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Over the years, a cause for teen angst, suicide, etc., has reportedly been the media. But there is no definitive evidence to corroborate that. In fact, every recent generation has traditionally pointed to the media or some other cultural factor as damaging to youth. In the 1920s, it was the Charleston, and in the 1940s, the bogeyman was radio crime dramas. Then in the 1950s, it was shoot-em-up westerns on TV and the advent of rock ‘n roll. But at the end of the day, most kids grew up normally.
These days cell phones and social media are supposedly culpable, but scientists still don’t know to what extent they are responsible for the rising mental health issues among teenagers and whether it is the primary cause. Alexey Makarin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist, opines, “It seems to be the case — like it’s a big factor, but that’s still up for debate.”
What do we know?
A report from the CDC in February found that teen girls are experiencing “record high levels of violence, sadness, and suicide risk.” The data show that 57% of U.S. teen girls felt “persistently sad or hopeless in 2021—double that of boys, representing a nearly 60% increase and the highest level reported over the past decade.” About 30% had seriously attempted suicide. These numbers are dramatically higher than they were ten years ago.
Boys are suffering too. One of the main culprits for young males’ problems is the ongoing stress on so-called toxic masculinity, where feminists and the left take normal male behavior, exaggerate it, and then vilify it.
Toxic masculinity is a counterproductive term, to say the least. Boys are unlikely to react well to the idea that there is something toxic inside them that needs to be exorcised, especially as most of them identify quite strongly with their masculinity. Almost half of men said their sex was “extremely important” to their identity.
As Brookings Institution fellow Richard Reeves reports, “Half of American men and almost a third of women (30%) now think that society ‘punishes men just for acting like men,’ according to a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute.
Who specifically is behind the problems being experienced by the young?
While Covid-related social isolation certainly exacerbated girls’ problems, things were not good before we overreacted to the pandemic. Before Covid, the reason typically given was the advancement of social media, which cut back on personal bonding, but, as noted above, that is questionable.
With boys, it’s certainly institutional. In 2019, Scientific American posted an article entitled “How to Fight Toxic Masculinity,” and the American Psychological Association declared that “traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful.” In fact, the APA is front and center in the war on boys. Christopher Ferguson, a psychology professor at Florida’s Stetson University, writes that a few years ago, the APA released practice guidelines that state, “Conforming to traditional masculinity ideology has been shown to limit males’ psychological development, constrain their behavior, result in gender role strain and gender role conflict, and negatively influence mental health and physical health.” The guidelines also claim that “traditional masculinity leads to violence.”
Who else is behind our culture’s malevolent turn toward young people?
Many school districts have decided to take over the traditional role of parents, and this, I believe, is a very important factor in the alienation of the young.
The Escondido Union School District in California is all too typical. Under the current policy, “teachers must refer to students by their preferred pronouns or gender-specific names during school hours but revert to biological pronouns and legal names when speaking with parents.” And once a teacher learns of a child’s social transitioning, he or she has an obligation to ensure that parents do not discover this.
What a policy like this does is lead a child to live a double life, splitting allegiance between school and family. Not a recipe for happiness. It’s worth noting that Escondido is anything but a one-off. In fact, this cultural rot extends beyond blue states.
In Idaho, for example, Parents Defending Education submitted 14 public records requests to school districts requesting documentation and correspondence regarding the creation of these gender policies. PDE discovered that districts were working closely with the Idaho School Boards Association to “implement policies to deliberately withhold information from parents about the gender identity of their own children.”
In Montana, Missoula County Public Schools worked with a group called “IVALUE” to propose including “members of the LGBTQIA+ community” in “all future work around diversity, equity and inclusion.”
School counselors in Mississippi’s Tupelo Public School District shared guidance with each other that encourage staff to keep parents in the dark regarding the gender identity of their children.
Needless to say, the teachers unions have been leaders in promoting the chasm between parents and their children. The National Education Association and likeminded groups have released a guide that, among many things, suggests “schools effectively keep two sets of records for students who express interest in a transgender identity—one set that is used within the school setting, and a separate set provided to parents or other entities outside the school district.”
State governments also have a role in causing pernicious rifts in families by taking over the traditional role of moms and dads. California’s AB 1184, a bill cosponsored by Planned Parenthood, which became law in 2021, is a prime example. This atrocity “prohibits insurance companies from revealing to the policyholder the ‘sensitive services’ of anyone on their policy, including minor children (starting at age 12), even though the policy owner is financially responsible for the services.” The term “sensitive services” refers to all health care services related to mental or behavioral health, sexual and reproductive health, sexually transmitted infections, substance use disorder, gender affirming care, etc. The bill doesn’t detail the kindly sounding “gender affirming care,” but as defined by the University of California, San Francisco, it’s hormone therapy and a laundry list of surgeries including vaginectomy, scrotoplasty, voice modification, etc.
