00:01:32.320At parenting these days, but also why it's so crucial that we don't.
00:01:35.800For that reason, I'm always troubled when some confused, fatally stupid, and inept parenting method arises.
00:01:42.660Every few years, a fancy new parenting trend seems to crop up.
00:01:46.260They always have different names and present themselves as different strategies, but they're basically the same bad ideas, repackaged and resold over and over and over again.
00:01:53.760You'll notice that up until the latter half of the last century, there were no parenting trends or parenting methods.
00:02:00.440You didn't have different types of parenting.
00:02:03.620If you'd asked your great-grandfather what parenting strategy he preferred, if you asked him if he was a conscious parent or a helicopter parent or a positive parent or whatever, he would have looked at you confused, not understanding the question.
00:02:16.000Or else he would have shown you his belt.
00:02:18.520In recent decades, thanks in large part to the psychiatric industry, parenting has become much more complicated than it needs to be.
00:02:25.900With too many competing strategies, all of them seemingly designed to make your child into a dysfunctional, needy, entitled little hellion.
00:02:33.440And in that way, they've been extremely successful, which brings us to a parenting trend that has gotten a lot of attention lately.
00:02:53.340A recent survey of millennial parents conducted by Lori Children's Hospital in Chicago found that a staggering 75% of millennial parents identify with the gentle parenting technique.
00:03:58.980But previous generations of parents did parent the people who built human civilization.
00:04:04.640They parented the pioneers and poets and philosophers and artists and inventors and warriors and leaders who accomplished incomprehensible feats of heroism and genius.
00:04:13.760And who gave us every good and wonderful and beautiful thing we have in our lives.
00:04:18.500So, old-fashioned parenting, we might call it, has a track record.
00:04:24.160It's the parenting that took us from mud huts to the moon.
00:04:30.500Does it have a similar record of success?
00:04:32.840Or has it instead produced multiple generations of depressed, lazy, overgrown brats stuck in a perpetual state of emotional and mental adolescence?
00:04:41.320I'll let you answer that question for yourself.
00:04:43.940The point is, we should be immediately suspicious of a very different style of parenting.
00:04:56.940And if it wasn't broken, why are we fixing it?
00:05:01.300Continuing, quote, gentle parenting is a means of parenting without shame, blame, or punishment.
00:05:06.240It's centered on partnership, as both parents and children have a say in this collaborative style.
00:05:12.720Quote, gentle parenting, also known as collaborative parenting, is a style of parenting where parents do not compel children to behave by means of punishment or control,
00:05:19.000but rather use connection, communication, and other democratic methods to make decisions together as a family, says Danielle Sullivan, a parenting coach.
00:05:27.540Gentle parenting teaches children that they can be active in the world, set their own boundaries, trust their own needs, and make their voices heard.
00:05:35.580Now, there's a lot wrong with what I just read.
00:05:38.600Using democratic methods in your home is a recipe for dysfunction and chaos.
00:05:44.040As the father and head of my household, I am not presiding over a democracy.
00:06:06.580If your home does, that certainly means, without exception, that you have failed as a parent and your children are the kinds of horrible, out-of-control, miniature terrorists who nobody wants to be around
00:06:17.680and who, without miraculous intervention, will grow into maladapted, miserable adults.
00:06:22.980To explain why, it may be helpful to take a look at some examples of gentle parenting in action.
00:06:28.220In fact, this article provides one, quote,
00:06:31.680If you're looking for a way to incorporate gentle parenting into your life, your best bet is to start small.
00:06:36.420Model what you want to see on a regular basis.
00:06:38.360Practice kindness, compassion, and empathy at all times, and try to be less demanding and commanding.
00:06:42.820Instead of saying, tie your shoes, make it a suggestion.
00:06:46.200Something like, do you think you should tie your shoes so you don't trip?
00:06:50.620Now, the first few sentences of this paragraph start out fine.
00:06:53.600But then we're told that you should be less demanding and commanding.
