The Megyn Kelly Show - Truth About Gender Differences, Danger of ＂Affirm Only＂ Care, and Parenting Today, with Dr. Leonard Sax

00:00:00.580 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:12.200 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.260 Oh, I am so, so excited for today's show.

00:00:19.160 I've been wanting to get this guest done forever.

00:00:21.920 I mean, 15 years I've wanted to talk to him.

00:00:26.120 As it turns out, you may or may not have been told boys and girls are different.

00:00:30.000 This used to be a pretty uncontroversial opinion for anyone with any interaction with children or life.

00:00:37.160 Their differences are both obvious and not so obvious, and they deeply impact every aspect of a child's development.

00:00:42.260 Today we take a deep dive into this topic, as well as parenting in 2023, gender, and whether it's real or just a mere social construct, as we're told,

00:00:54.020 with practicing physician, psychologist, and best-selling author, Dr. Leonard Sachs.

00:00:58.720 Sachs is the author of books like Why Gender Matters.

00:01:02.700 Oh, Why Gender Matters.

00:01:04.240 He wrote it.

00:01:04.720 He said it.

00:01:05.580 And The Collapse of Parenting, How We Hurt Our Kids When We Treat Them Like Grownups.

00:01:10.980 Dr. Sachs, welcome to the show.

00:01:12.900 It's great to have you.

00:01:14.420 Thanks so much for inviting me.

00:01:16.200 Oh, so my husband and I are big fans of yours.

00:01:17.920 We bought your book, Why Gender Matters, right around when we had our first child, which was 2009, a boy.

00:01:23.960 We have three kids, boy, girl, boy.

00:01:25.840 And read it, and it's literally still on my nightside table at our place in New Jersey where we go over the summers.

00:01:32.320 And I'm reminded, you know, I pick it up every once in a while, like, yes, okay, it's all in here.

00:01:36.240 So glad we read it.

00:01:37.240 Recommend it to everybody.

00:01:38.160 You've updated it.

00:01:39.060 You've written more.

00:01:39.760 But first, let me just start by thanking you for that book.

00:01:43.160 Yeah, I was shaking my head no, because that's the first edition, which was published back in the medieval era.

00:01:49.660 Yeah, 2005.

00:01:50.380 Only had about a half a page on transgender.

00:01:52.780 But the publisher asked me to write a new edition, which now has 12 chapters, the last four of which are gender nonconforming, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex.

00:02:03.740 Because a lot of things have changed in the last 15 years.

00:02:06.560 I know.

00:02:07.280 I remember laughing because I said to Doug, sex has probably been canceled by now.

00:02:11.240 You can't write a book called Why Gender Matters.

00:02:13.060 What's this?

00:02:13.400 Like, does he have any sort of a platform?

00:02:15.260 And, you know, you're everywhere.

00:02:16.160 You haven't been canceled.

00:02:16.880 Somehow you've managed not to be canceled.

00:02:18.400 You're one of the most respected physicians on this issue.

00:02:21.640 Well, I did an interview with Al Roker on The Today Show, which is still up there.

00:02:27.200 But if you look at the latest comments, there's all kinds of rage.

00:02:32.180 People saying, how is this even allowed?

00:02:34.380 The Today Show should take this down because this is totally unacceptable.

00:02:41.800 Mm-hmm.

00:02:43.000 What you're telling me is that there are some NBC viewers who are flipping out over your recitation of actual facts.

00:02:48.840 All right.

00:02:49.040 I'm going to try to take a minute.

00:02:50.740 Get my arms around that one.

00:02:51.920 So let's just start with this because you are an expert on all of it, on gender in general.

00:02:58.540 Yes, we're going to get into whether it's real and all that.

00:03:01.100 But also on just parenting girls, parenting boys, what we're doing right, what we're doing wrong, America versus other countries.

00:03:07.240 So social media, all this stuff.

00:03:09.560 So there's a lot to go over.

00:03:11.320 Let me just start broad based and say what?

00:03:14.100 I mean, we started with there are differences between boys and girls.

00:03:17.900 Yes, we know the obvious ones, the physical ones.

00:03:19.620 But it goes well beyond that.

00:03:21.360 It goes well beyond anatomy on the outside that we can see.

00:03:24.560 Explain.

00:03:24.720 Well, there's been so much exciting recent research.

00:03:28.420 In one study very recently, researchers recruited pregnant women in the third trimester of pregnancy and did high-resolution MRI scans looking at the baby in its mother's womb, these babies in the third trimester,

00:03:44.840 and found dramatic differences in the wiring of the brain, in the baby's brain, in its mother's womb.

00:03:52.760 And with boys' brains having richer connections between cerebellum and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, girls' brains having richer connections within the left hemisphere that the boys did not have.

00:04:07.400 When I speak at this as schools, if I'm allowed, and I'll check in advance to make sure I'm allowed to quote scripture, I'll quote Genesis 1, verse 27.

00:04:16.760 In the image of God, he created him.

00:04:19.020 Male and female, he created them.

00:04:21.760 It doesn't say black and white, he created them.

00:04:24.700 It doesn't say Asian and Hispanic, he created them.

00:04:27.300 Black, white, Asian, and Hispanic are man-made.

00:04:30.700 But male and female are hardwired.

00:04:33.840 You are born male or female.

00:04:36.680 And the irony is that we've got all this new research providing such compelling evidence that that is so.

00:04:44.080 But if you read the New York Times or listen to National Public Radio, you wouldn't know it.

00:04:49.240 That study was never mentioned.

00:04:51.520 And it goes beyond, as I say, you know, what you have between your legs.

00:04:55.720 It goes to how you smell things, how you see things, your ability to hear things.

00:05:02.560 I mean, there are actual physical differences between us.

00:05:04.820 Yeah, New York Times actually did publish my article on sex differences in smell and the ability to detect odors.

00:05:12.840 It turns out that girls and women are better able to detect odors than boys and men.

00:05:19.920 Well, how much better?

00:05:21.560 Twice as good?

00:05:22.420 Five times as sensitive?

00:05:24.800 Ten times?

00:05:25.300 No, it turns out that for many odors, it's 100,000 times more sensitive.

00:05:31.080 So I describe a story from my own practice where a husband and wife went away on vacation in August.

00:05:36.760 It's hot.

00:05:37.260 They come back a week later to their kitchen and the woman steps in and she says,

00:05:42.880 Oh my gosh, something died.

00:05:45.080 It rotted.

00:05:45.580 I think I'm going to throw up.

00:05:46.980 And the man says, I don't smell anything.

00:05:49.720 And they get upset with each other because the woman's like, how can you not smell this?

00:05:54.580 It's overpowering.

00:05:55.860 It's disgusting.

00:05:56.460 And the man's like, I do not smell anything.

00:05:58.820 And they get angry with each other because no one ever told them that you're experiencing different sensory worlds.

00:06:05.340 And I spoke to the man and I said, look, you can't be angry with your wife.

00:06:10.860 Any more than a blind man can be angry with a sighted person.

00:06:14.720 The smell is real.

00:06:15.820 It's overpowering.

00:06:16.580 It's intense.

00:06:17.120 She smells it.

00:06:17.760 You don't.

00:06:18.680 And I said to the woman, you can't be angry with your husband.

00:06:21.280 Any more than a sighted person can be angry with a blind person.

00:06:24.580 He doesn't smell it.

00:06:26.240 He's not kidding or fooling or lying.

00:06:28.580 He doesn't smell it.

00:06:30.360 You know, some pastors do premarital counseling with a man and a woman before they get married.

00:06:35.160 I think this should be part of it.

00:06:37.140 You know, over my 30 some years as a family doctor, I've seen a lot of marriages end.

00:06:42.740 You know, and if you just watch TV, you would think marriages end because of like adultery.

00:06:46.800 Well, you know, I'll tell you what, in the real world, that doesn't happen very often because people are too busy.

00:06:53.160 Why do marriages end?

00:06:54.700 They end because the woman's like, how can you not smell that?

00:06:58.260 You never pay attention to what I say.

00:07:00.080 You don't listen.

00:07:00.980 You don't hear.

00:07:01.680 I think a man and a woman should understand.

00:07:05.940 You know, a mom is upset with her son because his room stinks.

00:07:11.480 And she looks under the bed and there's old food rotting.

00:07:17.300 And she says to her son, look, this is totally unacceptable.

00:07:20.440 And he says, I don't smell anything.

00:07:22.420 What you have to explain to your son, if you're a woman, you have to explain, look, if you ever hope to live with a woman, the standard of cleanliness that will apply is not your standard, but hers.

00:07:33.700 No food in the bedroom.

00:07:35.140 And if you do take food in the bedroom, you got to get rid of it.

00:07:38.800 You can't put it under the bed.

00:07:41.020 Exactly.

00:07:41.380 And it goes also to your son's hearing.

00:07:44.260 You may be saying, oh, my daughter, she's such a good listener.

00:07:47.160 My boys, they blow me off.

00:07:49.760 It's not necessarily a blow off.

00:07:51.180 Another story I share from my own practice.

00:07:53.440 So I'm doing this yearly visit.

00:07:56.280 And in my practice in Maryland, we allowed an hour for physical.

00:08:01.800 So I had plenty of time.

00:08:04.740 So this teenage girl shared with me, she said, you know, my father's always shouting at me.

00:08:11.260 And I really don't like that at all.

00:08:14.060 So, you know, I come home.

00:08:15.580 I quietly go up to my bedroom.

00:08:18.680 I close the door.

00:08:19.340 I really just don't want to have to deal with that.

00:08:23.280 So a few days later, with the daughter's permission, you know, I saw the father and I said, hey, your daughter shared with me that that you're always shouting at her.

00:08:32.520 And he said, Dr.

00:08:34.580 Dr. Sachs, I never want to shout at that girl.

00:08:36.900 Yeah, I'll see you, Julia.

00:08:39.000 He said, okay, yeah.

00:08:40.840 And I explained to him, there are sex differences in hearing based on and also age differences.

00:08:48.680 Children hear better than adults.

00:08:50.720 And girls and women hear better than boys and men at every age.

00:08:54.660 So I said to this man, you're 45 years old.

00:08:57.300 You're a man.

00:08:57.980 You're talking to a 15-year-old girl.

00:09:01.320 Whisper.

00:09:01.920 I mean, don't literally whisper, but lower your voice way, way down.

00:09:05.960 And a few weeks later, I saw the girl again.

00:09:08.620 And she said to me, she said, oh, my goodness.

00:09:11.500 My father can actually talk like a normal person.

00:09:14.500 Wow.

00:09:14.680 He was happy to make the accommodation.

00:09:16.400 No one had ever explained to him.

00:09:17.760 There are hardwired differences in hearing, which I lay out at great detail in the second edition of Why Gender Matters.

00:09:25.540 Hardwired differences in hearing, vision, and smell, which are not just in our species, incidentally.

00:09:30.060 They're in gorillas, chimpanzees, all across the primate order.

