In the second episode of the Bespoke Parenting Hour, Julie talks to Nancy McDermott, author of the upcoming book “The Problem with Parenting.” Nancy has a fresh take on parenting issue and why and how it has changed since the 1970s. Nancy and Julie will also discuss how the global coronavirus pandemic might change parenting and education in the next dacade and possibly decades to come.
Transcript
Julie:
Hey everyone, I’m Julie Gunlock, your host for the second episode of the Bespoke Parenting Hour. For those new to the program, this podcast is focused on how parents should custom tailor their parenting style to fit what’s best for their families, themselves, and most importantly, their kids.
I feel like this is especially important right now, when everything’s so uncertain and everything’s a little bit scary. Parents in general, bring out the judginess in people. I mean, I don’t think that’s a controversial thing to say. I think there’s a lot of scolding in the parenting world. There’s certainly absolute certainty from a lot of parents that there’s a right way and a wrong way to do things. But I would say that’s on steroids now with the COVID shutdowns, there are parents who absolutely banging their hand against a desk. They absolutely believe their kids are in danger if they go to school in the fall and they want schools closed. I actually talked to a mom a couple of days ago who thinks school should be closed until 2022. Of course she’s a stay at home mom and she is perfectly happy with staying home with her kids and having them do online courses. But there’s an awful lot of people who certainly don’t want that.
Again, on the flip side, there’s just as many parents who want their kids fully in school receiving in person instruction. There’s also people who want hybrids. But what I find in a lot of these conversations with people is it isn’t, “Hey, we need to do what’s best for our kids.” I see a lot of fighting about what is the best decision. I think at this time, we need to recognize that people just have different opinions on this and that’s okay.
I think what parents want more than anything though, is a decision. I had brought this up, I brought this up on the first podcast, how my school district has still has not told parents what school is going to look like in the fall. It is August, it is the first week of August, and parents still do not know what school is going to look like. That has huge ramifications for people. It makes it very difficult for parents to plan.
Look, it really angers me, I’m very upset that my school district is dragging its feet. Particularly when the surrounding school districts, much bigger school districts, have made decisions on this. Now it’s not perfect, for instance, the neighboring school district right next to me, they actually had to … I guess you’d say edit. They came out with a plan and then they backed it up. They said, “Okay, we’re going to offer … you get a choice of either you go to school two days a week, or you do full online.” Well, a couple of weeks later, they came out and they said, “Okay, that’s not going to work.” And now they’re doing all online. That’s understandable. Things change, CDC came out with different guidance. They didn’t feel comfortable doing that hybrid model and so they backed up. But at least they have been upfront about this. At least they did at least try to give parents a lot of time to plan. At least they announced earlier. But again, my school district continues to drag their feet.
So we’re going to talk a little bit today about that further with my guest, she’s actually writing a book about the phenomenon of parenting, how parenting has changed, how it’s become much more fraught and a little bit more judgmental, and how people are just much more opinionated about parenting today. So I’ll talk to her about her new book, and again, we’ll get into the current parenting issues facing the country and the stress so many parents are facing with school closures.
But first I thought it would be fun, and that’s sort of the format of the show, we’re going to go over some of the headlines that I saw this week. Obviously this is the Bespoke Parenting Hour where we talk about how you should do what’s best for your kids. But, and I said this on the first episode, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things that are bad for kids, or that parents don’t make bad decisions. They certainly do, I mean, you can’t abuse your child, knock them around and then say, “Well, that’s just the kind of parenting philosophy that works for me.” There are some definite bad things that parents do and we shouldn’t gloss over that.
I said this again in the first episode, you can’t deny your children food, you can’t deny your children medical attention. And there are cases where experts matter, particularly on developmental issues, on medical issues, on psychological issues. This is when parents should exhibit a little humility and they should really talk to the doctors and the experts in the field to make sure their kids are okay.
I feel like in general, there are some sort of guidelines. Parents recognize somethings are just the right thing to do. One of those things, one of those broad categories, where I thought everyone agreed was keeping your kids away from pornography. I thought that was like, you just you don’t let your kids watch extremely graphic sex. I thought this was sort of generally accepted. I was wrong.
So last week, Ali Wentworth, she’s a comedian, she’s been on some TV shows and some talk shows, but she’s also known as the wife of George Stephanopoulos. So she was on a podcast, and on that podcast … the report said on the podcast she said she was open to watching pornography with her teenage daughters. So I read this and I say … my first reaction is okay, there’s no way she said that because she seems like a reasonable person, and she’s very funny. She seems like a likable person. So I was thinking, okay, I bet that this was badly reported. And also I thought, okay, I bet she was joking. I thought she’s definitely joking about this.
So, I listened to what she said, and she did say it. So what happened is she’s on this podcast and it’s being co-hosted by Debra Messing of the sit-com Will and Grace. This whole conversation was so bizarre. Honestly, I sometimes feel like I don’t understand the world anymore because these women are talking and Debra Messing says, “How do you stop kids from looking at porn 24/7?” I’m like, okay, what? Why are your kids watching porn 24/7? Why is anyone watching porn 24/7? Are you serious that you basically think your kids are watching porn 24/7? Then Ali Wentworth responds, “Well, you certainly can’t stop them.” And that is just such a depressing comment to make. I’m not out to lunch, look I know that the statistics on how early and how often children see porn, it’s bad, it’s pretty gag inducing in fact, lots of kids are seeing porn. But it’s interesting to me, this sort of parenting philosophy out there that says like, well, we just have to throw our arms up and accept it, and give into it, and then join them. So essentially what Wentworth is saying, and what she said on this podcast, was that she wants to watch it along with her daughters, like at the same time.
I can’t imagine. Can you imagine anything more awkward? I mean, honestly, sometimes we’ll watch movies with my parents over the holidays and if there’s a kiss, I’m uncomfortable. I’m like … I want to get out of here. So she says, she’d want to watch it along with her daughters and explain what they were seeing, and that it was a performance, and it wasn’t real. And she said, she’d explained that these are actors. They’re probably married and they have kids at home. What they’re doing is they’re doing it to make money.
So, you can kind of see what she’s saying here. She wants to explain, she wants to do a good thing. She wants to explain that what they’re seeing isn’t normal or representative of normal sexual relations. But I’m listening to this, and I’m thinking, does Ali know that you can have those conversations about porn and about the harmful effects of porn, without actually watching porn? I mean, talk about mixed messages, right? So it’s pretty easy to have a conversation with a kid, and to tell a kid, if they’re aware of porn, or even if they’ve seen it, like they could have been with their friends and seen it. It’s pretty easy to tell kids that porn isn’t real, and talk to them about how it objectifies people, and that it falsely portrays sex and love. And these are not real relationships. And at the same time telling them it is very bad for them to see that sort of stuff on television, on the screen.