00:09:30.300But that's because he doesn't understand his own wants, much less his needs.
00:09:34.020If you give instructions, not request instructions, and you do it clearly and firmly, he'll be a happier kid.
00:09:40.260He'll feel safer, more loved, and will end up being a better person in the long run.
00:09:44.620So this is the major problem with the gentle parenting method.
00:09:47.600It relies heavily on partnering with children who don't know what's best for them and are relying on you to know that.
00:09:55.320You should not be looking to make your child a partner in his own parenting any more than you'd want the captain of your plane to invite you to partner with him and be a co-pilot in the cockpit.
00:10:06.400Now, your captain's commitment to democratic equality may flatter you for a moment, but it also makes it much more likely that you'll die a fiery death.
00:10:14.460Now, if you go over to TikTok, as mentioned, you'll find many examples of influencers promoting gentle parenting, and they all run into the same problem.
00:10:23.380So here's one popular gentle parenting video from a guy with 12 million followers on the platform.
00:10:30.140Just to show you how popular this stuff is.
00:10:50.140All right, look, so that's the way we do it in our house.
00:10:51.880Different scenarios, come up with different things, we don't have a set grounding or anything like that.
00:10:55.580But the kids know if they get grounded and they come and hang out with the family and they do things, help around the house, things that they're not asked to do, that grounding doesn't have to stay two weeks.
00:11:08.060If her last Friday night football game fell within that two-week thing, I'm not going to hold her back from that either.
00:11:14.840That is something I'm not going to take memories away from her.
00:11:17.740Same with, you know, her younger sister, Ken, if she got in trouble when a friend had a birthday party, now maybe she doesn't get to spend the night.
00:11:23.920But I'm not going to let her miss that birthday party.
00:11:32.980Now, it will not surprise you to learn that the comments, and there are hundreds of them, are all from people applauding this strategy and saying that they wish this guy was their own dad.
00:11:42.020And that's because most of the comments are likely from teenagers who, for obvious reasons, would love to have a dad who only grounds them if they agree that it's fair and who will still let them go to parties even when they're grounded.
00:11:53.880Which is like the court sentencing you to house arrest, but then telling you that your house, for these purposes, includes anywhere on the earth.
00:12:01.280Of course, in real life, if you tell your teenage daughter that she's grounded and then ask her if it's fair, in a million cases out of a million, she will say no.
00:12:11.500She's not going to say, oh, yeah, that's fair, and then just walk out of the room perfectly fine with it.
00:12:17.360No, she's going to very stridently inform you that it is not only unfair, but it's the most unfair thing that has ever happened to anyone ever in the world.
00:13:46.580And how come every time we wake up, all of the snacks are gone?
00:13:50.380I, uh, there is no getting out of this.
00:13:53.800And as I'm getting stared down by my four-year-old, I have nothing to say, because I am just caught.
00:13:59.240Only I didn't spend my childhood pulling Hey Misters and Hide the Snacks to deal with this.
00:14:03.240I don't have to justify myself now, and my midnight Oreo snacking, and whatever else I do.
00:14:08.000I am an adult, so I can do whatever I want at night, and I can eat all the snacks I want, is what I want to say.
00:14:13.200But I know that she's not going to buy that.
00:14:15.060I also know that I've taught them about this thing called fairness and sharing, and so she just wants me to share the snacks, but I don't want to.
00:14:20.620Which is where she gets me when she says, from now on, you need to just save us a little bit, please.
00:15:27.820She should be grateful that she has a roof over her head, a room to sleep in, and any food to eat at all.
00:15:33.240You're so generous that you even buy her ice cream sometimes.
00:15:36.780The fact that she's ever had ice cream in her life is an act of generosity on your part.
00:15:41.260The only attitude you should accept from your child is gratitude for the things you give her and the life you provide for her.
00:15:47.380And if she speaks to you that way, you should not respond by promising to give her more snacks in the future.