00:09:33.520 We find these hardwired sex differences in hearing, vision, and smell of great magnitude.

00:09:39.600 And most people are completely unaware of them.

00:09:42.900 And it goes beyond that as well, because children learn differently.

00:09:46.780 You write about how small groups work great for girls, not so great for boys.

00:09:52.720 Art.

00:09:53.680 Girls draw very differently than boys if given a blank piece of paper and markers.

00:09:58.020 And this could affect the way the teachers react to them.

00:10:00.040 Interactions with teachers.

00:10:01.120 Very different for girls and boys.

00:10:02.900 All of this is actually what led us to put our kids in single-sex education.

00:10:06.880 Our boys are in single-sex, you know, boy and our daughter is in single-sex girl.

00:10:10.500 And we'll see what happens at the high school level.

00:10:12.100 But right now, they're all there.

00:10:13.600 So in any event, my point is, it goes beyond just physical characteristics.

00:10:18.080 There are things happening in the minds that make them learn differently that could be affecting

00:10:22.020 the feedback you're getting from your teacher right now at school.

00:10:26.760 Absolutely.

00:10:27.520 And I've seen this on so many occasions.

00:10:30.660 Again, in my own practice, mom has four sons.

00:10:38.640 And her oldest, Andrew, came home one day in tears.

00:10:41.680 This was in first grade.

00:10:44.480 The teacher had asked everyone to draw whatever they want.

00:10:49.180 And Andrew had drawn a knight cutting off the head of a dragon.

00:10:54.860 And then the teacher gave gold stars to the kids whose picture she liked.

00:11:00.500 And Andrew did not get a gold star.

00:11:02.520 He came home in tears.

00:11:04.420 He proceeded.

00:11:05.120 He was throwing out all of his drawing materials.

00:11:07.280 He'd love to draw, but he's throwing it all in the garbage.

00:11:10.100 And he's in tears.

00:11:11.680 And mom is trying to understand what's going on.

00:11:13.740 Why are you throwing out all your crayons and all your drawing stuff?

00:11:19.140 And she finally gets a story out of him.

00:11:21.600 And she called the teacher and said, my son came home in tears and says, he doesn't ever

00:11:26.000 want to draw again because you gave everyone else a gold star and you didn't give him a

00:11:31.640 gold star.

00:11:32.720 And she said, that's correct.

00:11:34.420 He drew a violent picture, a depiction of death, a violent death.

00:11:38.860 And I don't want to condone violence.

00:11:41.280 You know, what about Columbine?

00:11:42.320 What about Virginia Tech?

00:11:44.760 And mom said, but he's a six-year-old boy.

00:11:49.440 And the teacher said, that's right.

00:11:50.880 That's why I did not make a referral.

00:11:52.880 I thought of making a referral, but I didn't.

00:11:55.300 So she yanked him out of that school and put him in a boys' school.

00:11:59.020 And he has done very well.

00:12:02.620 This was more than 20 years ago.

00:12:04.900 He went on to Stanford on a football scholarship and he's done very well.

00:12:11.220 But if teachers don't understand these, look, when you give kids a blank piece of paper

00:12:16.320 and a box of crayons at six years of age and you say to them, draw whatever you want, girls

00:12:21.960 and boys draw very different things.

00:12:24.160 Girls draw people, pets, flowers, and trees, usually two, three, or four arranged on a horizontal

00:12:28.320 ground.

00:12:30.060 About nine out of ten boys draw something very different.

00:12:33.940 They draw a scene of action at a moment of dynamic change, like a monster eating an alien,

00:12:38.240 a rocket smashing into a planet.

00:12:39.500 But in my book, Why Gender Matters, I show that these differences derive from hardwired

00:12:43.640 differences in the visual system.

00:12:46.160 Humans, like all higher primates, have two visual systems.

00:12:49.060 One that's looking for speed, direction, change in direction, collision.

00:12:52.740 Another that's looking for color, detail, and texture.

00:12:56.860 We now know that girls and females across primate order have more resources in the system

00:13:04.400 that's looking for color, detail, and texture.

00:13:06.320 Boys have more resources in the system that's looking for speed, direction, change in direction.

00:13:12.980 And this appears to help explain why most boys draw collisions, collection.

00:13:21.860 And most girls are drawing people, pets, flowers, and trees with lots of detail.

00:13:25.740 Ten or more crayons.

00:13:27.140 Boys are using six or fewer crayons with the predominance of black, gray, silver, and blue.

00:13:32.800 These are hardwired differences.

00:13:34.300 If teachers understand these differences, then they can engage and motivate boys.

00:13:40.000 But instead, I've been in classrooms where the teacher is saying,

00:13:42.800 I have visited over 460 schools over the last 22 years, so I've seen this a lot.

00:13:47.580 The teacher is saying, oh, Emily, I love your picture with the girls and the flowers.

00:13:52.900 Carry on.

00:13:53.660 And then she comes to Jason, and she's saying, Jason, what is this a picture of?

00:13:57.340 And Jason explains, it's a car crash.

00:13:58.920 And these two cars are being crushed between these cars.

00:14:00.940 And the teacher is saying, Jason, a car crash, it's really violent.

00:14:04.540 People are going to get killed or paralyzed.

00:14:06.700 You know, look at Emily's picture.

00:14:07.820 It's so nice.

00:14:08.520 No one's getting wounded.

00:14:10.420 Do you really have to draw such violent pictures?

00:14:12.780 And the result is not boys who run and draw pictures of flowers.

00:14:16.220 The result is boys who say drawing is for girls.

00:14:19.360 I've seen this firsthand.

00:14:20.380 I was in another elementary school.

00:14:22.280 Teacher said, free time, you can do whatever you want.

00:14:24.000 And the girls were sitting and drawing.

00:14:26.500 And one boy was running around a room making a buzzing noise.

00:14:29.200 And I got in his way, and I stopped him.

00:14:31.000 And I said, how come you don't want to sit and draw?

00:14:34.060 And he said, drawing's for girls.

00:14:36.960 Drawing is for girls.

00:14:39.260 The lack of awareness of gender differences has the unintended consequence of reinforcing gender stereotypes.

00:14:45.040 Because this teacher, like most teachers, has received no instruction in these hardwired differences in what girls and boys want to draw.

00:14:53.360 She's got one more boy who's decided that drawing is for girls.

00:14:57.360 If you understand gender differences, then you can break down gender stereotypes.

00:15:01.600 And you can have boys who love to draw.

00:15:03.520 Boys who love football and video games who love to draw.

00:15:06.980 I've seen this.

00:15:08.240 Yes, I know.

00:15:08.820 And you have also pointed out that if you look at a boy's drawing of, let's say, a family or people, you're going to see most likely stick figures with not much going on in the facial.

00:15:18.420 A hundred percent.

00:15:19.660 I've seen that a million times.

00:15:20.920 And if the teacher isn't well educated, she could think he's not trying.

00:15:23.560 He's sort of phoning it in.

00:15:24.600 Like, that's not what a person doesn't look like a stick figure with very little facial expression.

00:15:28.980 But there is a real difference there in the genders.

00:15:31.200 And on top of that, you talk about how you take four girls and put them at a small table in a classroom.

00:15:36.700 That's going to work out beautifully.

00:15:37.920 Not so much on the boyfriend.

00:15:39.540 Why is that?

00:15:41.120 So girls, on average, want to affiliate with the teacher, want to please the teacher.

00:15:48.520 Incidentally, this is true not only in humans.

00:15:50.420 This is true in chimpanzees.

00:15:52.480 Richard Wrangham and colleagues at Harvard observing chimpanzees in the wild find the mommy chimpanzee is teaching the young chimpanzee how to fish for termites.

00:16:02.800 You put the stick in the termite mound, let it sit there, and then pull it out and take the termites off and eat them.

00:16:09.380 And the girl chimpanzee is paying attention and then doing what the mommy is showing her.

00:16:13.860 The boy chimpanzee is totally blowing off mom and running off and wrestling with the other guys.

00:16:18.580 These are chimpanzees.

00:16:19.760 This is not a social construct.

00:16:21.700 It's observed in chimpanzees.

00:16:23.280 We find the same in our own species.

00:16:26.320 On average, the girls want to please the teacher.

00:16:29.720 They're listening to what the teacher says.

00:16:31.360 The four girls are at the table and the teachers assign them to talk about the difference between cell walls in plants and cell membranes in animals.

00:16:38.700 And that's what they're talking about.

00:16:40.440 So I'm in this classroom and I'm with the four boys at the back of the room.

00:16:44.640 And the teacher said, okay, now I want you to look at your team members and I want you to talk about the difference between cell walls in plants and cell membranes in animals.

00:16:54.760 So I'm at the back of the room with these four boys and the boys look at each other.

00:16:58.100 And one boy says to another boy, he says, so when did you move here?

00:17:03.260 I don't recognize you.

00:17:04.600 And the boy said, well, we just moved here from Dallas.

00:17:06.700 He says, and he really misses Dallas because you don't have any football here in South Carolina.

00:17:11.560 And the other three boys are like, no, no football.

00:17:15.600 How can you say there's no football?

00:17:17.380 What about U of SC?

00:17:18.980 What about Clemson?

00:17:19.980 Of course we have football.

00:17:21.240 And the boy from Dallas dismisses that and says, that's just college football.

00:17:24.740 That's not real football.

00:17:25.860 And now we have the four boys engaged in a lively debate about the virtues of the NFL versus NCAA Division I.

00:17:34.580 And that's the end of the day as far as cell walls in plants and cell membranes in animals.

00:17:39.860 Because among boys, disrespecting the teacher can raise your status in the eyes of the other boys.

00:17:48.760 And when that other boy says, hey, I don't recognize you.

00:17:51.660 When did you move here?

00:17:53.460 If the other boy were to say, oh, we're not supposed to talk about that.

00:17:56.720 We're supposed to talk about cell walls and plants and cell membranes in animals.

00:17:59.700 He would greatly lower his status in the eyes of the other boys.

00:18:03.900 So independent small group work doesn't work very good in sixth grade with boys.

00:18:09.960 And again, if teachers don't understand that, they've got the boys goofing off and the girls doing well.

00:18:15.300 We've got this growing gender gap in academic achievement.

00:18:18.280 You had Warren Farrell on last year.

00:18:20.480 You know all about this.

00:18:22.140 Growing gender gap in academic achievement.

00:18:24.220 Boys doing much worse than girls across the board.

00:18:27.400 White, black, Asian, and Hispanic.

00:18:28.980 Affluent middle income, low income.

00:18:31.320 New York, Texas.

00:18:32.940 Doesn't matter.

00:18:33.940 This is a very widespread phenomenon.

00:18:37.040 And it's really, it's a constant surprise to me how it has changed the culture of the school.

00:18:44.000 So I was speaking to students at another school.

00:18:45.780 And I, we had a whole school assembly and I'm talking to them.

00:18:51.580 And when I speak to students, it's always question and answer.

00:18:54.160 It's not a formal presentation.

