is
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: that people who have a more internal locus of control,
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: meaning they have a greater sense of personal agency, have
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: much better outcomes on a wide variety of things like
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: health outcomes, marital outcomes. They make more money, they have
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: better grades, they're happier in their marriages, all these so
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: many things.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: They're less likely to get in fights at school, all
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: this sort of thing.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: Okay, what's going on with young people today is that
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: we have seen a shift towards an external locus of control.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: So Gene Twangy, a very.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: Respect well respected and well known researcher in this field,
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: has analyzed the data going back to the nineteen seventies
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: and she's looked at each cohort of entering.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: I think it's freshmen or college seniors.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Might be freshmen, and they ask them the same questions
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: as they d college year after year after year.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: So these are not the same people.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: These are different people, but they're always the same age
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: year after year after year. And if you see the
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: graph that I presented in the briefing. Just imagine a
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: line going up and year after year, these students are
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: answering the same questions differently, they're saying that more and
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: more in their lives are outside of their control. To me,
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: this is the greatest concern because people that have.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: An external locus of control, as we know, have like
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: suboptimal outcomes.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: Right, we want them to have better lives, and this
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: is putting them on a path for as not a
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: grade of a life, and also bad public policy. People
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: with external locus of control tend to resort to public
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: policies are suboptimal in my view, and so these trends
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: are suggesting younger people are going to support policies that
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: are in the long run not going to actually promote flourishing. Hi.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: I'm Ben Sass and I'm Chris Steierwaldt. And this is
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: not dead yet.
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: We're all dying, but some of us have been brought
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: face to face with that reality.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: However long each of us have to do it though.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: We all want to live a good life, one with meaning,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: love and joy, and our guests are.
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: Here to help us do exactly that. Now available for
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: download and streaming at Ricochet dot com Ricochet, Yeah, join
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: the conversation.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: So, I mean, I see so much of that in
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: the spread of conservative versus liberal because a lot of people,
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: you know, when I was when I was dating, I
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: made a rule after I broke up with my with
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: my college boyfriend, I said I'm never dating another liberal.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: And people were kind of like, what does it matter, Like,
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: who cares if your next boyfriend is liberal? And I said,
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: it's a completely different way of thinking about the world.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: It's not just who you vote for, it's it is
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: the core of how the glasses that you see the world.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: And I see this locus of control as so much
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: of that because we as conservatives say you need to
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: take some personal responsibility, and I see through and I'm
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: interested to your perspective on this. I see a lot
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: of this like sort of gentle parenting trending that's happening
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: in the conservative movement. Also, Oh really, yeah, I see
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: so many conservatives who are like, tell me your feelings,
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: and I am of the mind I don't care what
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: your feelings are. That was not okay and it was
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: not appropriate, and I don't care why you did that,
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: but you need to take responsibility for your actions. And
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: you need to correct. And I think that that is
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: the right way to parent. It's why I do it,
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: It's why I was raised. It's how I was raised
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: by a liberal mom. Weirdly enough, but I see so
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: much of this problem originating in the toddler years and
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: it and it goes out. And if you look at
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: the data of you know, teenagers who are having these
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: issues with the locus of control onto you know, people
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: of our demographic, you know, thirties, forties, even maybe even fifties.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: But I don't think so. I think it's really thirties
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: and forties. We were not told enough that we need
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: to take some personal responsibility and you know, make the
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: best of a situation and you know, make different choices,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: make better choices instead. You know, when you leave your
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: lunch at home instead of going hungry that day, there
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: was an entire generation of parents that ran to the school.
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: To bring lunch.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Sorry, natural consequences. Yeah, and I see a lot of
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: hate natural I hate gentle parenting. I think it is
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: I think it is the death of us as a civilization.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: What are your thoughts, Well.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: I definitely have my opinions on gentle parenting. It kind
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: of goes outside of my expertise on polling, but I
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: will just as a person tell you. I actually had
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: a conversation about this with probably a mutual friend of ours,
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: perhaps on this very topic, and I complain to her
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: about gentle parenting all the time because I just think
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: it is so harmful and unfortunately, who doesn't like being gentle?