I believe that I really try hard to limit my children’s exposure to R rated … I won’t let them watch R rated shows, I’m even cautious about PG 13. I don’t let them play video games that contain a lot of violence or bad language. So I mean, the answer isn’t to play these video games, and watch these movies with them while explaining that it’s bad. The better thing to do is to explain why they’re bad, and then behave like an adult and be a good role model, and don’t play them, or don’t look at them. That seems to me the far better philosophy. Again, I don’t want to seem like a judgey mom, but I do think that exposing children to that extreme adult content at a young age, especially teenagers, when they’ve got hormones and they’re confused, and it’s a tough time for kids, I think introducing that kind of content is really, really harmful.
So that wasn’t it. So building on this porn theme today, I saw this same theme over at Slate’s Parenting Advice column. Yes, I know everyone is probably like, well, it’s Slate. Yes, it’s Slate so it’s going to be crazy, but it was really interesting this advice column that I saw, where a mom … so they do these, it’s this woman writes an advice column, and readers can write to her. So this one was signed by a mom who identified as liberal. She was like, sincerely liberal, but maybe not that liberal. Apparently what made her not that liberal is this. So she wrote in this letter, before the era of COVID-19 my almost 17 year old daughter was spending a lot of time with a set of male best friends. So two guys, and they were best friends. She says they all played sports together and saw each other socially. And then she says that one evening, when she was on her way to the laundry room in the basement, she says, quote, “I found all three of them flushed and rapidly disentangling on the rec room couch.”
She said, I didn’t want to say anything to her afterwards because I felt very awkward. Understandable, okay. So this is where it goes south. She says, now she has started to spend more time with one of these boys again. So far, no sign of the other. Then she says, I feel really uncomfortable and unsure if I need to do or say anything, or what that should be. And then she goes on, our family values are quite progressive and queer friendly, but a potential romantic triad, or the aftermath of one, seems like a lot for an adolescent to handle. Maybe I’m blowing … this is where her liberal mom, I’m a cool mom, kind of kicks in. She says, maybe I’m blowing things out of proportion and whatever I saw was a onetime thing. But even if it was, should I provide some guidance about ethics and sexual health with managing multiple partners.
So, I re-read this and I just think, someone took the time to write this out and write this to an advice column. I don’t even understand why you necessarily need this advice. I read these kinds of things, and it always strikes me that people are making this parenting thing a little too hard. I don’t understand that kind of hand wringing. I think talking to your kids about this stuff is your job. That’s a fundamental part of parenting. If you think something is potentially unhealthy, it’s your most important job, right? I mean, this is where the fun starts or stops, and where the hard part of parenting comes in.
So, I guess I also … I feel like I have a lot of … I do, I have a lot of what they call progressive, I call libs, I call liberal friends, but they call themselves progressive. They love that word. But I do have a lot of progressive friends and I don’t even think they would agree that just because you’re progressive, you think anything goes. There’s an awful lot of progressive parents who would say, I’m not comfortable with this. Or, I think I need to talk to my kid if they’re exhibiting some behaviors that I don’t agree with. But what was funny and what I wanted to get to, is the response from the Slate advice columnist is what’s really amusing about this. She didn’t think it was just simply, hey, you should probably talk to your daughter. And you should probably talk to her about having … about her … basically morals too, about having multiple partners and being sexually promiscuous. That is a word that now people shy away from, but sexual promiscuity is not good, it is not good. And, and you should probably talk to your child about that.
I don’t expect to hear that from the Slate person, but I certainly didn’t expect to hear this. So she starts off, her first comment she goes off on a tangent talking about, of course, gender identity and pronouns. Okay, so that was the first thing. Then she calls this behavior that was described by this mom as a variation of gender identity. A variation of sexual … I’m sorry. A variation of sexual identity.
So, I know that there are about a billion sexual identities today and this is sort of the cool thing to talk about, but this isn’t about sexual identity. This is about teenagers and potentially doing things that are going to stress them out at the very least, and harm them at worst. Again, avoiding any commentary on that, then the columnist writes multi partnered, romantic relationships among young people is becoming, she says, is becoming common. And then she adds that she’s been seeing this for the last five or six years, and that the young people where she teaches … great, she’s a teacher. She says, quote, “Casually mention their plural partners, and that it’s happening among kids as young as high school.”
So, she goes on and she’s basically just trying to normalize this for this woman, but she doesn’t answer the woman’s question, which is, should I talk to her? I find it really kind of irritating that the advice columnist suggest that well, it’s common. There’s a lot of common things about kids, it doesn’t mean it’s good. You know, what’s also common among kids? Binge drinking, automobile accidents, and many behaviors lead to bad outcomes. So just because it’s happening a lot, maybe that’s a commentary on our society and not a way to reassure people.
I really think that this is an important thing. I really hate to see parents normalizing these kinds of behaviors, or just even not talking to their kids about this stuff. Again, it seems like a pretty fundamental role of parents. What I find interesting too, is that so often these articles, these sort of, oh, you know, kids being kids. Don’t worry about it, what’s the big deal, articles appear at the very same time that you have articles raising the alarm that there’s this increase in depression, and anxiety, and suicide, and other unhealthy behaviors like cutting, like binge drinking, and just reckless behavior among kids.
Again, not just that, but also the inability, just the striking inability, of kids today to do normal things. Like maintain eye contact. It’s very interesting, there’s been a whole bunch of articles about kids in their first year of college who are just incapable of taking care of themselves. They never learn to do a load of laundry, or scramble themselves an egg. So we’ve got a problem in this country with raising kids not to be adults, but to be weak, and nervous, and anxiety written. We’re seeing it in the data, the increasing numbers of kids with psychological problems. So, I just wish that people would maybe put the puzzle pieces together that maybe healthy reckless behavior, and frankly reckless sexual behaviors like this, might have something to do with kids who seem to be suffering today.
The last part of the advice that she gets this mom, which is just hilarious, is she does say, she actually does say, the times are a changing, which is such a cliche. There’s no analysis of whether that change is good, she just says it. So get used to it. Then she gives the woman a link to a Teen Vogue, I’m not kidding you, a Teen Vogue article, and then another link to a polyamory website that is run by … I really wish that I could show you this guy’s photo. He looks like a middle aged balding guy, but he’s wearing bunny ears. So great, great, resources there for that worried mom.