00:18:55.360 It's question and answer.

00:18:56.580 So I said to the students, I said, I said, this next question is just for the boys.

00:19:02.200 Gentlemen, I was walking through the hallway and I saw that the principal's honor roll.

00:19:06.500 And on the principal's honor roll, there are 19 girls and three boys.

00:19:14.680 Can any of you boys explain to me why there's 19 girls and three boys on the principal's honor roll?

00:19:20.000 Why aren't there more boys?

00:19:21.640 And several boys raised their hand and I called on them.

00:19:24.580 And they all gave some variation on the answer.

00:19:29.140 Girls are smarter.

00:19:31.600 Wow.

00:19:32.120 They believe this.

00:19:33.340 Now, to me, this is a surprise because I'm an old guy.

00:19:36.060 When I graduated from my public high school in 1977, we had an honors assembly and almost all the kids up on the stage were boys.

00:19:43.140 The winner of the poetry award was a boy.

00:19:45.780 The editor of the school newspaper, Andy Borowitz, who I'm sure you know, writes for the New Yorker magazine.

00:19:51.540 He was a boy.

00:19:52.320 He was the editor of our high school newspaper.

00:19:54.540 They were all boys.

00:19:56.880 Now, my high school in Ohio still has a honors assembly.

00:20:00.780 It's almost all girls.

00:20:02.580 Why did this happen?

00:20:06.720 DNA can't change in 30 years or 50 years.

00:20:09.840 Well, the short answer, and Warren Farrell and I are singing in harmony on this point, not in unison, but in harmony.

00:20:17.920 The short answer is motivation.

00:20:20.820 30 years ago, 50 years ago, boys wanted to be the top student.

00:20:26.740 You know, 60 years ago, number one hit song in the United States.

00:20:33.180 Don't know much about history and young man singing.

00:20:39.240 Now, I don't claim to be an A student, but I'm trying to be.

00:20:42.820 Trying to be.

00:20:44.160 Maybe by being an A student baby.

00:20:46.480 An A student baby.

00:20:47.400 I could win your love for me.

00:20:49.240 He goes on to mention French geometry and trigonometry as subjects in which he's going to try harder to earn an A rather than the B.

00:20:56.000 Because he believes that by earning an A, he will raise his status in the eyes of the pretty girl.

00:21:01.680 That was American culture a generation ago.

00:21:05.780 Not anymore.

00:21:06.680 You cannot imagine Drake or Bruno Mars singing a song about how they want to get a good mark in French, except as a joke.

00:21:15.480 Working hard to get a good mark in school is now seen as unmasculine.

00:21:22.280 So the short answer to the question, why are boys now doing less well than their sisters, is that boys are now less motivated than their sisters are.

00:21:31.320 That wasn't true a generation ago.

00:21:33.000 It's true today.

00:21:33.760 This is a focus of my book, Boys Adrift, the subtitle, The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men.

00:21:43.100 And this, again, affects affluent white families in Manhattan, just as much as it affects low-income Spanish-speaking families in Grand Prairie, Texas.

00:21:55.000 And I've spoken to both.

00:21:57.680 It's a very robust phenomenon.

00:22:00.140 But all of this is also further evidence that gender is a real thing.

00:22:03.100 It's not a social construct.

00:22:05.380 All of these genders affecting the way we hear, we see, we interact, we interact with a teacher, we interact with the way we learn.

00:22:13.360 You know, we could go down the line.

00:22:14.540 You have an interesting chapter in one of the books talking about how there may be a gender gap when it comes to pay in America.

00:22:21.680 It's not just because, oh, you know what, it's a sexist society.

00:22:25.000 It could very well be because women are less likely to ask for a raise.

00:22:29.980 Men are more likely to go in there and say, I want more money.

00:22:32.720 So we have to dig down a little deeper than what we're told.

00:22:35.980 Let me argue with you there, though, because that's very much Warren Farrell's position.

00:22:40.080 This is one point where Warren and I are not in agreement.

00:22:43.100 Warren Farrell has published books showing that most of the gender gap in pay is due to the fact that women tend to prefer professions like nursing and education.

00:22:55.120 Men are more likely than women to go into fields like computer science and engineering, which pay much more than nursing and education.

00:23:09.560 And, of course, that's absolutely right.

00:23:11.540 However, when you look at what young people in the United States are actually earning, and we now have good recent data on this, look at young Americans, 24 to 35 years of age, who are single, who do not have children at home.

00:23:26.760 You find that young women are now earning almost 20% more than young men.

00:23:34.380 Now, how can both these statements be true?

00:23:37.300 It is a true statement that across the United States, when you control for all the factors that Warren Farrell brings to our attention, control for a number of hours worked each week, control for who they're working for and what their job description is.

00:23:52.380 A man and a woman working the same job for the same employer, same number of hours a week with the same background and qualifications, the man is earning 8% more than the woman across the United States.

00:24:05.860 That's a fact.

00:24:06.660 However, when you look at men and women under 35, no kids at home, women are earning 20% more than the man.

00:24:13.420 How can both those statements be true?

00:24:14.740 Both those statements are true.

00:24:15.620 How to reconcile the difference?

00:24:17.560 Because the man and the woman are not earning, working the same job.

00:24:21.160 Women who've earned a four-year degree now outnumber men.

00:24:26.100 Young women who've earned a four-year degree now outnumber men by three to two.

00:24:31.160 So the woman is an assistant banker at the local bank, and her boyfriend is working a minimum wage entry-level job because she earned a four-year degree and he dropped out.

00:24:48.840 So gender really matters, and it has these consequences, but young men are now less motivated, less likely than their sisters to earn a four-year degree, less likely to earn an advanced degree.

00:25:03.880 You know, when I went to medical school, medical school was 50-50.

00:25:09.360 At Harvard Medical School, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, women now outnumber men three to two at medical school.

00:25:16.420 Yeah, and that's typical law school as well.

00:25:17.920 Because women are working harder.

00:25:19.860 Well, I do think it's interesting because in your book, this is from Why Gender Matters, you get into economist Linda Babcock studying students, graduating from Carnegie Mellon with a master's in a business-related field.

00:25:33.620 And you write, she found the starting salaries of the men were about 8% higher than those of the women.

00:25:38.620 But then she looked to figure out why.

00:25:41.600 Is it just because we're a bunch of sexist pigs in corporate America?

00:25:44.520 And you say she concluded the men had asked for more.

00:25:48.820 The men had asked for more.

00:25:50.440 57% of the men had asked for more money, and only 7% of the female students had asked.

00:25:56.380 And I do think that's fascinating because, again, it kind of goes back to the way we're built.

00:26:02.180 Like, men are typically bigger risk-takers than women.

00:26:06.460 And I don't know if this one's right, but I feel like women also fear rejection more intensely.

00:26:12.020 Well, I can tell you as a man, men fear rejection too.

00:26:16.840 But girls and women are more likely to want to please the person in charge.

00:26:23.000 Men are, on average, more willing to push back and challenge.

00:26:30.080 And, again, just because that's hardwired doesn't mean we have to accept that.

00:26:34.580 And I have led many workshops on empowering girls to take risks, to ask for more.

00:26:43.820 Because, again, why that robust 8% difference?

00:26:47.280 A man and a woman working the same job, same employer, same qualifications.

00:26:50.620 The man is getting paid 8% more because he asked for more money.

00:26:54.520 If you're in that job interview and the employer says, well, we can offer $80,000 a year.

00:27:01.620 The man says, well, I have another offer here for $110,000.

00:27:06.700 The employer will say, well, we can't match $110,000, but we could sweeten this maybe to $86,000, 8% more.

00:27:21.860 And that's what he gets.

00:27:23.980 It turns out he was totally lying.

00:27:25.880 He was just playing a negotiator's game.

00:27:28.280 He didn't have that offer.

00:27:29.540 The woman is much less likely, Professor Babcock and others have found, to say, no, I want more.

00:27:38.860 Can you give me more?

00:27:41.080 And, okay, there may be a hardwired basis to that, but we can overcome that.

00:27:47.700 Okay, a big part of my book, Why Gender Matters and Girls on the Edge, is to empower girls, to ask for more, to find your voice, to be a leader.

00:28:02.040 And we have to realize that girls may be at a hardwired disadvantage, so we need to work that much harder.

00:28:09.080 What girls need to succeed is different from what boys need to succeed.

00:28:14.020 For that boy, you may need to say, hey, you know, you need to tone down the disrespect a little bit.

00:28:19.400 You need to be a little more courteous.

00:28:21.540 You need to listen a little more and maybe talk a little less.

00:28:24.900 That's what that boy needs.

00:28:26.400 That girl needs just the opposite.

00:28:28.220 She needs to find her voice.

00:28:30.220 She needs to be encouraged to speak up and disagree.

00:28:34.220 What girls need is different from what boys need, and there's a hardwired basis to that.

00:28:38.920 That doesn't mean that you need to accept that,

00:28:41.100 but you need to understand what girls need is different from what boys need.

00:28:46.160 So all of this, Doc, is, to me, one of the many reasons it's interesting.

00:28:50.260 It's interesting as a mother to hear, because I have, you know, boys and girls.

00:28:55.000 That's interesting.

00:28:55.720 But one of the reasons is we're now basically told that if you just get a sex change operation by changing, you know,

00:29:02.180 having your penis and your balls cut off and somebody building a vagina, you're now a woman.

00:29:07.160 You're a woman.

00:29:07.620 And we've talked on this show many times as women about how, you know what?

00:29:12.060 There's a lot more to it than that.

00:29:13.420 And by the way, a fake constructed vagina is not that doesn't make you a woman.

00:29:18.300 That's not that's not what we are.

00:29:20.640 Just that.

00:29:22.840 But reading your book again and getting ready for the show just reminded me.

00:29:26.180 It's just sort of it's not it's not like I didn't know a lot of this.

00:29:28.780 I am a woman, but it's just a reminder that there are so many innate differences between the sexes.

00:29:35.480 Everyone used to know this, whether they could put it into language or not.

00:29:38.480 They just knew it on an instinctual level.

00:29:40.720 And yet all around us in today's day and age, they're trying to sort of deprogram us out of that that fundamental biological understanding we've had since birth.

00:29:51.540 They're trying to tell us none of it's real and it does feel like gaslighting.

00:29:56.660 I know that term's overused, but what they're doing to us now on gender feels like gaslighting.

00:30:01.380 Well, and so much of this really upsets me because one of the ironic consequences of the transgender activism is that it is actually reinforcing gender stereotypes.

00:30:13.420 So my daughter, who is 16, her dream for many years has been to be a combat, fly combat aircraft for the United States Air Force.

00:30:24.220 And if you go in her bedroom, she's got it wallpapered with fighter aircraft and F-22s and dangling from her light is a is a fighter plane, F-22 or something like that.

00:30:45.000 She could she can recite all the statistics to you.

00:30:50.020 But and that's great.

00:30:51.700 That's great.