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: You know, it sounds so good, So it sounds mean, right,
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: sounds mean, But no, I mean, if you really am
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: I personal this is my personal capacity, personal opinion. If
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: you really love your kids, then you want them to
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: you want them to thrive and have a good life.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: And the way you do that is prepare them properly.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: And so that means they need to understand how their
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: choices are correlated with consequences. And if their whole life
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: they're always being shielded from the consequences of their decisions,
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: at some point you won't be at the parent, won't
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: be there to solve the problem, and they're going to
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: have a really bad wake up call at the wrong time.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: And I have a perfect example. Years ago, I had
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: a research associate. He was really good actually, but somehow
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: it came out what his GPA was and I've got
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: to say, I probably wouldn't have hired him if I'd
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: known what.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: His GPA was. So this was I wasn't involved in
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: hiring him at this time. It was not good. And
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: I asked him, I.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: Said, what happened? You're you're very competent and you're smart,
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: like what happened? And he said he'd never been allowed
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: to fail before. And he gets to college and he
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: finally found out what it was like to fail. But
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: he took personal responsibility for it too. He wasn't just
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: blaming his parents. He's like, you know, so I learned now,
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: and he actually.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Did a great job.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: But I just thought, my gosh, you'd rather learn those
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: lessons when you're young than when your college transcript has
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: like forever cemented.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: You know, your first failure in school, so you know,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: starting young.
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think lots of parenting books like say
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: Love and Logic and other things, that's their whole idea
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: is let kids learn the consequences of their action shows
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: while the steaks are low.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and that's I think the death of the
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: larger families. You, by the way, are a mother of three.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: I'm a mother of six. You can't gentle parent more
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: than two children, I think point I can't. So the
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: son who says he doesn't want to be religious, he
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: has decided that he wants.
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: Sausage every morning for breakfast.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: And so I tell him, at eleven years old, you
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: can fry that sausage by yourself, because I don't have
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: enough arms and hands to do that for you while
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: I'm pouring cereal and all of these things for your
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: younger siblings. And so he's at eleven years old with
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: hot oil, frying sausage for himself. And that's just that's
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: what you have to do. You're on your own, and
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: I think that that is really important. And they face
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: a lot more natural consequences because I'm not your backup.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: If you forgot your lunch, too bad for you, I
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: don't have time. I don't have time to bring you.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: And you know, I actually think it instills happiness and
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: meaning when when kids feel like they they have some
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: sort of control over what they're doing here. So, like
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: my son wanted me to make a certain brand of
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: pancakes and I was already making another brand, and like,
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: I'm not making two sets of pancakes. And I said,
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: but he's eight I said, if you want, you could
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: make him yourself, and like I'll help a little bit,
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: like as needed, but like you can make it yourself.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: And he did and he was ecstatic and he still
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: talks about it to this day, like I can make
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: my own pancakes now. And you know Jonathan Hyde actually
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: has talked about this as well. Is that as you
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: give kids more autonomy and independence, that actually gives them
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: self confidence. Like telling kids they're so great, that doesn't
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: give them the confidence. It's them actually accomplishing something. Is
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: what gives them that sense of self esteem is that
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: because he did something, and so giving them more opportunities
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: to do that instead of us doing it for them,
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: I think is crucial for their for their development. And
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: what you're talking about at the micro level, the toddler level,
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: telling kids like there's always an excuse for why something happened,
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: rather than saying, well, what different choices could you make
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: to improve the situation. That's why when they get to
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: college each year higher and higher rates of external locals
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: and control being identified makes sense.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: So what I think what struck me the most, and
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: this is kind of a funny thing to say, probably
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: especially as a conservative, the thing that worried me was
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: the teen sexual activity. Weirdly enough, they are not having sex,
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: and they're not i mean not having babies. That's a
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: good thing. They're not they're not dating and they're not partying.