Okay. So shifting away from porn, let’s go back to talking about school re-openings. It seems like a cleaner subject. So I mentioned earlier that my school district continues to drag its feet, and this has been a real problem for parents in my area. I’m hearing a lot of chatter from parents, a lot of worries. Do I join a pod? Do I hire tutors? Well, if I hire tutors and then there’s part-time school, do I let them tutor? What do I do? It’s brutal watching people try to navigate this really uncertain future. Again, like I said, so many of these questions, they all hinge on what the school district decides. This again is not just my school district, this is happening all over the country. It feels a lot like being held hostage. It really does.
Speaking of being held hostage, the teacher’s unions are probably sensing the desperation on both the part of parents and school officials. They are now making demands. It’s great timing for them. Eric Boehm over at Reason, he wrote about that situation this week, he said that the United Teachers of Los Angeles, this is a union that represents more than 35,000 teachers. It is the nation’s second largest school district. That union published a paper earlier this month, calling for schools to remain closed until the district meets a list of demands. I mean, that’s like a ransom note. That is a ransom note.
So, I just want to play a little clip from Fox. I think it was on The Five, Greg Gutfeld. I think he frames this teacher union issue well. So we’ll listen to that.
Greg Gutfeld:
As America’s struggles with COVID, rising crime, and riots. It’s nice that the teachers’ unions are helping out. I kid. In their demands for reopening schools, the United Teachers of LA, a union for public school teachers, has included surprise defunding the police and a shutdown of publicly funded, privately operated, charter schools. Now these go beyond what normal unions demand. Worse, they use this crisis to preserve their power by destroying those who won’t conform by trying to shut down charter schools. They’re demanding the elimination of any competition and depriving desperate, poor families, of an education that might change their kids’ lives. This speaks to the real truth of a big American problem. It’s not systemic racism. It’s our systemically corrupt education system. It’s the teachers unions led by leftists, whose only goal is to cancel competition that might reveal their incompetence.
Julie:
So, the union is demanding, Greg always puts it perfectly, but the union is demanding not only what some would consider, some things, reasonable things, like personal protective gear, reconfiguring of like personal protective gear, reconfiguring of classrooms, wash up stations, more hand gel in the classroom. These things seem reasonable and obviously are for the good of the kids, but they’re demanding a moratorium on new charter schools. That tells you a lot, right, in Los Angeles. So they want to kill the competition. And they also want things like Medicare for All, new wealth taxes in California. These demands are popping up outside of California, of course, as well. More than 10 teachers unions, including those in Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul have joined with groups like the Democratic Socialists of America, to say that schools cannot continue in this crisis without the resources our students need and deserve. This has nothing to do with students, Medicare for All, and demanding things like …
Oh, this is another one, defund the police, getting all police officers or SROs out of the schools. This has nothing to do with kids. They are not demanding more pencils or iPads. Other things, they want bands on evictions, a moratorium on charter schools as I mentioned. An end to the voucher programs, they want an abolition of standardized testing. They want an end to rent, until this is all over and they of course, want a massive infusion of federal money. So there’s been some pushback here. Actually, Governor Ron DeSantis this clip he’s actually talking about not necessarily the teacher’s unions, but really about why parents really deserve to be listened to.
And I mean, I will just really quickly talk about some of the polling out there of parents. There was a poll in my school district and the vast majority of parents want there to be some in class, some in person education going on. Another survey, there’s a great article in the Hill about opening schools that was today. It said, a survey discovered that just one in three districts have been expecting all teachers to deliver instruction. But 71% of parents surveyed last May said, that their children learned less. With 29% saying a lot less after their school closed. Many affluent families obviously will be figuring out ways to offer their kids some sort of tutoring or some other form of education.
And yet you have teacher’s union calling for alternatives to the public school system, which a lot of families are trapped in. They just don’t have any other choice. So this is really pretty depressing, but I just wanted to run that clip of the governor who really, I thought said it well about how parents demands and wishes need to be considered.
Ron DeSantis:
What’s clear to me is that I think parents want to have the ability to control their kids’ destiny and have a meaningful choice. And so for me, if parents believe that the distance learning is the way to go, if they’re not comfortable in a face to face environment for their kid, then I think they have that right.
Julie:
So, I think the governor there, really nails it. Look, parents need to be listened to and they need to have their voices heard and early so that they can make the decisions that are best for their kids. That’s something I think a lot … Sadly, some school officials forget is that parents know their kids best and know what’s best for their kids. So I thought that was a great quote. And I’m glad to see that someone’s pushing back on that. So we’ll talk a little bit more about this and her fabulous new book with my friend Nancy McDermott. Who’s joining us now. Hello, Nancy.
Nancy:
Hi. How are you?
Julie:
I’m doing great. Nancy, let me give everyone an intro for you. Nancy is an independent writer and researcher and an affiliate of the Center for Parenting Culture Studies at the University of Kent at Canterbury. She’s a former chair of the advisory committee of the Park Slope Parents online community. Oh my gosh, I want to hear about that. And she has contributed essays to the following collections, the tyranny of parenting science, the new face of early childhood in the United States and the new feminism and the fear of free speech. She is a hoot. And I can’t tell you enough, how much you’re going to enjoy her new book, which is called The Problem with Parenting, how raising children is changing across America. I read this over the last couple of days. It is a fascinating book. I feel smarter this morning, actually, Nancy after reading your book. So thank you so much for coming on with me today.
Nancy:
Thank you for having me.
Julie:
Okay. I definitely do want to talk about school openings and kind of get your perspective on things because I think it’s really interesting to read your book and while going through this COVID thing, because if anything, people certainly have their opinions on this. And it’s really interesting reading about how the changes of … You talk about the changes in parenting culture over the years. And it struck me as very appropriate for this time. So I read your book and I loved it. And so my first question is that you say, I mean, sort of the start of the book, you say that parenting has changed in America. Tell me about that change. And when did that change start happening?
Nancy:
Right. Well, I mean, a few people know that the word parenting can didn’t exist before 1970. And I think that parenting as a way of raising children actually didn’t exist before then either. What happened in the 1970s there was all this, I guess, social upheaval in the 60s, and then in the 70s, institutions began to change. So particularly marriages began to break down. People began to divorce as a sort of way of expressing themselves, or just trying to … As a way of personal growth. And the upshot was that the family became too unstable to be the institution through which children were socialized and raised. And so what ended up happening was that you had, 50% of marriages that took place in 1970, broke up. And it made this kind of quiet, but profound impact on people because you could no longer count on a family being permanent.