00:30:52.000 She also loves to do ballet, incidentally.

00:30:53.820 She does ballet, tap and jazz, six hours a week of instruction.

00:30:56.860 She's a knitter, I heard you say.

00:30:58.740 And and she knits and crochets.

00:31:02.100 And that's great.

00:31:03.740 You know, I'm old enough to remember the Sally Ride era when the mantra was that a girl can do anything.

00:31:10.020 A girl can be an astronaut.

00:31:12.980 A girl can be combat infantry.

00:31:14.960 Girl can be anything.

00:31:16.960 But we're not in that era anymore.

00:31:18.960 And today, when a teenage girl says, I want to be a combat fighter pilot, people will say people will literally say things like, well, what are your preferred pronouns?

00:31:29.840 Are you transitioning?

00:31:32.300 And that's what's really weird and troubling about this transgender moment is that it is hardening gender stereotypes.

00:31:38.920 Look, girls can do anything.

00:31:42.600 And a girl wants to be combat infantry.

00:31:45.400 That's great.

00:31:46.020 It doesn't mean she wants to transition to the male role.

00:31:49.480 Boys can do anything.

00:31:50.900 But if a boy wants to do ballet, it doesn't mean you change his name to Emily and put him in a dress.

00:31:59.180 You let him watch Michael, Mikhail Baryshnikov.

00:32:02.940 You know, men can be great at ballet.

00:32:06.440 It doesn't mean they're no longer men.

00:32:08.980 It's impoverished.

00:32:12.060 The understanding of the complexity of human gender.

00:32:16.640 And again, in Why Gender Matters, I have this graph.

00:32:21.860 You know, 30 years ago, we thought gender was a one-dimensional continuum.

00:32:26.960 You were masculine or you were feminine.

00:32:29.560 If you were less masculine, you were more feminine.

00:32:31.500 That's clearly not accurate.

00:32:33.320 Gender is two dimensions.

00:32:35.160 You can be masculine or not.

00:32:37.160 You can be feminine or not.

00:32:38.900 You can be both, which is androgynous.

00:32:41.140 You can be neither, which is undifferentiated.

00:32:44.080 There's no order of rank here.

00:32:45.640 Part of becoming a fulfilled human being is figuring out where you belong on this two-dimensional graph.

00:32:54.080 So in my own marriage, I've been married for 32 years.

00:32:57.560 I do all the grocery shopping because I love shopping for groceries.

00:33:01.140 My wife hates it.

00:33:03.260 She does all the lawnmowering and she fixes the lawnmower.

00:33:06.460 I would have no idea what to do with a broken lawnmower.

00:33:10.100 I was raised by a single mom and we called Vic DiGeronimo, our handyman.

00:33:16.440 He would come and fix everything.

00:33:19.040 And that's fine.

00:33:20.700 That's fine.

00:33:21.480 Again, the transgender activists are trying to flatten this.

00:33:26.360 That if you're a boy and you like ballet and you don't like violent video games, well, then maybe you're actually a girl.

00:33:35.200 It's psychotic.

00:33:37.260 And by psychotic, I mean it is utterly detached from reality.

00:33:40.960 Humans have always been a complex mix of masculine and feminine.

00:33:45.480 And it is weird that in 2023, with all the evidence we have, that this deranged notion of gender has captured the New York Times, National Public Radio, Harvard Graduate School of Education, University of Texas Austin.

00:34:04.620 Listen, I debated Professor Rebecca Bigler, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, that's her title, at University of Texas Austin.

00:34:12.840 Her preferred pronouns are Z and Xur.

00:34:15.420 Now, she happens to be, in her terminology, a straight cisgender female, but she regards the pronouns he and she as creations of the heteronormative patriarchy.

00:34:27.640 So she preferred the pronouns Z and Xur because she believes that all enlightened people should be trying to undermine and deconstruct the heteronormative patriarchy.

00:34:37.000 And in our debate, which was recorded, I said, Professor Bigler, if it was in your power, would you eliminate the Girl Scouts?

00:34:46.320 And she said, yes.

00:34:47.580 She said, I think the idea of scouting is great, but the idea that children assigned female should do it separately from children assigned male is just wrong.

00:34:57.360 It's reinforcing the heteronormative binary.

00:35:00.680 And I said, okay, so you want boys and girls at age 11 to go camping together in the same tent?

00:35:07.720 And she said, absolutely.

00:35:09.480 I said, and I turned to the audience.

00:35:10.980 I said, okay, I think we've arrived at an irreconcilable difference.

00:35:14.580 To me, what girls need to become confident at scouting is different from what boys need.

00:35:20.360 And I've seen this firsthand, again, because we do live in a sexist society.

00:35:23.920 And when you put 11-year-old girls and boys together, the boys will say, oh, I know how to do that.

00:35:29.020 And the girls will step back and let the boys do it.

00:35:32.140 If you want girls to be confident with a knife, if you want girls to be confident with a sledgehammer,

00:35:38.660 that 11-year-old girl needs an all-girl setting so that she can find her voice, so she can develop her confidence.

00:35:44.800 And I'm not arguing for single-sex education.

00:35:47.100 And I did for many years, and I was a real advocate.

00:35:51.500 And I launched an organization called the National Association for Single-Sex Public Education.

00:35:56.440 And we had some success.

00:35:57.940 When we launched, there were seven girls' public schools in the United States and one boys' school.

00:36:03.640 When the ACLU shut us down in 2012, there were 110 girls' public schools and 70 boys' public schools.

00:36:13.260 But I no longer campaigned for girls' schools and boys' schools because I saw if teachers don't have training,

00:36:25.100 it can reinforce gender stereotypes.

00:36:28.360 And I actually reached out to ACLU because on paper, we had the same concerns.

00:36:34.360 If teachers have no training and you put them in a room with all boys,

00:36:37.820 they start teaching boys using sports analogies.

00:36:41.260 If teachers have no training and you put them in a room with just girls,

00:36:45.780 they start teaching girls algebra using shopping analogies.

00:36:49.200 Well, let me tell you something.

00:36:50.220 A lot of girls hate to shop.

00:36:51.840 And a lot of boys don't like football.

00:36:53.700 It reinforces gender stereotypes.

00:36:56.160 The single-sex format can be wonderful.

00:36:59.240 Teachers know how to use it.

00:37:00.500 It can break down gender stereotypes so that the same boy who loves football will love Jane Eyre,

00:37:05.880 will love Emily Dickinson.

00:37:07.140 So that the same girl who loves Kylie Jenner will love computer science, will love physics.

00:37:15.100 I've seen this.

00:37:16.860 But it's only if the teachers have had the right kind of training.

00:37:19.580 If you just put teachers in a single-sex classroom without training,

00:37:23.420 without that institutional understanding of how to do this well,

00:37:26.480 it doesn't lead to good outcomes.

00:37:28.540 That's fascinating.

00:37:30.120 I'll say that that last remark reminded me of a time I was shopping last year.

00:37:34.980 And, you know, we're in Connecticut and it's a hoity sort of area.

00:37:38.860 And there was a sign out in front of the Sephora, which is where we go for makeup,

00:37:43.180 that said something like,

00:37:44.800 Don't worry, ladies.

00:37:47.300 Your husband approves.

00:37:49.320 Come on in and buy it.

00:37:50.300 Something like that.

00:37:50.740 I was like,

00:37:51.960 Oh, my God.

00:37:53.620 What the hell is going on with your stupid sign, Sephora?

00:37:57.020 I'll buy my own makeup.

00:37:58.480 I don't give a damn whether my husband approves.

00:38:00.780 I don't run stuff by him.

00:38:02.660 What kind of messaging is this?

00:38:04.600 For me, for the other women in town, for the boys or the girls,

00:38:07.020 like this is effed up.

00:38:08.020 So we still, you know, have some problematic things when it comes to messaging to both sexes.

00:38:13.780 There's a lot to get into.

00:38:14.900 When we come back from the break, we're going to start a discussion on transgender youth

00:38:19.260 and the messaging from groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics,

00:38:23.040 which Dr. Sachs has been very publicly critical of.

00:38:26.200 And very few other doctors have had the nerve to do that.

00:38:29.940 All right.

00:38:30.120 So stand by for much, much more.

00:38:35.060 We talked about gender stereotypes.

00:38:37.140 Just a personal moment, if you'll allow me.

00:38:39.700 I grew up in the 1970s.

00:38:41.200 I was born in 1970.

00:38:42.160 And I had absolutely no interest in wearing a dress, in doing anything girly.

00:38:47.880 I didn't much like dolls.

00:38:49.420 All I wanted for Christmas was a Stretch Armstrong and an Incredible Hulk.

00:38:53.100 My mom used to beg me to play with Barbies.

00:38:55.200 I'm like, I'm not into it.

00:38:56.580 She I want my hair was cut short.

00:38:59.440 I'll show you one picture of me with a family.

00:39:01.460 We cut out the rest of the family.

00:39:02.840 I've shown this before.

00:39:03.420 But there I am in my cowgirl outfit, which is all I ever wore.

00:39:06.720 I guess there's a reason I insisted on wearing it to the Olin Mills photo shoot.

00:39:09.620 My cow with my guns, I had my guns on my hip and wanted to pretend fake shoot things.

00:39:15.840 And then here's my very favorite photo of myself, Doc, when I was just a little girl.

00:39:20.060 I don't know if I was maybe six or seven here.

00:39:22.420 It's me looking like a boy on a tire swing.

00:39:24.880 I think most people look at that photo and say that's a boy in my jeans and my Navy sweatshirt,

00:39:29.440 which I loved.

00:39:30.320 And my very short hair loved it.

00:39:33.080 OK, now look at me.

00:39:34.300 I'm all woman and today's F'd up society would have told that little girl who was, quote,

00:39:42.160 gender, nonconfort, whatever we're calling it now, that she might actually be a boy and

00:39:46.580 she might consider having her breasts cut off and preventing puberty and then going directly

00:39:52.260 on cross sex hormones.

00:39:53.380 And just the thought of it makes me very, very angry.

00:39:56.260 Yeah, well, I share your anger.

00:40:01.820 In 2018, the American Academy of, excuse me, the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is

00:40:08.280 our nation's largest group by far representing pediatricians, published guidelines.

00:40:14.880 Now, I have been reading the guidelines of the AAP for 35 years since I was in my training

00:40:22.400 to be a doctor at the University of Pennsylvania.

00:40:26.400 And they're usually evidence-based and rock solid.

00:40:32.180 They bring in the leading people to look at all the evidence and come to consensus about

00:40:37.740 what is the standard of care with regard to asthma or delayed development or whatever

00:40:44.140 the issue might be.

00:40:44.900 So they convened a panel to issue guidelines for evaluation and management of kids with

00:40:52.540 gender dysphoria, boys who say they're girls, girls who say they're boys.

00:40:57.560 And the guidelines are unequivocal.

00:40:59.660 They say that if a boy says he's a girl, then you are to transition him to the female role.