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: I was not that.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Teenager, So I think that there's a middle ground because
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: what I did in my teens. But they just it's
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: it's funny because my kids homeschool and and a lot
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: of people say, you know, why don't you send your
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: kids to school just for the social And if you
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: tour a school during lunch, it's dead silent because they're
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: all on their phones during lunch. What social are my
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: kids missing out on them? Because it's all happening on
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: the internet.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: Yes, I mean we've seen, we've it's been measured in
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: so many different ways. But the story is the same,
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: and the story is, you know, some of these trends
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: are positive in that teenage sexual activity is declined, to
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: the teen birthrate has declined, cigarette use has gone down,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: alcohol use among teens.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna say it louder, that's sad.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Well, the reason they were and.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: A cigarette and make out with your boyfriend at seventeen, guys.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Well, it's because they're partying less.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: They're too busy, they're too busy with TikTok, they're too
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: busy doing that stuff then to get together with in
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: person friends. But the thing is is we as humans,
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: we need each other. We need to have in person
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: contented with each other, and if we don't, we get sad.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: And you can see it in.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: The data right as all of those trends have gone down,
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: which again, you know, I didn't do those things that
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: I thought it was fine. You know, I had a
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: great time. I had lots of friends. It's not like
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: it's necessary, But at the same time, it's the reason why.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the reason why.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: And I spent a lot of time with my friends,
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: and those were very formative years. You learn so much
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: being with other people, and so that's why young people
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: are more lonely than they've ever been. And if you
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: look at the number of minutes they're spending with their friends,
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: if you can just imagine a chart, it's just imagine
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: like a steep downward line.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: They're just going way down.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: So when we were when we were young in high school,
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: we probably spent about two and a half I'm looking
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: at the data now on average, you and I spent
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: about two and a half hours a day with friends.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: This year, they're spending maybe forty minutes with friends. That's
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: a dramatic decline.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: So me meanwhile, I have the numbers up right now
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: from the CDC Ages eight to ten are spending six
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: hours a day on a screen. It goes up to
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: nine hours a day between eleven and fourteen, and then
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: eighteen plus it's eleven hours a day. How is that
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: there that much time in the day if they're.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: At school because they're not paying attention.
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: And you know what, I'm so glad you mentioned that
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: because that helps us understand why there's declining test scores.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: You know, we're pouring millions.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: And million, you know, maybe almost a trillion dollars into
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: education in the country overall. If you total everything up,
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: and yet our test scores are going down?
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: How is this happening? But this is actually something important
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: to mention.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: It's there is an unequal impact, meaning that kids that
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: are at the highest level of you know, the ones
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: that are getting like straight a's, you know, ninety nine
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: percent tile on their tests, there hasn't been as big
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: of a change there.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: And I think it's because parents are putting.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: Limits on what their kids are doing. But what we're
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: seeing is those are the twenty fifth and tenth percentiles
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: of these standardized test scores. So if you're looking at
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: NAPE scores, those are that's a good type of test
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: to look at because they're the same across states, and
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: so states that are lowering their standards, which they absolutely are,
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: can't be covered up if you use NAPE as much,
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: because you can you can compare across states and math
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: and reading they're both going down, but reading the most.
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: And we have seen this in dumb down SAT questions
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: where there what is it like forty characters for reading contention.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: I So, I was talking about the set with my
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: oldest daughter and I sent her sample question she's twelve, okay.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: I sent her six sample questions from Princeton Review. My
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: twelve year old got four of the six correct. That's
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: not okay. If this test is supposed to be administered
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: to sixteen and seventeen year old, a twelve year old
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: should not be getting four out of the six correct.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Yes. Well, maybe it's because you're homeschooling too.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: That helps, right, But I mean there was a viral
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: video that went around of a young woman. I think
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: she was probably seventeen. Did you see this video or
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: she was given a she was given an index card
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: and she was asked to just read it out loud,
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: and it was really chilling. This young woman was practically
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: practically illiterate. The index card said card said she wore
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: a silhouette of clothes that were extraordinary. But somehow ghosh
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: and ghosh, I can understand that's a hard word. But
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: she couldn't read that out loud. And she was a
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: seventeen year old. This it is such a crime against
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: someone to put them in a position where they are
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: illiterate because they can't interact with the word world around them.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: And this is where my tinfoil hat comes on. They're
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: not able to valuate the world around them. They're not
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: able to make educated decisions. Maybe that's maybe that's a
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: feature in Not a Bug. Maybe that was the point
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: of all of this, is that we're trying to create
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: an illiterate population of people who can't make up their minds,
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: They can't make decisions, and so they just kind of
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: go with what the.
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: I don't think that there's like.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Some magical puppet master here. I'm Jewish, So I'm out
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: of people to blame because everyone else would just blame
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: the news. But there's not like this secret puppet whatever.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: But I think that there's a lack of concern about
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: this issue because they're like, is that the worst thing
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: in the world? If all these people are dumb?