00:15:52.720No, you should take away snacks, take away privileges, take away freedom until she learns how to speak to you and afford you the respect that she owes you.
00:16:01.100The only thing you have to give your child are the basic necessities to keep them alive.
00:16:06.440Everything else is a privilege, and privileges can and should be revoked if they are not deserved.
00:16:13.980Now, I had to give my own daughter a lecture like this recently.
00:16:17.620She was not scolding me for eating my own food out of my own fridge and would not dare talk to me like that.
00:16:22.360But she did tell me after I reprimanded her for not keeping her room clean that it's her room, and she doesn't know why I care so much whether it's clean or not.
00:16:32.160Now, I did not validate her feelings or get down to her level to make sure that she felt seen and heard.
00:16:38.900I didn't get on my knees and look her in the eyes and say, I'm sorry you feel that way, sweetie.
00:35:26.380ABC news reports a judge on Friday rejected an effort by GOP lawmakers to use the term unborn human being to refer to a fetus in the pamphlet that Arizona voters would use to weigh a ballot.
00:35:37.120Measure that would expand abortion access in the state.
00:35:41.080Maricopa County, uh, Superior Court Judge Christopher Witten said the wording that the state legislative council suggested is packed with emotion and partisan meaning.
00:35:50.220And as for what he called more neutral language, the measure aims to expand abortion access from 15 weeks to 24 weeks, the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb.
00:36:00.980Arizona for abortion access, the organization leading the ballot measure, sued the council earlier this month over the suggested language.
00:36:07.000And advocated for the term fetus, which the legislative council rejected.
00:36:12.560This is why I'll never agree that abortion is a losing issue for us.
00:36:17.880I know that's the conventional wisdom, even on the right, that it's a losing issue.
00:38:05.620The only difference is that the Latin term is more obscure.
00:38:09.240It's less clear to most people who hear it.
00:38:13.980That's the only possible reason a person could have for insisting on the Latin term when there is an English term that means the same thing and is understood by everybody.
00:38:24.380So, that means that they want to make this issue as obscure as possible.
00:38:31.980I've been, I've been preaching this now for weeks.
00:38:35.960It is a misnomer to say that the left wants to talk about abortion, that they want to campaign on abortion, that they see abortion as a strong issue for them.
00:41:33.500And it is the question that they don't want to answer.
00:41:36.660They don't want to be anywhere near it.
00:41:38.180Do you think that Kamala's campaign staff, that they want to see Kamala Harris up on a nationally televised primetime debate stage talking about the personhood question, talking about whether unborn children count as human beings?
00:41:57.640Do you actually think they want to see her explain, they want to hear her explaining why fetus is preferable to an unborn child?
00:48:33.060In all likelihood, it's only because Lin and Iman are in separate divisions that we won't see two men competing for the gold in the women's boxing this year.
00:48:41.980But I'm sure that will happen next Olympics.
00:48:45.860I've outlined the specifics of this farce before.
00:48:48.020But because there's a lot of confusion about what exactly is happening at the Olympics, I'll restate some of the basics very quickly.
00:48:53.480Last year at the World Boxing Championships, both Lin and Iman were disqualified from competing against women.
00:48:58.260The International Boxing Association says that it determined by DNA tests that both Lin and Iman have XY chromosomes, meaning they're men.
00:49:05.500That's the designation you get when you have a Y chromosome, by definition.
00:49:10.920And for good measure, the International Boxing Association determined that in addition to having male chromosomes, both have high testosterone levels.
00:49:22.700But over a year later, the International Olympic Committee now says that Lin and Khalif are indeed women.
00:49:28.260Now, it's not clear why they think that.
00:49:29.580Actually, it's not clear what they think at all or if they have any idea what's happening in their own competition at the moment.
00:49:35.020They appear to be in a state of total confusion and chaos.
00:49:38.140The IOC just tweeted this out, for example.
00:49:40.080Quote, in today's IOC, Paris 2024 press briefing, IOC President Bach said, but I repeat here, this is not a DSD, Disorder of Sex Development case.