00:41:10.440 You are to change the birth certificate.

00:41:12.980 Justin never existed.

00:41:14.020 You're going to change the birth certificate to Emily.

00:41:17.740 And if the parents hesitate, then you, the pediatrician, should consider getting child

00:41:24.440 protective services involved to begin the process that will take custody away from the parents.

00:41:31.660 So I wrote a letter to the AAP in which I pointed out that that recommendation was not

00:41:38.660 based in evidence.

00:41:39.460 So prior to those guidelines, the standard of care was reasonably termed watchful waiting.

00:41:47.640 So a six-year-old boy says he's a girl.

00:41:50.160 Okay, well, you're going to try to understand why that is so.

00:41:54.520 Sometimes it's because his older brother is bullying him and the older brother doesn't

00:41:58.700 bully the sister.

00:41:59.680 So he figures, well, if I'm a girl, I won't get bullied.

00:42:01.840 Other times it's because this boy likes ballet and doesn't like lightsabers.

00:42:07.320 And the only people he knows who likes ballet are girls.

00:42:10.220 So you wait.

00:42:13.240 You show them, look, you can study ballet, but you'll study ballet as a boy, not as a

00:42:18.280 girl.

00:42:18.480 And that strategy was called watchful waiting.

00:42:23.240 The American Academy of Pediatrics denounced that strategy and said that is bigotry, pure

00:42:28.400 and simple.

00:42:29.300 We know, the guidelines said, we know that conversion therapy, watchful waiting is conversion

00:42:37.040 therapy, the AAP assisted.

00:42:38.740 And we know that conversion therapy does not work.

00:42:41.300 And they had a scholarly citation, evidence.

00:42:45.240 So I looked up that scholarly citation.

00:42:47.740 It's one study published 30 years ago, a study of adult gay men showing that trying to

00:42:55.420 get them to be straight didn't work.

00:42:58.340 And I wrote in my comment, your guidelines are not based in evidence.

00:43:02.340 In support of your claim that watchful waiting is bigoted conversion therapy, you cite a study

00:43:08.540 from 30 years ago of adult gay men.

00:43:12.680 The pediatrician should understand that children are not adults.

00:43:16.400 And anyone studying this issue should understand that gender identity, whether you're male or

00:43:22.160 female, is not the same thing as sexual orientation, whether you're gay or straight.

00:43:26.840 The study you cited is completely irrelevant to the claim you made.

00:43:31.000 The claim you made has no basis in evidence.

00:43:34.420 So they reviewed my letter and then published it.

00:43:41.280 And it's still there.

00:43:42.860 If you read the official guidelines, they used to have a menu at the top.

00:43:49.020 And you could click on letters and you'd go right to my letter.

00:43:52.360 They've removed the menu.

00:43:54.420 So you don't know that there are letters.

00:43:57.080 You now have to scroll to the bottom of the guidelines.

00:43:59.160 But the letters are still there.

00:44:00.320 They didn't take them down.

00:44:01.320 And there are now three other letters from three pediatricians who said exactly what I

00:44:10.080 said.

00:44:11.680 And two of them mentioned my, because mine was the first, they mentioned my letter and

00:44:15.860 said, Dr. Sachs is absolutely right.

00:44:18.040 You guys need to change the guidelines.

00:44:20.040 Usually, so I've been reading these guidelines for 30 years.

00:44:22.400 Usually when some doctor writes in and says these guidelines are totally stupid and don't

00:44:27.240 make any sense, usually the authors will respond a few weeks later and say, well, the doctor

00:44:32.360 has misunderstood and didn't understand the implications of this study.

00:44:37.040 They've never responded.

00:44:39.140 There's never been any response.

00:44:40.660 The letters are still there.

00:44:42.580 The American Academy of Pediatrics is now making guidelines that are based not in evidence,

00:44:47.180 but in politics.

00:44:48.720 And it is immensely harmful.

00:44:50.620 Oh, and we know that as parents, we can feel that we felt it through COVID as well.

00:44:56.620 But it's you're right.

00:44:57.840 It's not evidence based.

00:44:58.900 And I read I mean, I've heard different stats, but I read in one of your publications.

00:45:04.320 If left alone, if your child comes to you and says, I'm feeling like I'm the opposite sex,

00:45:08.860 if left alone, you wrote 88% will default back to their their biological sex, if you just

00:45:17.440 leave.

00:45:17.680 Yes, will detransition, will desist is the term that the scholars use.

00:45:22.840 Desist means that this boy has decided he's no longer a girl.

00:45:26.460 He's a boy.

00:45:27.680 And the leading researcher worldwide on this is Ken Zucker in Toronto, who's been studying

00:45:32.320 these kids for 30 years and following them for 30 years.

00:45:36.300 And he finds, OK, a six year old boy says to you, he is a girl.

00:45:40.160 He's certain he's a girl.

00:45:41.240 He wants to know when his penis is going to fall off.

00:45:45.680 What is going on with that individual 15 years later?

00:45:49.880 He's now in his early 20s.

00:45:51.400 He turns out to be a gay man.

00:45:53.700 He doesn't want to be a woman.

00:45:56.040 He's not a woman.

00:45:57.140 He's very happy as a gay man.

00:45:59.000 That is in some of these studies, the most common outcome of the boy who had three, four

00:46:03.620 or five years of age and says he's a girl.

00:46:05.300 He turns out to be a gay man.

00:46:08.280 And he doesn't need medication.

00:46:10.940 He doesn't need surgery.

00:46:12.520 He's perfectly happy as a gay man.

00:46:15.620 There's a lot of variation.

00:46:17.480 As I mentioned earlier, four of the 12 chapters in the new edition of my book, Why Gender Matters,

00:46:22.380 is about those variations.

00:46:24.240 Gender nonconforming, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex.

00:46:28.760 We need to understand that.

00:46:30.480 But instead, as I said a moment ago, the ironic consequence of this transgender activism is a

00:46:36.260 hardening of gender stereotypes.

00:46:37.900 So this boy who loves ballet is being encouraged to start down that road that's going to lead to

00:46:44.120 cross-sex hormones and castration.

00:46:47.220 Well, and I know, and we'll pick this up, I'll take a quick break, but you've also written about how

00:46:52.220 just starting to transition your child because he says it's what he wants or she says it's what she wants,

00:46:59.360 the studies also prove can be extremely damaging to them.

00:47:02.420 All you hear from the woke crowd is they'll commit suicide if you don't.

00:47:05.140 Dr. Sachs has got the other side of the story.

00:47:07.660 It's the stats show it's often extremely damaging if you do.

00:47:13.020 That's where we pick it up next, and then we'll get into some parenting advice,

00:47:16.440 which we all could use, and some of your calls as well.

00:47:19.000 Stay with us.

00:47:20.780 Don't forget, folks, you can watch us live on SiriusXM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at

00:47:24.580 noon east.

00:47:25.260 Full video show at youtube.com slash Megan Kelly.

00:47:28.600 Get some clips there, too.

00:47:30.100 Audio podcast free wherever you get your podcast.

00:47:32.340 Check them out.

00:47:35.140 We were talking about how the American Academy of Pediatrics has been, that they're pursuing

00:47:41.740 ideology these days, not exactly science, not evidence-based recommendations.

00:47:46.240 And of course, that's also true right up to the very top political levels of our country.

00:47:50.800 The person with the most powerful microphone in the United States is right on board with

00:47:55.360 the affirm, affirm, affirm strategy.

00:47:58.580 Here's President Biden last spring.

00:48:00.160 To parents of transgender children, affirming your child's identity of one of the most

00:48:04.800 powerful things you can do to keep them safe and healthy.

00:48:07.720 What do you make of that?

00:48:09.060 It's one of the most powerful things to keep them safe and healthy.

00:48:12.900 Well, don't get me started on Joe Biden.

00:48:16.680 He's been a tremendous disappointment.

00:48:18.540 I really thought he has no ballast.

00:48:27.560 He has drifted to very far to the left.

00:48:33.140 But the fact that the President of the United States and the American Academy of Pediatrics

00:48:37.980 endorse this transgender activism is, as I said before, to make a break immensely harmful.

00:48:44.760 So I'll give you a very concrete example.

00:48:47.140 I was hired as an expert witness in the case of a girl who was a girly girl.

00:48:56.220 Unlike you, she loved playing with Barbies.

00:48:58.760 She dressed up as princesses for Halloween year after year.

00:49:02.760 The parents showed me the pictures.

00:49:05.140 And then at age 14, she was struggling with depression.

00:49:07.660 And she found some TikTok videos that said, if you transition to the male role, you won't

00:49:11.740 be depressed anymore because only girls are depressed.

00:49:14.440 And so she announced she's a boy.

00:49:16.740 And the parents were like, no, you're not a boy.

00:49:19.880 So the 14-year-old girl contacted Child Protective Services, which swooped in and removed her from

00:49:26.100 the house and put her in foster care with a family that would endorse her male identity.

00:49:31.960 And the parents sued to regain custody.

00:49:35.540 And the attorney hired me as an expert.

00:49:39.100 And so I'm talking one-on-one with the judge.

00:49:41.820 This is all by Zoom.

00:49:43.660 And I'm talking one-on-one with the judge.

00:49:48.600 And the judge is challenging me, saying, well, the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines

00:49:54.960 say, and I said, well, the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines are not based in evidence.

00:50:02.820 And the judge was very blunt.

00:50:04.560 She said, Dr. Sachs, you're a family doctor.

00:50:08.740 You have no academic appointment.

00:50:11.060 You're not a professor at any leading university.

00:50:14.520 You're asking me to accept your judgment over the official guidelines of the American Academy

00:50:21.660 of Pediatrics.

00:50:23.180 How am I supposed to do that?

00:50:24.960 I think the judge has a very fair point.

00:50:27.220 Family court judges tend to show great deference to authority.

00:50:30.800 And the American Academy of Pediatrics and the President of the United States say one thing,

00:50:35.280 and I'm saying something else.

00:50:37.340 The judge is going to defer to authority.

00:50:41.240 Those parents lost custody of their child.

00:50:43.260 That's what I mean when I say this is immensely harmful.

00:50:47.320 Horrifying.

00:50:48.140 It is deeply horrifying.

00:50:50.100 The evidence to the contrary shows trying to pretend that actual gender doesn't matter,

00:50:57.660 that biological sex and its link to gender doesn't matter, can have extremely harmful

00:51:02.620 effects.

00:51:03.280 And you talk about some of this in your book.

00:51:05.640 And I realize your detractors say, oh, those studies are 30 years old and they weren't done

00:51:10.940 in our more evolved society where we're more forgiving of this issue and we support somebody

00:51:15.160 who's transitioning.

00:51:15.920 But just can you talk about the research that has looked in depth at what happens when we

00:51:21.660 try to change somebody's gender?

00:51:24.580 Yeah.

00:51:25.000 Well, as I said, we do have really good research.

00:51:27.720 And a lot of this comes from the Netherlands, which is actually a very left of center country

00:51:32.660 that's all in favor of transgender.