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: Maybe not.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm certainly concerned, and I think we all should
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: be concerned because we all can vote, and we really
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: want our fellow Americans to understand did you really understand
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: the policies and the candidates they're voting for?
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: So they need to be able to understand.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: What's at stake, And so I think that there's very
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: good reason to be concerned about the effects of I mean,
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: I think it's many people believe, and I think it's
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: pretty clear that when you're spending eleven hours a day
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: on a phone, that absolutely has a trade off.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: What are you not doing? What are you not learning
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: at school? Are you not.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: Spending time with ends, Are you're not spending time with
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: your family your grandparents? Are you getting in touch with
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: your roots? Like I think that you know, little things
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: like that sometimes are forgotten and overlooked, like the importance
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: of being connected, like with your grandparents or your family,
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: and how that can help and affect mental health when
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: you feel like a sense of rootedness and who you
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: are and where you came from. Now, little things like
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: that you don't have time for if you're spending that
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: much time on social media or on or video, on
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: video games, or just on a screen. And I think
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: that there's been a wake up call. A lot of
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: parents are saying we all need to do this together.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: We need to limit how much time our kids are
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: spending on phones, and we need to give them others.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: We need to give them the time to be creative
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: and come up with other things to do.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: So that was a wonderful segue, Thank you very much
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: to my next question that you didn't know, which is,
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: you know, we have a lot of educated parents listening
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: to this show, and I don't want my kids to
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: turn out like the vast majority of their generation. So
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: what prescriptions would you give to parents to prevent their
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: kids from coming one of these awful members of these
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: data sets.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's such a good question.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: So this is where we're kind of moving outside of
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: the of the data realm that I have, and this
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: is more into the why don't we ya, but you
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: can extrapolate, like, yeah, you know, what I would say
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: is let young people have a job, don't give them everything,
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: don't give them everything they need, let them work for it,
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: and at age appropriate times, which are probably younger than
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: you think, give them more opportunities for responsibility. And the
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: only kids are going to do that are the ones
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: that have to because their parents didn't give them everything
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: they need. So down the street from our house, uh,
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: there's actually a family, cute, little cute family, five kids.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: Their dad I think is the CEO of some company,
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: but they do not give their kids everything. And so
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: their son gives my son sports lessons once a week.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: He's like teaching him how to throw football because we
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: were struggling with that. And he also comes and mows
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: are lawn and he we just like pay him every
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: week and he's so eager to do it because he
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: wants to go on this soccer tour to Europe.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: He's really into soccer.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: He loves soccer, and his parents have had him pay
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: for each thing, Like he has this really great soccer
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: net in his backyard where he can practice. His parents
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: had him save up and buy that. He's going to
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: Europe with a soccer team. But he can only go
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: if he saves up the money and can and pay
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: his own way. I mean, his dad's see of a company,
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: like they can afford this, but they're choosing not to
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: give him that money and let him work for it.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: And he is awesome.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: Honestly, this kid is spectacular, and I just I look
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: at him and I say, you're going to be so
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: successful because you're you're learning how to work at a
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: young age. You're learning how actions and consequences are connected.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: And he's also like a good kid trying to do good. Yeah.
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: So I thought of that, and I thought, you know,
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: more of that I think is really really valuable. The
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: only kids are going to do that, though, is if
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: the parents make it a requirement.
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: Essentially, I'm Greg Corumbus joined Jim Garrity of National Review
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: and me each weekday for the Three Martini Lunch Podcast.
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: We'll give you the good, bad, and crazy news of
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: the day and lots of labs too. Find us right
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: here on the Ricochet Audio Network at ricochet dot com
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: or wherever you get your podcasts.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: I found that in college. My parents died when I
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: was sixteen and nineteen years old. So I was worphan
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: through college and I had to pay for a lot
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: of these credit hours out of the very little money
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: that I was left only by my mother. And I
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: remember there was a class where the professor just decided
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: to cancel and it was because he wanted to protest
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: something and so he thought we should all have the
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: opportunity to protest. And he announced this in class, and
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: I on my phone, am my calculator calculated the amount
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: of credit, like how much it costs per credit hour,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: and then number of class sessions. And I raised my
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: hand and I said, will you be providing me with
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: a refund? This class is worth four hundred and fifty dollars.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: That's how much this class costs. Are you going to
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: be paying me because you've decided not to provide the
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: service that I've contracted you for. And he was like
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry what? And everyone around me was furious because
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: they were like, girl, he's canceling class. You don't have
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: to go to the protest.