00:49:49.620This is about a woman taking part in a women's competition, and I think I have explained this many times.
00:49:55.220What was intended was, quote, but I repeat here, this is not a transgender case.
00:49:58.740This is about a woman taking part in a women's competition, and I think I've explained this many times.
00:50:04.000So that's them correcting what the president said.
00:50:07.100He said that this isn't a case of sex development disorder, and then they corrected that line.
00:50:11.820So the implication is that it is indeed potentially a case of a sex development disorder.
00:50:15.780However, these two male athletes could very well be men who have some differences in normal sex development, whether that means they're intersex or have some other chromosomal issue.
00:50:24.600But we really have no clue because they have not come out and justified any of this.
00:50:30.260And as Collette reported in a very comprehensive piece on this topic, the IOC isn't interested in bringing any clarity to that question.
00:50:36.420Quoting from Collette, in June, the IOC issued a language guide that disallows the use of sex-based language to describe athletes at the games and that requires the treatment of gender-diverse XY athletes who identify as women to be unequivocal.
00:54:19.200But we will not take part in a politically motivated, sometimes politically motivated, cultural war.
00:54:32.160And allow me to say that what is going on in this context, in the social media,
00:54:38.720with all this hate speech, with this aggression and abuse, and fueled by this agenda, is totally unacceptable.
00:54:52.100So it's always the people who have no idea what they're talking about who turn around and tell everyone else to shut up.
00:54:58.660But with total sincerity, he's saying that there's no scientific way to define what a woman is,
00:55:02.780so the best we could do is check their passport.
00:55:04.700Really, whatever's printed on the passport determines whether you can get pregnant or not, I guess.
00:55:11.080You thought the passport office was about, you know, as significant as the DMV, but no, it has supernatural powers, as it turns out.
00:55:16.600The passport office determines whether you're male or female.
00:55:19.860They get to decide whether you can bear children.
00:55:21.660Now, to be fair, he does say that if anyone can think of a better idea, he says that he's all ears.
00:55:27.400But actually, he's not all ears because he attacks his critics in the same breath.
00:55:31.020He says they're politically motivated, and he asserts that anyone who says that it's wrong for a dude to beat up a woman in the boxing ring is guilty of hate speech.
00:55:38.300Quote, some want to own the definition of who is a woman.
00:55:40.980I can only invite them to come up with a scientific new definition of who is a woman.
00:55:44.500How can someone who was born, raised, competed, and has a passport as a woman not be considered a woman?
00:55:50.240The answer to this question is that a woman is an adult human female.
00:55:53.940You can use a DNA test to figure that out if you need to, so we've already solved that problem for you.
00:55:59.560That's the simple and scientific definition of the word woman that is always held true.
00:56:03.620It's the only workable definition that exists.
00:56:32.340None of the people participating in this sham really think differently, but in many cases, people are cowed into saying what they're told to say.
00:56:38.700They're worried about being accused of hate speech, so they stay quiet.
00:56:41.300And that includes Angela Carini, finally, who was just beaten in the ring the other day by Iman Khalif.
00:56:46.760Carini said that it was the hardest she'd ever been hit.
00:56:48.720As we mentioned, she had to end the fight in just 46 seconds.
00:56:51.560Well, this weekend, Angela Carini issued an apology to the man who assaulted her.
00:56:57.260Like many victims of violent abuse, she blamed herself.
00:57:01.520Quote, all this controversy makes me sad.
01:00:49.160There's no reason for any woman to fight these men in the semifinals.
01:00:54.000Participating in the farce only legitimizes it.
01:00:57.400They should demand a female opponent because they're in the women's league.
01:01:00.380The moment that women find the courage is the moment men will no longer be allowed to assault them during sporting events and rob them of the victories that they worked their whole lives to attain.
01:01:12.400But the more that women apologize and grovel and backtrack, the more of this we'll see.