00:51:34.920 Nevertheless, they found that after individuals transition, male becomes a female, female becomes

00:51:41.980 male, male, and you follow that individual 20 years down the road, you find that those people

00:51:47.500 who undergo transition are 19 times more likely to commit suicide compared with controls.

00:51:53.460 There is no evidence that transitioning has any benefit in terms of psychiatric outcomes.

00:52:02.240 And again, you've had Abigail Schreier on your show.

00:52:04.700 You've had Lisa Lippman on your show.

00:52:05.960 So your audience is aware of this, many of them, I'm sure, that the blackmail that the

00:52:13.520 transgender activists use, they'll say, would you rather have a live son or a dead daughter

00:52:18.580 if your daughter wants to transition to the male role?

00:52:22.660 It's not based in evidence.

00:52:24.180 And we've now got so many stories of young people who are detransitioning, Kara Bell being

00:52:30.520 probably one of the best documented.

00:52:32.000 So this is a girl in the United Kingdom who at 16 was anxious and depressed and very unhappy

00:52:40.020 as a girl and found these videos online saying, if you just transition to being a boy, you'll

00:52:46.200 be happy.

00:52:47.320 And so she went to the National Health Service and they said at 16 years of age, absolutely,

00:52:52.240 here we go, and started transitioning her.

00:52:55.920 And then she got a double mastectomy.

00:52:57.780 And at age 22, she realized, you know what, I'm still anxious and depressed, except now

00:53:03.640 I don't have breasts, I have facial hair, I've got a weird voice.

00:53:08.000 It didn't do me any good.

00:53:09.940 And she sued, saying that she had never been properly counseled or evaluated.

00:53:16.140 They just said, absolutely, here you go.

00:53:17.760 We believe in affirming.

00:53:19.000 We affirm your transition.

00:53:20.440 And so she, as a result, the Tavistock Clinic was shut down, the big gender clinic in England

00:53:31.560 that was doing all this.

00:53:33.640 And the British have really put the brakes on this and said, look, we really don't have

00:53:38.100 any evidence that transitioning at 13, 14, 15, 16 years of age does these kids any good.

00:53:45.100 And it clearly has immense long-term risks, greatly decreases the risk that this young

00:53:52.300 person will ever be fertile, will ever have a child of their own.

00:53:56.380 You know, I'm old enough to remember 10 years ago when the big thing was girls who were anorexic,

00:54:01.920 girls who were way underweight, who insisted that they were fat, and they wanted liposuction.

00:54:08.700 But we weren't doing liposuction.

00:54:11.460 We were still agents of reality back then.

00:54:14.940 We did not affirm and help get them diet pills.

00:54:16.840 We did not affirm their psychotic self-assessment.

00:54:21.300 No, they were not getting snaps when they went up on the stage in the middle school, like,

00:54:25.500 yeah, right on, go on with your bad self.

00:54:27.680 This thin woman who's like, help me diet, help me diet, I'm sure I'm fat.

00:54:31.560 We weren't doing that.

00:54:32.740 As I show in my book, Girls on the Edge, it's the same girls.

00:54:36.500 Adolescence has always been tough.

00:54:40.460 And again, as I've said before, we live in a sexist society.

00:54:43.860 But what if you're not that pretty, slender girl that has a million likes on Instagram?

00:54:53.160 What if you're not that girl?

00:54:58.440 What are you supposed to do?

00:55:00.380 And girls have struggled with this now for many years.

00:55:03.220 And 10 years ago, this girl was anorexic or cutting herself with razor blades.

00:55:06.980 Now the girl with the same struggles, the same issues, is deciding she's a boy.

00:55:12.600 But 10 years ago, that girl who was cutting herself, we said, look, this is not good.

00:55:18.060 And we need to take steps so that you don't do this anymore.

00:55:22.160 But wait, this reminds me of something else.

00:55:23.500 And the same girl with the same struggle who says she wants to be a boy, the American Academy

00:55:26.940 of Pediatrics is saying, absolutely, we're going to affirm that.

00:55:30.220 And pushing her down this road that leads nowhere good.

00:55:34.340 You've said before, I've heard you say, this is one of the reasons why, and of course, you've

00:55:39.580 also written Girls on the Edge.

00:55:40.760 You have a problem with the sexualization of our young girls, that our society is accepting

00:55:49.680 this.

00:55:50.080 And I'm with you on that.

00:55:52.080 But it has many consequences.

00:55:54.200 And one of them you've said and written is, let's go to this girl you're talking about.

00:55:59.600 She's not the pretty one.

00:56:00.700 She's not the popular one.

00:56:02.180 Maybe she's overweight.

00:56:03.240 Maybe she's not naturally beautiful.

00:56:05.760 She's feeling less than when she looks at Instagram and she looks around her middle school

00:56:10.140 or high school.

00:56:11.640 This is a girl who's potentially a prime target for this rapid onset gender dysphoria.

00:56:16.180 Lisa Littman coined the phrase at Brown.

00:56:18.500 Abigail's written about it.

00:56:19.360 You've written about it.

00:56:20.160 This is a prime candidate, potentially.

00:56:21.700 It doesn't tend to be the super popular girls who fall into this.

00:56:25.420 Hence, further suggestions that this is a social contagion and not an actual gender dysphoria

00:56:31.520 case.

00:56:32.740 And this girl, you make the point.

00:56:35.040 One of the one of the sort of the downsides this girl perceives in being a girl is the

00:56:41.420 nonstop images sexualizing the 16 year old.

00:56:46.340 Like you, you're kind of not in our club is the message they're getting from the Kim

00:56:50.440 Kardashians of the world.

00:56:51.940 Unless you're able, you're constantly showing your booty, your breasts, your absolutely fat

00:56:58.460 free body.

00:56:59.320 Right.

00:57:00.300 This is a problem.

00:57:01.740 Like we ask all the time, why is there this this rise, this sudden rise in the number

00:57:06.440 of young people in particular saying that they're trans?

00:57:09.200 This is a piece of it.

00:57:11.520 It is.

00:57:12.240 And I wrote an article a couple of years back when WAP, W-A-P 2020, was a hugely popular

00:57:18.960 video.

00:57:20.340 So for your audience who are not aware, I don't know if you allow, I'm going to say the words,

00:57:25.840 but it's, it's, it's filled with profanity.

00:57:28.240 You don't need to.

00:57:29.180 It's a, it's a video about vaginal lubrication.

00:57:32.440 So Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion make this video.

00:57:35.420 That's all about the vagina becoming wet.

00:57:38.580 It's not about love.

00:57:39.960 It's not about relationship.

00:57:41.640 Those words never occur in the song.

00:57:43.720 It's all about how great it is to have a wet vagina.

00:57:47.280 Oh my God.

00:57:48.220 And, and the, the Cardi B sings about how she wants to choke on a man's penis, uh, want

00:57:55.720 to gag, want to choke, uh, uh, handcuffs, freak bitch.

00:57:59.860 That's what she, that, those are the words of the song.

00:58:02.840 Uh, and I talked about how some girls look at this and this was number one in the United

00:58:09.340 States, most popular video, 90 million downloads in one week.

00:58:12.920 You know, usually the New York times and the wall street journal don't agree on much, but

00:58:16.040 they agreed on this, their reviewers, both women said, this is the greatest thing ever.

00:58:20.180 This is women finding their voice, affirming female sexuality.

00:58:23.120 New York times and wall street journal agreed.

00:58:25.100 This was the greatest thing ever across the board.

00:58:28.160 This song was just phrased as being the most wonderful thing ever.

00:58:32.680 And it is, it is profane and obscene.

00:58:36.860 If you watch the video starring Kylie Jenner, it's all, it, it, it is, it is really offensive.

00:58:46.040 And some girls look at this and they're like, yuck.

00:58:49.780 If that's what it means to be a girl, maybe I'm not one.

00:58:55.720 Maybe part of this explosion and teenage girls saying they want to be boys is because what

00:59:01.160 they see in American popular culture, what's expected of girls and women want to gag, want

00:59:07.260 to choke.

00:59:07.900 Well, what if I don't, what if I'm a girl and I don't want to choke on a man's penis?

00:59:12.620 Maybe I'm not a girl.

00:59:15.300 Maybe I'm a boy.

00:59:17.100 And just put that in tick tock and boom, you're going to get hit with a hundred videos, all

00:59:22.740 of which have a million or more views about, Hey, you know what?

00:59:26.960 You're unhappy because you're a girl, but maybe you're not a girl.

00:59:30.420 Maybe the solution is to become a boy and then you'll be happy.

00:59:33.900 And how is a 14 year old supposed to know better?

00:59:36.320 She is a drift in a toxic culture, which, which leads me perfectly to the, to this next

00:59:42.920 point.

00:59:43.280 And that is how do we prevent this?

00:59:45.720 How most parents would like to prevent it.

00:59:48.300 They don't want to just treat it once it's popped up.

00:59:50.460 Yeah.

00:59:50.940 Watchful waiting.

00:59:51.700 I know you say, and Abigail's got some very, very helpful solutions.

00:59:54.380 I think in her book, or if your kid comes to you and says this, what should you do?

00:59:57.700 Number one is get them the hell off the internet.

00:59:59.760 No more three hours in their room by themselves on Reddit and YouTube looking at these videos

01:00:05.000 for people who are, do not have her best interest at heart.

01:00:08.320 But there's a lot you can do before that.

01:00:11.060 And the things that you recommend for good parenting of girls, of boys, um, to prevent

01:00:17.000 this, to prevent all sorts of bad things, depression, alienation, and so on kind of all

01:00:24.220 align, right?

01:00:25.880 So what, what does that look like?

01:00:28.500 You know, when it comes to social media and your, your interactions with your child.

01:00:32.600 Yeah.

01:00:32.800 It got to begin with prioritizing the family.

01:00:35.540 And so many parents are confused on this.

01:00:37.760 They think the priority should be play dates with other same age kids.

01:00:42.580 And the evidence is clear.

01:00:45.600 The parent child relationship has to come first, cancel the play date, make a family

01:00:50.980 date instead.

01:00:53.660 And this starts very early.

01:00:55.440 I'm talking four years of age.

01:00:57.060 You want to find time to do fun things with your kids.

01:01:02.900 Homework together doesn't count.

01:01:04.940 I mean, homework together is great.

01:01:06.280 We do it.

01:01:06.840 But find time to do fun things with your kid, whether that's going on a hike in the park

01:01:12.080 or, or tubing when it's snowing or, uh, uh, my daughter now loves to go, uh, uh, catamaraning,

01:01:21.800 uh, on the catamaran, uh, which we rent and it's $45.

01:01:25.960 It's not expensive.

01:01:27.280 Um, find fun things to do with your kids.

01:01:30.280 Strengthen the parent child relationship.

01:01:31.860 That's primary.

01:01:33.060 Second thing, find a community of women for girls, a community of men for boys.