Also, California’s SB 107, which became law January 1, erodes parents’ rights by allowing minor children to travel to California for trans procedures. Citing the Protect Child Health Coalition, Katy Grimes explains, “Even more shocking is the law actually authorizes parental kidnapping (when a non-custodial parent illegally takes a child from the parent who has legal custody) if the purpose of the kidnapping is to subject the child to radical gender transition procedures.”
Washington State is no better. It passed SB 5599, which also allows the state to legally take children away from their parents if they don’t consent to their child’s gender transition surgeries.
At the end of the day, it is not the schools, the media or the APA who is in charge of children’s well-being. Parents must step up and reclaim their children. Homeschool if at all possible, or send your child to a private school that shares your values.
For parents who send their children to public schools, Congress passed H.R. 5 in late March. Among other things, the bill, which prevailed in a 213-208 vote, would give parents the right to inspect the books and other reading materials in the library of their child’s school. It would enable them to know if the school operates, sponsors, or facilitates athletic programs or activities that permit an individual whose biological sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designed for individuals whose biological sex is female. The bill also enables parents to know if their child’s school allows an individual whose biological sex is male to use restrooms or changing rooms designated for individuals whose biological sex is female.
Sadly, however, H.R. 5 seems to be dead in the water; chances are slim that it will make it through our divided Senate.
The good news is that as of mid-March, proposed parental rights legislation has emerged in some 32 states, up from 18 states in 2022, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In some states, legislators are considering two or more pieces of such legislation. It’s worth noting, however, that not all the laws are really pro-parent. Conservative legal scholar Joanna Martin, J.D., recently published an article titled “A Massive Transfer of Power Over Children from Parents to Governments,” in which she writes that SB 49, the bill passed by the North Carolina Senate, “…transfers power over children from parents to governments. Parents’ rights consist of the privilege of being notified of decisions made respecting their children by governments, and they are granted specific rights to challenge some of the findings.”
It’s a tough time to be a parent, as many busybodies, groomers, and evildoers are fighting for the control of America’s children. As such, parents, more than ever, must do what they can to maintain responsibility for their offspring. The “It Takes a Village” mentality hasn’t worked out too well.
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.
It’s more Cloward-Piven as obfuscation.
The real assault is demographic, across the Southern non-border.
All this simultaneously appearing outrageousness is diversionary.
You can fight back. Or call Berlitz and signup for Mandarin.
This is Cloward-Piven, but t’s not just ‘appearing’ or diversionary. It’s a very calculated mass line effort that been played out for a long time. This is their end-game on this effort. They’re pushing as hard as they can now because they’ve essentially won.
There’s already another (multiple) mass line efforts in play. They will take advantage of this as a diversion, but it’s not a diversion in reality. It’s just one of several efforts playing out at the same time.
Yes, we need to fight back and deal with this wreckage. We also need to fight the next fight and get a lot smarter about how we fight these mass line efforts, and the woke agenda overall
I don’t think it has anything to do with Cloward-Piven. Their idea was to put so many people on welfare that the system would collapse and the public would demand socialism to replace capitalism. This is more of a Paulo Freire plot. As I’ve posted elsewhere, he was a Brazilian communist who was a fan of Che and Mao who believed that teaching the standard academic curricula simply prepared students to replicate the existing “oppressive society.” Instead, he believed that students should be indoctrinated with “critical consciousness” and groomed to become activists and revolutionaries to overthrow the existing structures. His work was spread in the U.S. by an American-Canadian communist named Henry Giroux who spread it widely into U.S. teachers colleges. Freire’s “critical pedagogy” is now taught in virtually all U.S. teachers colleges. We see the results today in constantly declining proficiency test scores and no shortage of students with poor academic abilities who can spot “oppression” at several miles’ distance.
this would stop overnight if all parents would immediatly pull their children out of the schools and homeschool.
“but I can’t afford to homeschool!”
And you think you can afford to leave your babies in the hands of these psychotic perverts?
Wholeheartedly agreed, Ron! I don’t have children myself but if I would have them, I certainly would have them homeschooled. Public schools, colleges and universities have become centers of indoctrination, rather than education.
Una would like to invite you all to her church service tonight, where she will deliver the homily. Actually, attendance is mandatory, just as it was for the forced conversions in 8th century African countries falling under the sword of Islam. In this new church of the Authoritarian Totalitarians, you will be taught all the new ways to think, speak, and act.
sadly, many religious organizations are participating in this. they’ve been infiltrated and their clergy has been indoctrinated and then does so too.
It used to be just climate change rants. now its far more sinister.
Legislation that allows ” an eye for an eye” justice for the butchers that mutilate children, would drastically reduce the enthusiasm of the medical/surgical crowd.
Dear G-d, just go away.
The destruction of children is always and historically the plan of tyrants to destroy and “build back better.” If we cannot protect our children from men waiving their genitalia inches from their innocent faces, then we are without hope and future. Where is the instinct to love and protect in these mothers and fathers at drag queen story hour with their little children? They, too have been destroyed years earlier?
https://www.thethinkingconservative.com/marxists-seek-to-destabilize-american-society-through-sexualization-of-young-people-expert/
Sadly, in the picture above I also see seven mothers and, more surprisingly, two fathers.