And so, there were families who split apart and parents were trying to figure out, well how do I raise my kids now that we’ve divorced and what am I doing? And so what happened was that all of these things that we’ve taken for granted in family life, people became conscious of them because they had to. And so you get this growth in parenting classes, parenting becomes an activity. And so people are looking at what they’re doing with their kids in a new way, and the way that they do this is they take on the values that dominated the 1960s, which I would call therapeutic values. So they are trying to help their kids to be the best they can be. They’re interested in their kids as individuals, and they begin to focus on their kids. And so parenting changes, it’s no longer just a part of ordinary life. It’s an activity that you do.
Julie:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It was so interesting reading … I didn’t know. You opened up by saying that the word parenting wasn’t used until the 1970s and one of the first parts of your book, you talk about, there is a difference between child rearing, which is, I guess, how it was kind of considered. You’re rearing children and parenting and how parenting is much more about the parent or about the process really, right?
Nancy:
It is. It has to do with that kind of fundamental change in the way that people look at their lives. And so parents are, I guess you could say, they’re much more aware of their own happiness and a kind of constantly asking themselves, am I fulfilled? And looking at things in terms of one lifetime and they look at their kids in the same way. And because of that, it’s very easy for parents to confuse their own goals and aspirations, their own personal growth with that of their kids, if that makes any sense.
Julie:
It does. It’s interesting. You talk about, I think this was the 70s you’re referring to. You quoted someone else talking about families craving complete privacy of freedom to bring up their children without the interference of relatives and neighbors. To choose their friends on the basis of mutual interests. Instead of physical proximity. I have to say, it reminds me of my own childhood. My mom grew up around tons of cousins and aunts and uncles, 12 aunts and it was a big family. She might call it an ordeal, every holiday. And then, she married my father, he was in the Navy and they just moved around a lot. And we were this little foursome and we very rarely saw our family.
And it was so interesting reading this because that’s actually what my parents did and they enjoyed the privacy. They wanted it. My mother will listen to this and kill me. It wasn’t that they hated their families, but they actually, I think they saw it so differently. They saw their lives so differently from what they had grown up with. My father grew up with less family around, but still family. And so I saw a lot of this sort of in my own experience. And I will tell you that as a result, I was fascinated by hearing my parents’ stories. Especially, my mother growing up in this big Catholic, French, Canadian family up in New Hampshire and these huge family gatherings, which weren’t at all a part of my childhood. And it’s interesting to read your book and realize that that was pretty much … That was a trend. And now it’s much more the reality much more the norm of people moving away.
Nancy:
It’s funny, because my experience is similar to yours because my father was in the Army. And so we moved to like 13 places in my first 18 years, which would be familiar to you. But when I was younger and we made an effort to get together with my cousins, but there was a kind of diaspora, because my family’s from South Dakota. And there was this view, which I think was very prevalent in the 1950s, which you can find if you read Robert Putnam’s book, Our Kids, which was that if you were going to get on in the world, if you were going to be anybody. You didn’t stay in the place that you were from. You went off and you made your way in the world. And I can remember, I thought this for a long time and I can remember saying, “Ugh, why would you want to stay in your own town?”
Julie:
I felt that way too. Yeah.
Nancy:
Yeah. But it’s interesting because it’s like around the 1980s, when I went away to college. It was like all the effort that we had made to see my cousins and spend time with them just kind of fell to the wayside.
Julie:
Yeah.
Nancy:
And I thought that was just us. And of course, you’re young and you’re effectless, and you’re into your own stuff. So you don’t notice it, but in retrospect and having read more about it, I think that was a fairly common experience. And in fact, David Brooks talks about it in his recent article, in the Atlantic about the nuclear family, about how you did have these kind of … We did have these bonds and then they just kind of break apart because we have decided that the obligation of family are not something that we want to have anything to do with.
I mean, it’s so interesting when you listen to the way that people talk about family, particularly like extended family. It’s like, “Oh, those people, I want a chosen family. I want a family on my own terms. I want a family that will be like my friends. Who will always make me feel good and they won’t be backward and they won’t have attitudes that I disagree with.” Over a time I begin to think that aspect of obligations of not having things on your own terms, of having to deal with people who you may not agree with, but you love them anyway. Maybe that’s the best thing about family.
Julie:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, it certainly is. And particularly in today’s climate where, friends don’t necessarily have to love you, even though you believe differently from them. I think, we see this more than ever where, people’s … For instance, political beliefs might alienate them from other people, but that’s not true with family. Look, I’m not saying that families aren’t experiencing tension because of the political climate, but in general, you could at least rely on people and you could have differences of opinions, but they’re still family that’s sort of held. So that’s even more important today and yet more rare. So what do you think family is today? What do you think it is? What’s the meaning of family today?
Nancy:
Well, there’s a really interesting book which is called Counted Out, which is about … It’s based a longitudinal research of how people define family. And the researchers were interested in whether same sex families would eventually be accepted. But it’s so interesting to look at their research because you can find all of these other things in the research. So for example, they divide the way that people think of families into three groups. There were the people in the oldest cohort would be like maybe our parents and grandparents, and for them, a family is based on a marriage. It’s a legally recognized commitment and there are kids, and they’re not necessarily against divorce, but they don’t think it’s a good idea. And then there are people who are around my age. I was born on the cusp of the baby boomers and Gen X. And for them a marriage or a family is about commitment.
So, you don’t have to necessarily be married, but you have to be committed to another person. You have to stick with them. And children are very much kind of identified with that because children are that commitment personified. But when you get to the youngest cohort of people, a family is, it’s basically about a group of people who feel like a family. There’s a quote I use in the book where this young guy says, “Well, if it feels like a family, then it’s a family.” I believe there was a really interesting photography exhibition at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which came out while I was writing the book, which was called Unexpected Families.
And in that they have all of these pictures, or portraits of families, and some of them are traditional families. Some of them are same sex families. Some of them are military units and some of them are Facebook friends. And they’re like, “This is a family, because it feels like a family.” I have all these terrible emails from corporations welcoming me to the family.
Julie:
Right, right, right. Right.
Nancy:
And so, the family has become just about feelings and not really about commitment.
And I think that’s very, very hard for kids because-
Julie:
Well, it is. And I mean, the outcomes show it. There’s just an incredible body of work showing the effect of, for instance, fatherless families or yeah, the effect of divorce on kids. It’s hard to argue that, and yet it’s uncomfortable. Right? People feel uncomfortable making any suggestion that anything but a traditional family and I don’t want to say traditional like mom, dad. But look, when marriages break up and there’s kids involved, there are some really serious … There’s a really serious effects for kids and yet people feel uncomfortable, but it’s interesting how, when you expand the word family to mean so many things, it makes people uncomfortable criticizing anything, when it has to do with a family.