01:01:39.040 Again, we've got lots of research showing that a generation ago, this was common.

01:01:43.180 It is now uncommon.

01:01:45.440 You've got to find opportunities, maybe at your church or synagogue or mosque, uh, uh, or a

01:01:52.620 community group for, uh, your daughter to do something with a bunch of women.

01:01:57.480 Uh, uh, we drove to Ohio to visit my brother's family.

01:02:01.640 And the highlight was Sarah and her, uh, aunt Linda at round the table yarns, which is this

01:02:10.560 little shop in Shaker Heights, Ohio, where women sit around the table and knit together.

01:02:16.340 And it's extremely diverse.

01:02:18.760 And by diverse, I mean, you've got women, their twenties with women in their seventies.

01:02:22.200 You've got white women, you've got black women.

01:02:24.560 Uh, you got low income women, affluent women.

01:02:26.980 You've got a community of women create connections, search for them, search for opportunities for

01:02:34.280 girls to connect to women who are real women, not Instagram celebrities, find opportunities

01:02:42.100 for boys to connect with real men.

01:02:44.240 And can I just say, can I just jump in?

01:02:45.840 And is it also true, not trans women?

01:02:48.860 Because I have to say, like, I I'm not trying to sound big, bigoted or say I wouldn't have

01:02:52.540 a trans person in my life.

01:02:53.620 I do.

01:02:54.120 I have trans people in my life, but I would not.

01:02:56.980 I wouldn't want my daughter surrounded by multiple trans friends because of the Lisa

01:03:02.520 Lipman thing, because of the Abigail Schreier thing, even if my daughter's strong.

01:03:05.680 And I, I think I would be concerned if I saw that.

01:03:10.060 Yeah.

01:03:10.560 You know, the publisher has asked me to write a new edition of the collapse of parenting,

01:03:14.560 which I'm working on now.

01:03:15.720 And there's going to be a new chapter on gender, because I think one factor driving this

01:03:20.380 explosion in kids who are confused is parents who are unsure and uncertain and step back

01:03:27.680 and let kids spend hours a day looking at videos online.

01:03:32.960 And again, the point of the book is to empower parents to limit, govern and guide what your

01:03:38.240 kid is doing with their screens.

01:03:39.660 Your kid, as Abigail says, your kid should not be in their bedroom spending hours a day

01:03:43.740 looking at screens because that's a really toxic world out there.

01:03:47.780 Connect them to the real world.

01:03:49.380 Connect them to your world.

01:03:50.920 Connect them to the world of men and women.

01:03:54.260 You know, girls need a community of women.

01:03:57.940 Boys need a community of men that used to be easy to find in the United States.

01:04:01.900 Now it's hard, but it can be done.

01:04:04.700 You have to do it.

01:04:06.940 The I've heard you make an interesting point about time with your children.

01:04:12.540 And, you know, I will say this.

01:04:15.020 We're, as I mentioned, in this nice community, and it's hard to find other kids who are free

01:04:21.580 on the weekends to play.

01:04:24.280 Everybody's overscheduled.

01:04:26.360 Everybody's got three games a Saturday, three games a Sunday.

01:04:29.120 And so it's like, you know, back when I was a kid, we would run over to the neighbor's

01:04:31.540 house, knock on the door.

01:04:32.240 We'd play.

01:04:32.680 We'd come back when the streetlights came on, hang out with our parents, had to have

01:04:36.240 dinner together every night.

01:04:37.180 So you kind of had a good mix of friends and family, leading very different lives now.

01:04:41.960 But I know that you've made the point, if you are a said busy parent who has an overscheduled

01:04:46.920 child, don't kid yourself.

01:04:49.280 Driving the kid from A to B is, it can be good.

01:04:53.000 You can make it, but it's not exactly the quality time you're looking for.

01:04:56.880 Yeah.

01:04:57.400 So some of the research, and again, my brand, if you like, is I'm always evidence-based.

01:05:02.680 I'm always finding studies to support the claims I'm making and not just going off the

01:05:08.240 cuff guessing.

01:05:10.220 And one of the studies I cite in this regard, we've got a number of them, but I'll just

01:05:13.460 tell you about one.

01:05:14.020 Frank Algar and his colleagues looked at adolescents coast to coast and asked them, in the last

01:05:20.580 seven days, how many evening meals have you had at home with at least one parent, zero,

01:05:25.320 one, two, three, four, five, six, or seven, and found this huge effect.

01:05:29.040 The more evening meals you have at home with a parent, the less likely that kid is to be

01:05:33.840 anxious or depressed.

01:05:34.860 The more likely that kid is to have a positive self-concept.

01:05:37.660 We've got many, many such studies now.

01:05:41.040 You've got to fight for supper at home with your kid.

01:05:44.060 And, you know, I see these parents pulling up in car line and they're driving their, their

01:05:48.140 daughter to a computer coding class and then a travel team soccer and eating a sandwich

01:05:53.260 on the way from computer coding class to travel team soccer.

01:05:55.880 And the unintended message they're sending is that being amazing and having all these

01:06:00.420 things on your resume is more important than a relaxed meal at home with family.

01:06:05.080 And then they wonder why their daughter is so anxious.

01:06:08.400 Don't do that.

01:06:09.960 Cancel the computer coding class.

01:06:11.760 If it conflicts with supper, prioritize supper time.

01:06:15.960 Got so much good evidence on this fight for supper at home.

01:06:19.920 It is now becoming common for kids in the United States not to have an evening meal at home with

01:06:25.340 their parents.

01:06:26.220 Again, a generation ago, that was the default.

01:06:28.900 Now it's not.

01:06:30.040 You can make it the default.

01:06:31.460 You've got to fight for time at home with your kids and it's got to start with supper time.

01:06:36.640 No devices at the dinner table, no TV on during the dinner table.

01:06:41.020 You can watch Megyn Kelly on YouTube after supper.

01:06:44.400 But supper time is the time to talk to your kids, to listen to your kids, to have time

01:06:50.140 together around the dinner table.

01:06:52.240 It's so important.

01:06:53.480 You can do it.

01:06:54.220 It costs nothing, but it does require courage.

01:06:58.900 The infiltration of social media tries to stop this, right?

01:07:03.960 It's there to stop this.

01:07:05.640 It's there to lure your child back to the device and away from you and away from all the things

01:07:09.600 that are good for them.

01:07:10.980 And now, so my kids now are 13, 11, almost 12 and nine.

01:07:16.540 And the 13 year old's a boy, so he's not that into it.

01:07:19.560 You know, I was telling the audience a couple of weeks ago, I checked his screen time on

01:07:23.180 his phone and it's, he's averaging seven minutes a day.

01:07:26.000 So we're good.

01:07:26.840 We're good.

01:07:27.920 Now, my 11 year old is a girl and we're in a different scenario there.

01:07:31.260 She doesn't have a phone, but she would love to spend more time on that iPad and she would

01:07:35.580 love for me to get her a phone tomorrow.

01:07:38.040 And we haven't started the bad habits yet, but they're lurking.

01:07:41.800 So I've heard you say, this is one of your overall criticisms of parenting today and also

01:07:46.340 specific on this issue.

01:07:48.340 Be the parent.

01:07:49.600 Your job is not to be liked.

01:07:51.480 Your job is to be the parent.

01:07:53.380 And when it comes to this issue, you need to grow a pair and say, no, no, you will not

01:08:00.080 have your phone in your room at night.

01:08:01.660 And I don't care if you're upset.

01:08:03.140 And there are all sorts of other limits as well.

01:08:04.840 Take it from there.

01:08:05.960 Yeah.

01:08:06.220 So the phone in the bedroom, first of all, you're absolutely right.

01:08:10.540 No child under 13 should have a smartphone and most 13 year olds are not ready for it.

01:08:15.440 My daughter, who is wonderful, did not get her smartphone until her 15th birthday and

01:08:22.700 no phones in the bedroom.

01:08:25.920 At nine o'clock at night, the very latest, you take the device, you switch it off and

01:08:29.940 you put it in the charger, which stays in the parent's bedroom.

01:08:33.620 She can have it back tomorrow morning.

01:08:35.540 This has to be your call.

01:08:37.260 You know, and I've said to parents, I've counseled parents, no phones in the bedroom.

01:08:40.600 And the parent will say, oh, my daughter would totally freak out if I tried to take her

01:08:43.920 home from her.

01:08:45.060 The parent is intimidated by their daughter, who happened to be 12 years old in this case.

01:08:51.020 You have to have the courage to do the right thing.

01:08:54.060 No phones in the bedroom.

01:08:55.240 We've got so much good research showing that the presence of a phone in the bedroom impairs

01:08:59.440 the kid's sleep, even if it's turned off.

01:09:03.860 And parents are amazed to find that half the ninth grade class is awake and texting at two

01:09:10.040 in the morning.

01:09:11.400 Emily and Jason just broke up.

01:09:13.480 This is really big news.

01:09:14.360 We'll have to talk about this.

01:09:17.480 This has to be your call, the parent's call.

01:09:19.600 It is not reasonable to put this burden in the lap of your 14-year-old daughter.

01:09:25.440 You know, what is she supposed to say tomorrow in school when her friend says, hey, I texted

01:09:28.700 you last night at midnight.

01:09:29.560 How come you didn't answer?

01:09:30.860 Is your 14-year-old supposed to say, well, researchers have found that sleep deprivation

01:09:34.340 in adolescence is a major risk factor in the ideology of anxiety and depression.

01:09:38.780 And hence, I turn my phone off each night.

01:09:41.240 That's ridiculous.

01:09:41.960 You can't allow her to talk.

01:09:43.220 You can't expect her to talk like that.

01:09:45.020 You have to allow her to say, hey, my evil parents take my phone every night and I won't

01:09:49.520 let her back till the next morning.

01:09:50.920 This has to be your call.

01:09:52.960 So I say to parents of teenagers, you have to take the phone away from your kid.

01:09:58.920 And I warn them, if that's not been the practice in your home, if you've let your kid have the

01:10:02.980 phone in the bedroom, they're going to be upset.

01:10:06.080 They're not going to applaud.

01:10:07.160 They're going to be upset.

01:10:07.900 They're going to say, well, I use it as my alarm clock.

01:10:10.720 Let them know they still make actual alarm clocks.

01:10:12.860 You can go to the store and buy one.

01:10:14.600 And then your daughter may get really upset.

01:10:15.980 She may say, well, what if there's an emergency?

01:10:18.340 Remind her that you still have a phone in your bedroom.

01:10:22.120 If your friend has a true emergency, she's welcome to call you.

01:10:27.400 And you will pick up at two in the morning.

01:10:29.320 And you will decide that this emergency warrants waking your daughter up at two in the morning.

01:10:33.080 It probably doesn't.

01:10:34.020 It can probably wait.

01:10:36.020 Parents have to do the right thing.

01:10:37.940 And again, the concern I have is that so many American parents are now timid.

01:10:43.320 Incidentally, the title of the book, the original title was The Collapse of American Parenting.