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: Just shut up.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: And I was like, you know, I paid for this.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: This is a service that I have paid for, not
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: my parents, not the federal government. I have paid for this.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: And I want my money's worth. And no one else
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: in the class felt that way because their parents paid
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: for it, or they had scholarships or whatever, and so
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: I don't mean, yeah, money didn't mean anything to them.
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: Money meant a lot to me.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: And so I unsuccessfully man in a refund and then
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: I spent the rest of that class fighting for every
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: single grade because then he hated me.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: But our year.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: Well, isn't that interesting how decision making is different when
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: you were really when you were faced with the consequences
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: of your decisions, like you were very thoughtful about Like
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: money goes in I'm getting a service.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm not getting a service for the money. I see.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: And if more of those students.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: Had had a similar approach to the money that went
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: into college and what they were expecting to receive from.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: It, there might be less time to protest.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: Maybe there's more time to learn. Ess just when you're young, right,
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: you had this is the time to learn. Time to
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: protest is at another time, maybe after you's learned more.
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: I know that's very daring to say that, but.
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: My kids also see I see it.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: You know, they have their piggy banks of money, and
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: they earn money by doing different things, and my kids
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: asked for peachy baby slime and I said, sure, you
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: can pay for it. And my daughter looked at how
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: much it was and she was like, that's an entire
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: day of waiting. And I was like, yeah, that's an
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: amazing that's an entire day of waiting. Is it worth
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: it to you to spend an entire day of waiting
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: to get a little container of peachy baby slime? And
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: she was like no. And I'm like, it's the same
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: amount of money. It's twenty dollars, But when it's my
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: twenty dollars, you're like, can I have it? But when
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: it's your twenty dollars, you're like, Ooh, that doesn't seem
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: worth it to me.
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: I love it and think how much better our public
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: policy debates would be if more people had that in mind.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: So when you think of it as your own money,
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: you're more thoughtful about how it's spent. When someone else's money,
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: you're not as thoughtful, And that is like, welcome to
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: public choice.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: I cannot, but you know, as I think about it,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: I actually have some data to back this up.
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: Some really fun data that I did a while ago
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: was where I asked people about how old a child
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: should be before they're allowed to say, cook dinner for
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: the family, babysit other siblings by themselves, or get a job,
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: little walk to school by themselves. And what was really
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: funny is that people that are more free market oriented
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: towards government one of their kids, they asked their kids
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: to take on those responsibilities at younger ages.
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: That's really interesting, and it.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: Was so correlated.
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: So like what you think about government and policy is
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: actually just to me an, outgrowth of like your kind
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: of your value system that you can see even in child.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Hearing, like how you read your kids.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: And I started asking just kind of anecdotally among some
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: of our you know, mutual friends, and so many people
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: had had a job at a younger age, and and
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: I thought about, like that, what.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Was that show Parks and Recreation with.
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: Rom Swanson, you know, talking about how he worked in
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: the factory at eleven And I'm like, Okay, obviously that's
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: too much, but that there is there's something to that.
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: I love it.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it makes it makes a lot of sense.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: And again it comes back to this personal responsibility thing.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: You are expected to take personal responsibility and the caricature
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: I think of conservatives is like, we all want our
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: kids in the minds at ten years ago, and you know,
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: do away with child labor laws.
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, yeah, but could we do away with
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: some child could we pull those back a little bit?
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: And the unions are like, no, you must never And
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: I'm like, well, maybe working at the pizza store at
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: fourteen would not be the worst thing in the world,
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: But my kids can't legally do that.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: They can't.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: That is perfectly fine, That is so perfectly fine. I
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: cannot believe that that's not allowed. Yeah, I actually don't.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: Is a different in different states? Yeah, okay, okay. I mean,
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: if you're up in Idaho, you've got like thirteen year
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: olds driving the tractors.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: So the problem is where I live. And this is like,
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: you know, red state versus Blue state the number. And
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: I've talked to the pizza store, like I'm not hypoth
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: like hypothesizing here. I've spoken to the guy who owns
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: the pizza store at length about when I can put
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: my kids to work in his store. He said the
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: regulations are so onerous for him to have someone in
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: their early teens that he won't do it because it's
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: just not worth it to him the value add and
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: also when you factor in minimum wage, He's like, a
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: fifteen year old is not worth it to me? The
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: number of hoops that I have to jump through in
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: the amount that I have to pay them because of
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: minimum wage, don't I don't see a value? And I'm like, well,
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: can I secretly like pass you the money back and
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: you pay them? And he's he's above board, and he says, no, no,
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: I can't. It's not worth it to me. And so
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: you know, the number of opportunities to kids also are
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: much smaller than they were when we were kids because
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: of all these regulations and because of minimum wage wage.