Nancy:
Yeah. And I mean, this is something that I’ve been thinking a lot about recently is, I just think that we are way, way, way too focused on family structure, till we aren’t focused on the contents of family. Which I think, if we’re going to look forward to a way of raising kids that is a good way to raise kids. I think that we need to stop worrying about, is this a nuclear family? Is it same sex family? Did this family divorce? I think, the question we have to ask ourselves is, is this a child centered family? Is this a family that exists to create a protected environment for kids to grow up in? And if the answer to that is no, then I don’t think that’s a good thing.
Julie:
So, from your point of view, just so I understand. You’re saying … I mean, and this makes total sense to me that you’re saying, “Okay, when I say there are bad outcomes, in many cases, the children in divorced families they suffer.” Whatever they get bad grades, they have discipline problems in the classroom. They are more likely to try drugs or express reckless behaviors. What you’re saying is, but if those divorced parents are unified and doing things that are good for the kid and making sure the kid feels secure and knows his parents love each other and respect each other enough to get along. Is that what you’re saying? When I throw out that data about the offspring of divorced parents having a hard time. Is your point, well, if the kids are supported that’s not necessarily true.
Nancy:
Well, I think that that family … I mean, kids can thrive in an environment where they’re allowed to be kids. I would never want to suggest that divorce is something that people can’t overcome. I mean, it is really tough for kids because they’re not just like-
Julie:
My husband is the product of divorce, and I know dozens of people who are and they are all highly functioning individuals. So I’m not making these blanket statements, but I am saying there is data out there showing that the breakup of the family is very hard on kids. But your point about it being child-centered is that… But if it’s a friendly divorce… In other words, if these parents can put aside their own hostilities to really focus on the child, I’m just trying to understand child-centric.
Nancy:
Well, put it another way, I think that the bigger problem from my point of view is less divorce than the fact that people don’t marry in the first place.
Julie:
Yeah, definitely.
Nancy:
So, 40% of working-class white kids now are born out of wedlock, and what that seems to be evolving into is this pattern of family formation where a couple will cohabitate very quickly. They’ll have a child. They don’t marry because they cohabitated quickly and they do not… The person that they necessarily want to spend their lives with.
And then what seems to happen, which is encouraging, is that for a certain cohort of people is they basically grow up, and then they go off and they start a new family with someone. And they’re more responsible, and the kids in that family do okay. But then there are people like J.D. Vance’s mother, that’s an example I use from Hillbilly Elegy, who had these serial relationships where these individuals come into kids’ lives and they can’t count on them being permanent. And then they go. It is really interesting when you look at the meaning of marriage for people and you look at the meaning of family. It’s not about kids anymore.
Julie:
I wanted to also get into some of the stuff you talk with the judginess that goes along with motherhood or parenthood I really should say about breastfeeding, about the demands on mothers. Breastfeeding is very hard. Being a parent is very hard, some of the decisions. This also might be a good time to talk about the Park Slope Parents, the group that you were a part of. I assume that being on that… What was it? Was it a parenting board, a list serve of some kind?
Nancy:
Well, Park Slope Parents was a list serve, straight out of a Yahoo group, and now it’s on a different platform. But it just mushroomed because it was set up during this mini-baby boom. And suddenly we had 13,000 members, and it has been the neighborhood of Park Slope. It became a place where people could come and say, “This happened. What do you think? How do you get to Manhattan if you have a stroller?” Just all sorts of stuff.
Julie:
Can we back up a little bit because I think one thing that’s really important. I know what Park Slope is, where it is, and what it is. But there’s also Park Slope is very famous for being this very tony, wealthy enclave. It’s Brooklyn, right?
Nancy:
Yeah. Yeah.
Julie:
So just give the listeners because I wouldn’t have known. I think I actually became aware of Park Slope when I met you and when I became aware of your work. So tell listeners a little bit about Park Slope.
Nancy:
Right. Well, Park Slope became popular because… Well, first of all, it’s just across the bridge from Manhattan. In the beginning, before it became very expensive, it was a place where you could have the best part of city life being close to the city, but you could also raise kids because this spaces were a little bit larger. You were next to Prospect Park. They had a few reasonable schools. So if you think about all of the people who have made it in New York and now want to have kids or are trying to make it in New York, and these are people like there was one of the classmates of my son’s kindergarten won a Golden Globe for-
Julie:
Oh my god.
Nancy:
It’s like you can’t throw a rock without hitting a novelist or an actor or an actress. So these are very much the-
Julie:
Verified mold.
Nancy:
Yeah. I mean, they’re very smart people, very talented people, and these are their kids.
Julie:
Yeah. These are the people who they buy all organic. They make a smoothie in the morning. They drink their kombucha. Yeah, they attend baby yoga classes. Yeah. But Park Slope, the word Park Slope Parent… I’m sorry I interrupted you because I know we’re not finished.
Nancy:
That’s okay.
Julie:
But Park Slope Parents, it’s almost become synonymous with the… I don’t know. I don’t mean to be rude, but the sort of out of touch, head in the clouds, rich parent who doesn’t have any clue what normal people deal with. Is that right?
Nancy:
Well, there’s at least a kernel of truth. But at the same time, the thing that I found overwhelming about Park Slope is just how kind and generous and really well-meaning people were. What would happen, and this is one thing that I guess has always bothered me is that something would be picked up from the list. Like there was a woman who was saying, “I just wish the ice cream man wouldn’t come after school because then I constantly have to fight with my daughter about having an ice cream.” So this was picked up. It was like, “Oh-“
Julie:
I remember this article.
Nancy:
Yes. “They’re such kill joys. I want no ice cream.” It just wasn’t fair. People are just doing the best they can. But the thing was that it was ground zero for this new culture of parenting because these are the best and the brightest in some ways. So you’ve got your Oscar. Now you’re going to do the same with parenting-
Julie:
Well, yeah.
Nancy:
… with your kids.
Julie:
What you talked about in your book… One thing I thought was so interesting, you talked about the end of the male breadwinner, and it was interesting, you cited a 1989 poll, which two thirds of men and women said that children would do better if fathers had a job and mothers stayed at home. They also agreed that their children would do just as well if both parents worked. Their answers though confusing and contradictory showed that the real struggle was not between men and women but between children and work. And it’s funny because I think that’s very true in my neighborhood too. It’s not just the Park Slope and here, but it’s this idea of a lot of moms had children a little bit later. And in those earlier years, they were building a career. And then they left, and now they’re the heads of the PTA. And they’re signing their kid up for everything, Latin at three and pottery at four. And they’re real Type A, go getter moms. So I think that’s another thing.