You are assuming they are fathers because they look like males. You cannot assume either of those things any more. Nor can you assume that the women are “mothers.”
But you can assume they are present and most likely have a relationship with a young child there. That is enough to exercise some brave true speech and action and get the innocent away from the dangerous pervert. Children sense when they are “on their own” and must navigate life’s complexities solo.
Yes, the “fathers” surprised me. Assuming they are actual fathers. Usually I only see single pig mothers with their children at tranny strip shows.
The bearded lady has left the circus sideshow and has gone mainstream. I am in a state of constant puzzlement trying to figure out the mindset of these “mothers” and “fathers” who find exposing young children to this vulgarity is in some way beneficial. I have been fortunate enough to have not encountered any of these “parents” to ask them. In fact, if I found myself in their presence I would probably just walk away knowing it is futile to engage the mentally ill in a logical discussion.
In a sane society those parents who expose their children to this kind of filth get charge with child abuse.
The idea that drag queens are uniquely and eminently qualified to tell stories to small children is the height of lunacy.
Alexey Makarin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist, opines, “It seems to be the case — like it’s a big factor, but that’s still up for debate.”
Very good article but why was the opinion of an economist included? Amongst all the other from individuals in the mental health field?
True but be careful trusting the opinions of the recent mental health field. Training programs in mental health today teach that CRT indoctrination is the only necessary therapy no matter the issue brought in by the patient.
There is a small movement to try to push back against this and some scattered efforts to list non woke providers for those in need to choose from. In a time of national (actually it is world wide) emotional distress, the healers, too, have been poisoned.
Democrats/marxists twist and pervert everything — because satan is not a creator, only a destroyer.
Are you kidding? The media has been INSTRUMENTAL in corrupting the morality of the Western world and it started in the 20s with radio and silent movies. Combined with the suffrage movement, women cast off traditional Biblical roles, cutting their hair, shortening their skirts and smoking and drinking. For the first time in our nation, sexual immorality became cool.
It took the radical leftism of the 60s to blow everything to pieces. As Holltwood Censor Boards were dismantled, drugs, sex, profanity and rock and roll were glamorized, morally corrupting an entire generation of baby boomers. Add to that the idiotic women’s movement where girls are pressured into sports and careers, you have generations of women who are actually miserable.
But the worst of it all has been the Internet and cellphones. They say the average 12 year old has already seen p o r n online. Add to that horrific bullying thru texting, many kids are being emotionally destroyed. Instead of taking their kids to church, they’re sitting on bleachers at soccer and football games. These kids have no moral grounding.
I will tell you this. The children of evangelical Christians who are churched and homeschooled are NORMAL and HEALTHY. We know many of these types of families and their children are lovely. They watch little to no TV and their Internet usage is carefully guarded. But best of all, coming from intact, traditional marriages, their children are emotionally healthy.
The media has been INSTRUMENTAL in corrupting the morality of the Western world and it started in the 20s with radio and silent movies. Combined with the suffrage movement, women cast off traditional Biblical roles, cutting their hair, shortening their skirts and smoking and drinking. For the first time in our nation, sexual immorality became cool.
Radical leftism of the 60s to blew everything to pieces. As Hollywood Censor Boards were dismantled, drugs, sex, profanity and rock and roll were glamorized, morally corrupting an entire generation of baby boomers. Add to that the idiotic women’s movement where girls have been pressured into sports and careers, you have generations of women who are actually quite miserable.
But the worst of it all has been the Internet and cellphones. Exposed to p. O r n by age 12 , isn’t it obvious that kids under 18 don’t have the emotional maturity to handle it all?
I will tell you this. The children of evangelical Christians who are churched and homeschooled are NORMAL and HEALTHY. We know many of these types of families and their children are lovely. They watch little to no TV and their Internet usage is carefully guarded. But best of all, coming from intact, traditional marriages, their children are emotionally healthy.
Thanks for the informative article. The thing that you’re alluding to but not quite saying is that all this operational activity that is based on a strategy. It’s not coincidence – how could it be? What we’re seeing here is the end-game of this specific mass line effort. We have to deal with the wreckage, but rest assured there will be more bombs dropped in another key area the left wants to attack. All these efforts lead to the same goal – erosion of individual rights.
Well, they’re told that their country is evil, all of its institutions are racist, that if they are white they are irredeemable oppressors and if they are black are perpetual victims, that if they are boys they may actually be girls and visa versa, they are given no objective values, spend a lot of time on line and on social media, and are constantly being told that the planet is burning up and all life on it will be extinguished within, what is it now, 9 years. Why wouldn’t they be depressed.
They drug them up with Ritland and Fluoridated water next comes this Covid Scam used ass excuse to further drug the kids with their piosonists concoctions