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: I have a much younger cousin and he was working
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: at McDonald's and after California passed that law, they dramatically
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: cut his hours down. And it was hard because he
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: was just like, how am I supposed to earn money
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: when they're cutting hours?
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: No, I mean this is this is all the unintended consequences.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: And you know, the road to the road to ruin
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: is paved with good intentions. That could be the motto
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: for where I live Montgomery County, Maryland. The road to
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: ruin is paved with their good intentions, because none of
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: it makes sense. Here's a perfect example. They banned single
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: use silverware. You can't buy plastic forks at Costco anymore.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: So yeah, oh go anywhere?
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: So we on our community chat because we have this
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: like very tight knit Jewish community, people were posting like,
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: where where are you getting your forks in your knives
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: if you can't get them in Montgomery County stores like
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: Costco because it's so cheap.
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: And the solution that.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: Made the most sense we all decided was to ship
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: them from costco dot com and you ship them to
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: your house, and so you go to the store for
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: all your other stuff, and then you increase your carbon whenever.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I see where you're going.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: By shipping this one product to your home. One product.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: And so the intention was, we're gonna save the earth
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: by making sure you can't have three thousand plastic spoons,
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: but we're just increasing our carbon emissions whatever it is.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: I think that's all nonsense anyway. But what if you
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: just leave people to make their own decisions. That idea
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: has never occurred to the lawmakers of this county, and
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: it makes it worse to live here as a result,
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: and it's all of these like little cuts that make
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: living here so frustrating. And you know, when we like
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: I moving to Florida, it's these things where it's like
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: we could just like live in a place where they're
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: not actively trying to annoy us every second of the day.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: When I lived in California and they ban the plastic
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: bags or no, they made it really difficult to get
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: plastic bags, they made it really diff ban them here.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, they're just outright banned them.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: We had to tell them, like how many bags you
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: needed before you needed them? And I'm like, well, however
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: many bags we use, I will pay for them. But
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: that's and they're like, no, you have to tell me beforehand,
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: and so what is you have to pay for them?
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: I had to walk home with not enough bags. The
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: bags break apart, and the eggs and the milk go
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: all over the cement in Los Angeles and there are
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: my groceries and I'm like, we.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: Did this for nothing, like this didn't actually help anybody.
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, And that's that's it.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: And you know, all of these policies they have accumulative effect.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: And you know, if you look at red state versus
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: blue state breakdown of who's having babies and who's having
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: more babies. Red states are having more babies. And I
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: think a lot of it is, you know, this philosophical
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: way of seeing the world and you know, taking initiative
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: and taking personal responsibility. But I think that there is
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: also something too. It's just easier in a lot of
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: small ways that really add up.
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you so.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: Much for coming on to have this conversation. This was
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: so interesting. Do you have plans to publish all of
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: this data? And if so, like where could people find it?
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Yes, there's just so much rich data.
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: Hear.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: There are plans to publish them. I don't know exactly
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: which outlet yet, but I will certainly let you.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: Know and we'll post it on our mom where social media,
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: We'll be sure to post it. Where can people follow
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: your work and the stuff that you're doing both at
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: CATO and then just sort of separately, because this was
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: a little bit of a freelance project for you, right.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: It was, Yeah, you can follow me on X.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: I think I'm on Instagram too, but X is where
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: I publish most of this kind of stuff, So it's
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: at Emily Eakins on X amazing.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Thank you so so much for coming on. This was
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: so interesting and exactly why I started this podcast, so
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: I could force people to come on and talk to
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: me about this, and you know, few thousand people listen
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: to it also, But really it's all about me. I'm
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: an only child, so let's just focus on what's important
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: and it's my entertainment.
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: So thank you so much, thank you for having me.
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: Thank you until next guy, Next time. Guys. Saddleite Ricochet
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: Joined the conversation