I talked to my mom about this. I think there is a lot of competitiveness in parenting, but not necessarily meanness but just need to get your child in everything and do everything. I think that’s true that we’ve had… I think in the ’70s and ’80s women were going into the workforce, but now I think a lot of women are actually choosing to stay home or at least work part-time. Is that something you’re finding too? And that adds to this Type A-ness. This, like you said, I got my Oscar, now I’m going to put the same vigor into raising these kids.
Nancy:
Well, this is what happens when raising kids becomes an activity instead just a normal part of life, and so kids become these projects that parents in a very well-meaning way… We know so much. It’s like you imagine this baby is born, and these parents are staring at it and looking for the next milestone and thinking, “Well, I want my child to be empathetic,” or, “I want my child to be adventurous,” or whatever. We got this mindset where we curate our kids’ lives to try and get particular outcomes, and we become sometimes over-identified with that because it’s part of our identity too, which is where this competitive parenting comes in is that parenting almost becomes a lifestyle. And then that lifestyle gets politicized.
So, I talk about attachment parenting, which is the most extreme example of this, where raising kids really changes, it transforms every part of your life. What you eat, you wear the baby, you sleep in the family bed. And the thing is is that the way I feel about it, it’s like if people want to do that and that works for them, that’s great. They should just do what works for them, but the problem is that because our child rearing is so politicized and has become a extension of people’s identities, whenever they encounter someone who’s doing something different, it’s almost provoking.
There’s a perception that you’re being judged, and then you’re also judging yourself. Actually I’ve got a problem with judging. I’m human, therefore I judge. But do I treat people differently? That’s where there’s a problem. We all have our opinions about how we would raise our kids. But I think the important thing is for adults to give one another or parents to give one another the benefit of the doubt. So to back up their fellow parents and to get over how I’m doing it, get over the technique, and really think about how we can support all of our kids together as adults.
Julie:
Yeah. I often say, and I said in the intro of this podcast and I said it during the first podcast that I agree with you. I really think that if parents choose a particular way to parent their children, we all need to support them. But there are limits. For instance, on medical or developmental issues. What I worry about sometimes, and especially on this podcast because I say you should tailor make your parenting philosophy to your child and to you. There’s no family that’s alike. We are all different, and I have a really hard time with messes and disorganization. Other parents don’t. So why would we both try to do the same parenting philosophy?
But the problem is is that there are certain things… I don’t want to in any way feed that idea that on medical issues or developmental issues that you should reject the… I don’t want to be an anti-expert person who says, “Oh no.” Yes, you’re the best expert on your kids. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t good advice out there and good guidance. But I do agree with you that on very small things, like whether to let your kid ride his bike up to the school by himself or take a walk by himself or when to start potty training. It’s amazing the opinions people have, and sometimes that can be really translated into some harsh judgment. I think it makes parenting really hard. I feel like parents need to be a little bit nicer to each other and recognize and appreciate those differences.
Because I think one of the problems is too is that you said we need to support each other, but I think when we don’t and when people feel judged, they start to doubt their own instincts. And I’d like to ask you a little bit about that. We talk about child rearing and the ’50s where you just got on with it. You just did it. And now I feel like there’s an awful lot of parents that feel like their judgment or their instincts aren’t good. It’s becoming more parenting, and it’s more wrapped up in the parent themselves. How do you feel about your guide maybe being your own mom or how you were raised? Do people rely on that or are they just more concerned about how they look and how others are judging them or maybe how if they’re ascribing to a popular parenting philosophy?
Nancy:
Well, from my point of view, I think the whole idea of having a parenting philosophy is just weird. It’s like I have a husbanding philosophy or a wifing philosophy. It’s like this did not exist before, and I think it’s tough. Because we see parenting as an activity… And actually society sees it as an activity too and holds parents in contempt. It’s just the contempt for parents as, “They shouldn’t do that. They’re raising kids who are… They all have mental illness.” There is definitely a problem with socialization, which has resulted in a less resilient generation, but this is not about what parents are doing per se. It’s about the fact that we are entrusting the socialization of a whole generation of people that used to be known as a collective cooperative task between adults reduced that to the parent-child relationship. So it’s suddenly becomes about whether you said good job or good girl or what was the bed time that you had for them, and I think that parents…
There are certain things about raising kids and about the way that adults and kids relate to one another which has evolved over thousands of years. And we are perfectly capable, most people, of being able to figure this out over time without having a philosophy or with just having the word marry moral beliefs and things that make us individuals. And we’re able to pretty seamlessly incorporate that into our lives raising children.
What I would like to see, which I hope this is making sense, but I think that instead of focusing on what kind of parenting philosophy is best for kids necessarily. I think what we have to think about is how do we create a protected environment, a family where kids have the space to be kids, to develop naturally, to play and experiences with other people that provides them with the stability to go out into the world and to come back and to have a place to reflect and to be protected. But also, an environment where adults can get on with doing adult things too because the family [inaudible 01:05:11] is a function for adults. So it shouldn’t be this environment where the parents do things to the kids to develop them.
Julie:
I feel like I could go on for hours with you, and my producer is probably ready to cut us off here. But I’m curious your opinion on the role of the state and how it might be creating barriers rather to this creating family security for children that are, from what I’m hearing you say, not necessarily a traditional family but a unit of people who care about them or looking out for them. It sounds to me like you’re talking about when my kids ride their neighborhood around town… Let’s say something happened, they could go to a variety of houses to feel safe. They know the neighbors. We know our neighbors. They’re familiar with the neighborhood. They know where the fire station is. They know where to go if something happens.
This is a good segue into the school closures because you look at what schools provide today. They provide almost every meal. So you can drop your kid off at 7:00 AM in the morning, at least in my school. Most public schools are like this. You can drop them off at 7:00 AM so the school will watch them before school starts, but it will also give them breakfast. And then you have enormously, really sophisticated wellness centers in some larger high schools. I meant to say there’s also aftercare, and there’s three meals a day served at the schools. Schools have become this really important part of communities. You and I don’t have to talk about whether that’s good or bad or the merits of that. But how does that affect… And again, it’s more than what I’ve said. There’s so many other services. After school programs. They have flowering arranging at my school, karate. We’re practically Park Slop. Every possible way to enrich your child’s experience at school they offer.
