11.9.23 MomLinks - Panic At The Chuck E. Cheese

A kids' arcade franchise shouldn't make you feel "very untethered." But a new study on independence has interesting implications for children's mental health.

Hey momrades! The dust has just about settled on Tuesday’s school board races across the country, and I’ll be digging into the outcomes this weekend. 

Preliminarily: it looks like far-right candidates faceplanted in many key races.

Before Sunday, though, I wanted to round up some of the best reading on moms and the left from recent weeks. Here are the mid-week MomLinks:

-The Washington Post chronicled the fallout from a single daycare closure in Wisconsin, after its pandemic-related subsidies expired. The daycare workers weren’t the only ones out of a job; parents whose children had attended the school were unable to find new, affordable care, forcing some out of work. The result was a ripple effect of underemployment and unfillable jobs in a small town where lack of childcare has forced some parents out of the workforce.

-Ryan Walters, the attention-happy superintendent of Oklahoma’s schools, is joining Donald Trump’s reelection campaign. Here’s how this steward of public education announced the new gig: “President Trump will be able to end radical indoctrination in our schools,” Walters said in a statement. “This woke ideology will be driven out of our schools, the cancer that is the teachers union will be driven out of our schools, and parents will be put in charge of their kids’ education. We will move from teaching kids to hate this country. We will teach kids the basics to understand how to be successful, and to love this country and what makes America great.

Perhaps relatedly, Walters is also reportedly seeking a publicity firm that will produce “minimum of three op-eds, two speeches and 10 media bookings per month” on the public’s dime, Oklahoma Watch reports.

-I really enjoyed this story about marathons making new accommodations for nursing parents, even if it made me feel incredibly lazy about my own postpartum fitness regimen. 

-In the Nation, a group of Black moms are spearheading an effort to recall a hard-right set of Temecula, California school board members. The campaign came after three school board members voted to ban “critical race theory,” the right’s catch-all term for education on race and history. “I’m not a Democrat, I’m not a Republican…I’m a Black mom,” one of the parents leading the recall effort said. “[I’m going to make] sure that Black voices and marginalized voices are heard and our issues are addressed.”

-Meghan McCain's Husband Made Her Scared Of A Terrorist Attack at Chuck E. Cheese: 'I Feel Very Untethered'

-An academic paper swept my parenting circles a few weeks ago, arguing that a rise in mental health issues among children after the 1960s might be attributable to those children’s lack of independence. This interview between the paper’s authors and the Washington Post is compelling.

The authors are cautious about blaming mental health issues on cell phones, noting that the spike in childhood anxiety and depression predates the devices, that internet use should not be treated as “monolithic,” and that some kids are on their phones because it’s the easiest way to stay connected with friends in a parenting culture that leaves them atomized and without unstructured time to socialize.

“Over that period of time [since the 1960s], children have also been less and less free to do the things that make them happy and build the kind of character traits — of confidence, of internal locus of control, of agency — that allow them to feel like ‘the world is not too scary, because I can handle what life throws at me,’” one author explained.

In keeping with that trend is a mounting expectation of intense parental involvement, another author noted. “Every decade brings more intensive parenting,” he said. “The amount of time that parents are spending parenting keeps growing — parents keep doing more and more supplementary education, investing much more time in child care.”

Notably, the authors argue, millennial parents wish they could let off the gas a little. “If you take a look at surveys of [millennials], and you ask ‘Are the kids more restricted than when you were a child?’ the answer is usually yes [...] I think people sort of wish they could give their kids more freedom, too, but it’s hard when no one else is doing it.”