So, I’m just wondering about your opinion on that. As public schools have become these centers of really services and also just helping parents parent, how has that affected the creation of these more organic things where maybe a neighbor would watch your kid. And I don’t mean to simplify this because that’s not always easy either, but do you think that people just rely less on their neighbors or don’t try to become friends with their neighbors or close with their neighbors or get involved in other community groups or maybe their church because they’ve got the school taking care of everything?
Nancy:
Well, that’s possible. I think that the role of the state is a big question, and the thing that you’re talking about in the schools I think comes out of this thing called the community school movement, which was a way of, “Well, kids are in the school anyway, so let’s provide social services through the schools.” But I think that you have to-
Services through the school. And I think that you have to be really careful with that because it can undermine parents’ authority. And also, it becomes less about education and more about social engineering. And the problem I see is that I just feel like there’s this gulf between parents and the school. So I got this awful contract home with my kids, that I was supposed to sign. I was supposed to sign the contract to say that I would look over their homework and I would provide a place for them to do their homework. So I got really angry and I wrote back and I said, “Look, I would not tell you how to run your classroom. I don’t appreciate you telling me how to run my home.” And of course, then they were like, “Oh God, we’re so sorry.”
Julie:
And they were probably like, “Oh, we’ve got a live one. We’ve got a libertarian on our hands here.”
Nancy:
Well, the thing is, is that it’s like… It’s not even… It’s just the contempt for parents.
Julie:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Nancy:
And there’s this sort of… They see parents as a problem, and sometimes parents can be a problem. It’s like you’re trying to teach their kid and the parents come in and insist that you make the grade higher. And so schools and parents… Or I should say, even schools and teachers are not working together, they don’t see one another as allies. And I think sometimes the schools have different agendas. And so, I mean, I don’t think that’s how it should be. But I do think that there’s potential for it to be different. And I’m such a fan of Lenore Skenazy’s organization, Let Grow, where they’re dealing with a real problem, which is, I think one of the reasons why people don’t necessarily organize things with their neighbors or let their kids roam the streets together in kid gangs, like we did growing up, is that we have a much less child-centered society now. And so, it’s not necessarily safe to do that.
It’s probably not as dangerous as people think it is, but there is this thing where like, “Why are you letting your kid in my yard?” when that used to just be the sort of normal thing that people did and you just accepted it, whether you had kids or not. But I think that there could be a space where teachers and schools and parents work together. But now, the parents are kind of… They’re these people who you just impose things on because you have to meet your targets.
Julie:
I think also there’s this problem too. I think teachers have a really hard time with the discipline issue in the classroom if the discipline is not echoed, or the need for discipline, isn’t echoed in the home. I mean, there are some really depressing studies out there showing the number of assaults that are happening in schools. I mean, there was this US Department of Education… I think the Department of Justice and Department of Education did this study, and it’s like 10% of public school teachers reported being threatened. I mean, that’s a lot. And then there was something like 6% that had actually been physically attacked at a school. And then there’s the number that don’t report, that just don’t report it, and deal with it every day.
My own son would come home and he would tell me the horrible things he would see in his school, where a student would immediately threaten a teacher if she said, “Please be quiet and sit in your seat.” And my son is very dutiful and he couldn’t believe the sort of smack talk he was seeing. And so I think that also, just from the teacher’s perspective, is they’re often very, and I think this is an increasing problem in schools, and largely in public schools, where teachers are feeling threatened and then they don’t get the support of parents. And they also just don’t get parents who are instilling discipline and respect in the household. And so when we wonder why there’s a dismissal of some parents at this level, I think part of that is probably because they deal with a lot of crap in the classroom.
And listen, I am a big advocate of teachers listening, and school administrators listening, to parents and giving parents… I mentioned that earlier, before you came on, about how, when it comes to school reopening, but I think this is a really complex issue. Probably an issue for another podcast, but I’m glad you touched on it. I just think that teachers probably see sort of, and experience sort of, a lot of things when it comes to how families behave and how they discipline their kids, more than sort of the average person.
Nancy:
Well, it’s interesting because it’s like, in some ways, it’s the same problem, but it just manifests itself in different situations all the way through society, which is that adults are no longer being adults. They’re afraid to wield their kind of natural adult authority. So you see that in the family, where you hold back on any negative interactions with your kid because you’re afraid that it’s going to scar them for life, or whatever it is, whatever reason that you don’t do it. It’s because you don’t feel that you have the authority to do it. And it’s just really important that adults back one another up, parents, teachers, the administration in school, because we need to show kids how to behave. We need to educate them. And we cannot do that if we have no authority.
Julie:
Well, I talked about, and I want to just quickly pivot to. We have to wrap up, but I want to quickly pivot to reopening.
Nancy:
No. No keep talking.
Julie:
I know. I want to. Well actually, I have a list of questions I haven’t even gotten to, and I hope that I focused enough on your book because it really is interesting. It’s just hard not to get off on a tangent because I like talking to you anyway. So it’s like talking to a friend, but I will say…
It’s funny on the reopening, school reopening, obviously much of this is going to have to be done online now. And I wrote an article in the spring about my own children’s experience with the online learning, which was horrible, horrible. They’ve all been doing some intense tutoring this summer because I don’t know… It’s not like they’re slaves, they’re handcuffed to the table or anything, but they’ve had to do some catch-up because they really had…
And it’s funny because there was the school offered a summer school, which of course was all computer-based, right? And so I told them no, and I swear I channeled you, because in the sheet where I had to opt them out, the course online, where I had to opt them out, it actually said, “Why are you opting your child out of summer school?” And I wrote, in the comments section, I wrote, “It’s none of your business.” And it isn’t. You gave me the opt-out and I’m going to opt out, and now you don’t need to know anything else. So I kind of found that intrusive as well.
But I will tell you, so we’re looking at an online… Pretty much most school districts are going online, at least for the first couple semesters. I don’t know if it’s quarters or semesters, or however it’s measured, but that is a very difficult thing for my kids. And I know you have two boys, they’re a little bit older, so I don’t know what the circumstances are in your community. Has your school announced what the plans are?
Nancy:
They did last night, but I was excluded from the Zoom because I was five minutes late. So I don’t know what they are. I mean, I think they’re intending… They’re intending to open, I’m not sure how that’s going to work. But I mean, I think that just, if we care about the next generation, we can’t just accept leaving kids at home. They need other kids.
But it’s interesting, the whole online learning thing is very interesting because my kids, and I think it’s because my husband and I both work at home and we have a routine and it’s like, well, so they had their routine and they did their stuff. And I was kind of shocked that they did that, but I have other friends whose kids just… They’re up at one o’clock at night and they’re behind in some things. And then the teacher is saying, “Oh, Johnny’s behind.” But what was really interesting was that they sort of, over time, figured out how to do it. And so I was surprised that some of the kids who we thought, friends’ kids, who we thought this is never going to work, they just kind of squeaked by. And they kind of figured out for themselves how they would make this work.
So, I don’t think it’s necessarily going to just be terrible. But I don’t think it’s ideal and I don’t think we should accept it. I think we have to do whatever is necessary to get kids into classrooms because it’s not just about the academics. It’s about the people, it’s about learning to be young adults. And you just can’t do that in isolation.
Julie:
Well, I mentioned, we had that small talk about the state. I mean, you’ve got a situation now where a lot of people use the time that their children are at school to work, and they might work half days, they might work just part-time, but they do work. And they use that, the fact that their children are out at the school. So we can’t… It’s funny because a lot of teachers are insulted by essentially being called babysitters, but the time my kids are in school is not all used for education. It simply isn’t, there’s lunch, there’s recess, they’re switching classes. There’s a number of things that are not necessarily purely educational. And so the public school system, and frankly private school systems too, are now set up to really provide parents a lot of that assistance.
So, the public schools are set up to essentially provide parents with a lot of assistance in terms of childcare. And so now we have a situation where it’s really going to be difficult for parents. I really don’t know how… I mean, you and I… Mine are 10 to 13, right? And I know yours can certainly take care of themselves to some degree, but I really don’t know what people do with much younger children. I think that this is going to be really difficult for them. And again, it’s just the setup of.. It’s how things are set up now, right? The public schools just take kids for a long portion of the day and a lot of people are able to work because of that. So it’s going to be really tough.
I think we need to wrap up here, but I want to give you sort of a last word about your book and tell people where they can find it and all that good stuff.
Nancy:
Well, you can find it on amazon.com or you can find it at Barnes and Noble. It’s published by Praeger Publishing. And I hope that people will read it and I hope it reassures them to just be a little more relaxed about trusting their instincts. And also to know that the parenting culture that we have is not inevitable. It’s not natural and that we can make a difference. Who else cares as much about the future of society as parents? Because we’re raising the people who are going to live it. So I don’t know. I hope that it’ll help people to make sense of their experience and maybe inspire them to try and make things a bit better.
Julie:
Nancy, I really enjoyed the book and I will tell you; I mean, I learned a lot from it. I didn’t really know that parenting was a relatively new term. I didn’t sort of know many of the facts. It’s very data… It’s a really, really great read in terms of, it’s interesting, it reads quickly, but it’s really data-packed. So I think people who are interested in the issue of parenting should take a look at this and we will certainly include the link on iwf.org. There’s always a blog that goes along with these podcasts and I will include all of the information so that people can buy your book, Nancy. Thank you so much and good luck with the sales.
Nancy:
Thank you so much. And thanks for having me on, I enjoyed it.
Julie:
I think the way I want to end this podcast each week is to give people a little bit of a historical reference. I think one of the problems today is that people forget or don’t know… I mean, it’s not a matter of forgetting, I wasn’t around in 1900, I wasn’t around in 1700. It’s not like I have a memory of those things and I’ve just forgotten. People genuinely do not know how hard life was as early as a hundred years ago. And so I, the last episode… The first episode of Bespoke, at the end, I mentioned sort of child welfare laws and how children fared during the Great Depression, they had been through the Spanish Flu, was a worldwide pandemic that took millions of lives. And I was trying to just remind people that look, we’ve suffered through things before, the American people have suffered through things before, and we will get through this again, as we did the last time.
So, I think that’s kind of a good way to end this podcast, a sort of reminder to people that things have been bad before and that things are progressively getting better. We have hiccups, we have moments where, like Coronavirus, where things aren’t great. I just had to cancel my summer vacation. Actually I did that last month. But still, that’s not good, not happy about that. But look, things will get better and we will recover from this.
And so I actually tell this story, oftentimes when I’m giving a speech, I often talk to women’s groups about how life is getting better, innovation is great, we need to celebrate modernity and some of the scientific discoveries that have led to a better world, a better situation for humans. These are things to celebrate.
And so, I often tell this story about a woman named Sara Josephine Baker. She was really ahead of her time. She was a medical doctor in the turn of the century, and she practiced in New York City. And in 1900, New York City, the city government hired her to do a sort of assessment, a health assessment, of the Hells’ Kitchen section of New York. Now, if you’re familiar with New York City and the different areas in New York City, Hell’s Kitchen is a great neighborhood. It’s close to Broadway. My favorite ramen restaurant is in Hell’s Kitchen. And they have these really charming sort of brownstone kind of apartment buildings. And they’re very expensive, obviously now, to rent a room or an apartment in one of these buildings. But at the turn of the 20th century, so around 1900, this was tenement housing, tons of people stuffed into very small spaces.
And, we’re talking… Again, I want to be clear, this is 1900. This is 120 years ago. That is very recent history. Hell’s Kitchen, at that point, there were a lot of diseases, terrible sanitation, no understanding of germ therapy. So there was a lot of disease and, again, poverty. So she did this assessment of the health conditions in Hell’s Kitchen. She created a report, but the data point that always gets me is that she found that 1500 babies, and these are newborns, before three months, were dying per week in that small section of New York. So we’re talking 1500 babies. These are very small babies, zero to three months, were dying per week. So that is inconceivable today. I can’t wrap my head around that. And because things have… Obviously, infant mortality, it’s a lot better now, babies don’t die in those numbers. But they did then. And, again, this was only 120 years ago.
And I always tell that story because I think it really shocks people. And it’s also important to know that in 120 years, look where we’ve come. Look at the progress in medicine, in infant welfare, in preventative medicines, in pregnancy care for women, and also the development of a social network, a social safety net, that really helps those who live in dire poverty, not have to deal with the tragedy of losing a baby, which was apparently quite common 120 years ago, at least in New York City.
So, anyway, I don’t mean for that ending to be sort of ending on a sour note. It’s just to serve as a reminder that the world and life is getting better. We are marching forward. We are doing well. And Coronavirus will end and we will regain some semblance of normalcy.
Thanks everyone for being here, for another episode of the Bespoke Parenting Hour. If you enjoyed this episode or like the podcast in general, please leave a rating or review on iTunes. This helps ensure that the podcast reaches as many listeners as possible. If you haven’t subscribed to the Bespoke Parenting Hour on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts, please do so, so you won’t miss an episode. Don’t forget to share this episode and let your friends know that they can get Bespoke episodes on their favorite podcast app. From all of us here at the Independent Women’s Forum, thanks for listening.