01:10:47.600 And the subtitle was Why Most Kids Would Now Be Better Off Raised Outside North America.

01:10:52.440 And I made that argument because I've spoken on this topic to parents in England, Scotland,

01:10:57.300 Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Australia, New Zealand.

01:11:01.280 Parents in those countries don't let their kids have phones in the bedroom.

01:11:05.720 But in this country, we do.

01:11:06.920 American parents are less comfortable exercising authority than parents outside North America.

01:11:14.240 Well, if you're not a celebrity, you don't get to choose your title or subtitle.

01:11:17.940 But they did allow me to keep in the chapters.

01:11:21.280 So there's a chapter in The Collapse of Parenting showing that American kids are now much more

01:11:26.940 likely than kids in Europe or Australia or New Zealand to be anxious, depressed.

01:11:31.580 An American kid is now 40 times more likely to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder compared

01:11:36.000 to a kid in Germany.

01:11:37.380 An American kid is 14 times more likely to be on medication for ADHD compared to a kid in

01:11:42.340 the United Kingdom.

01:11:43.320 An American kid is 93 times more likely to be on medications like Risperdal, Zipraxia, Seroquel

01:11:48.320 compared to a kid in Italy.

01:11:50.280 American parenting has become toxic because American parents have stepped back and they let kids decide.

01:11:57.240 That in many domains, like whether when to get a phone and whether to have a phone in your

01:12:03.040 bedroom, you're really putting your kid at great risk.

01:12:06.160 It's your job to be the parent of me.

01:12:08.280 I mean, what's the point of parenting?

01:12:10.080 What?

01:12:10.200 A four-year-old horse is a mature adult.

01:12:14.500 The Kentucky Derby has raced with three-year-olds.

01:12:16.660 A four-year-old human has barely begun.

01:12:19.440 And a horse is a bigger animal than a human.

01:12:21.500 So what's the point of childhood?

01:12:23.620 It can't just be about biological maturation because a horse is fully mature at age four

01:12:29.300 and a horse is a bigger animal than a human.

01:12:31.940 Humans or children or adolescents for more years than most animals live.

01:12:36.960 Why?

01:12:38.240 Why?

01:12:38.760 Why does development take so long in our species?

01:12:41.240 Well, we don't have to guess.

01:12:42.560 We've got scholars like Dr. Melvin Conner at Emory who's devoted his career to studying this question.

01:12:46.940 Wrote this 700-page tome titled The Evolution of Childhood, Comparing Development in Our Species

01:12:52.360 with Development in Other Species.

01:12:54.580 Why is childhood so long?

01:12:57.860 It's so long because it takes many years for human parents to teach the child what the child needs to know.

01:13:05.140 That's your job, to teach the child.

01:13:10.020 Can I ask you something?

01:13:11.260 On the next page, I cite this Jennifer Finney Boylan, columnist for the New York Times,

01:13:17.680 who said enlightened parenting means, and I quote,

01:13:19.820 setting your child free to discover for themselves their own right and wrong.

01:13:23.440 And if in so doing your child becomes a stranger to you, then so be it.

01:13:26.860 That's enlightenment in the view of the New York Times, but it's not enlightened.

01:13:30.760 It's a dereliction of duty.

01:13:31.940 If you set your child free to discover their own right and wrong, and they've got internet connection,

01:13:36.820 what they'll discover is Cardi B, Drake, Bruno Mars, mainstream pornography, and transgenderism.

01:13:43.080 It's an immensely toxic culture.

01:13:45.180 So parents need to be in charge.

01:13:46.820 They need to limit, govern, and guide what their kids are doing.

01:13:50.680 Don't be afraid to be the bad guy.

01:13:53.000 Your goal is not to have them like you at all times.

01:13:56.520 I've heard you ask this.

01:13:58.300 I listened to a great podcast you did years ago, and the interviewer asked you,

01:14:03.100 well, what about the response from kids, especially girls, but I'm sure it's boys too.

01:14:08.680 I need social media, otherwise I'm not going to be popular.

01:14:13.280 I will not get invited to any of the parties.

01:14:15.100 That is how it is communicated.

01:14:16.380 Do you really want me sitting alone every Friday night, never invited to anything?

01:14:20.680 I would have several answers when a kid says that, but the first answer I give to the parents

01:14:29.100 is you don't want your kid to be the most popular kid.

01:14:32.380 We now have good research showing that the most popular kid at age 13, age 14, is the most

01:14:38.580 likely to be addicted to drugs or alcohol six years down the road.

01:14:42.360 That was not true a generation ago.

01:14:44.460 It is true today because American popular culture is now toxic in a way that was not toxic 30, 40 years ago.

01:14:54.560 And we can talk about how the popular culture has changed.

01:14:58.640 The parent-child relationship is more important than popularity with same-age peers.

01:15:05.440 And secondly, I would now point out we've got all this powerful new research.

01:15:10.600 Just last week, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association,

01:15:15.800 a longitudinal cohort study following kids from 12 to 15 years of age.

01:15:21.420 So at 12 years of age, you do brain scans, high-resolution MRI scans on the brain,

01:15:27.800 and you assess how much is this kid on social media.

01:15:32.100 Not at all, a little bit, a lot.

01:15:34.780 And then you follow these kids for three years.

01:15:37.320 So the amygdala is this little nucleus at the base of the brain that is very primitive,

01:15:44.860 and it's all about anger and fight or flight.

01:15:48.300 As humans become mature, we suppress activity in the amygdala.

01:15:54.600 We govern our emotions so that we're in charge of our emotions instead of our emotions being in charge of us.

01:16:01.080 And it is normal in humans.

01:16:02.680 We've now got 20 years of good MRI scans showing this.

01:16:05.080 As you progress through adolescence, you suppress activity in the amygdala.

01:16:10.860 What these researchers reported last week, and this is a brand new finding,

01:16:15.460 kids who are spending a lot of time on social media show the opposite.

01:16:19.780 Instead of the amygdala becoming less active over time, it's becoming more active over time.

01:16:25.380 They're becoming less able to suppress their emotions, more impulsive.

01:16:29.700 Social media is changing the wiring of the brain in the adolescent in a very harmful way.

01:16:36.700 This is breaking news.

01:16:37.980 It's the first such study to look at this in a longitudinal cohort study, which is really important.

01:16:43.540 If you just do a cross-sectional study at one moment and you find that kids on social media have more activity in the amygdala,

01:16:50.760 well, it's hard to say which way the arrow of causality is pointing.

01:16:55.340 Maybe kids who are more impulsive tend to be on social media more.

01:16:59.340 But when you do a longitudinal study following kids across time, at age 12, these two kids,

01:17:06.000 okay, we got Emily and Melissa at age 12, no difference in the amygdala activity.

01:17:10.980 But Emily's spending a lot of time on social media, and Melissa is not.

01:17:14.060 Three years later, Emily is showing all this uncontrolled activity in the amygdala, which Melissa is not showing.

01:17:21.200 That allows you to make a causal inference because you've followed her over time.

01:17:26.600 That excessive time on social media is deranging the development of her brain.

01:17:32.320 So again, we've got more evidence showing the parent needs to limit, govern, and guide.

01:17:38.360 It is not reasonable, again, to expect this 12-year-old girl to say to her friends,

01:17:43.260 okay, I'm going to cut back on social media because this study shows it might be harmful to me.

01:17:47.540 No 12-year-old is going to say that.

01:17:49.480 Yeah, it's the job of the parents.

01:17:51.320 I thought about that because I have thought, what if, is there a world in which I could allow

01:17:57.220 my child to have a Snapchat account, let's say, and it's on my phone.

01:18:04.100 It's only on my phone.

01:18:05.820 You want to see what's happening on Friday night?

01:18:07.920 Sure.

01:18:08.260 You can borrow my phone while I'm standing right here and give it back to me in 10 minutes.

01:18:12.280 Like, there might be a way of getting it.

01:18:14.260 Maybe that's too uptight.

01:18:16.140 Maybe other parents out there with teenagers are saying, I'll never be able to pull that off.

01:18:19.760 But I just feel like there has to be some way for responsible incorporation of some of these

01:18:25.740 social media accounts into your child's life because they're going to do it.

01:18:28.600 They're going to do it when they go to college.

01:18:30.040 They're definitely going to do it when they go to college.

01:18:31.100 My daughter is not on any social media.

01:18:34.200 She is 16 years old, and she came along with me.

01:18:39.260 I've had the great privilege of speaking at J. Sarah Catholic High School for each of the

01:18:43.900 past six years to the parents of incoming freshmen.

01:18:47.780 And this year, I brought her with me.

01:18:49.600 So when I said to the parents, my daughter, Sarah, is 16 years old.

01:18:54.600 She's not on any social media, and she's doing just fine.

01:18:57.580 She's got great friends.

01:18:58.980 And if you don't believe her, if you don't believe me, here she is.

01:19:01.660 You can talk to her.

01:19:03.200 And Pat Reedy, who's vice president of the school, interviewed Sarah for his podcast.

01:19:10.500 If you don't believe me, you can just send me an email.

01:19:13.420 I'll send you the link to the podcast, which is online.

01:19:16.500 And she explained why she is on no social media.

01:19:20.780 But let me tell you a little bit more about my personal story and Sarah's story.

01:19:24.440 She was at a different school where all the kids were on social media.

01:19:28.980 And she was the only one at 13, at 14, who did not have a phone.

01:19:36.300 And she claimed it didn't bother her much.

01:19:38.660 But, you know, you go to pick her up, and all the other kids are looking at their devices,

01:19:42.520 and she's not.

01:19:44.820 We changed schools.

01:19:47.300 We found a different school, Delaware County Christian School, where none of the kids were

01:19:53.120 on phones.

01:19:54.720 Look, my wife and I thought we were infertile.

01:19:57.420 You might wonder why an old guy has a 16-year-old daughter.

01:20:00.660 It's because my wife and I were not able to have kids.

01:20:05.240 And then after 15 years of marriage, we got our one and only, Sarah.

01:20:09.680 And, but we were not happy with the schools were available in Western Upper Montgomery County,

01:20:17.800 Maryland.

01:20:18.220 So we moved from Montgomery County, Maryland to Chester County, Pennsylvania.

01:20:23.340 If there's no school in your area that, if all the schools in your area, all the kids are on devices,

01:20:33.100 then you need to move.

01:20:34.340 But I can tell you, having visited schools across the United States, if you live in an American city,

01:20:38.960 you can find a school where kids are not on phones.

01:20:42.400 Well, I will say one advantage of having waited just even, you know, until our kids are 13 or 12

01:20:49.280 is they had a long time, sadly, because a lot of parents are getting their kids' phones at age eight

01:20:54.040 now, of looking around and being unhappy with the fact that whether it's a dance or some other social

01:21:00.400 gathering, every kid is on his or her phone.

01:21:03.740 And our kids are sitting there like, this is so lame.

01:21:06.480 Why don't you dance?

01:21:07.360 Why don't you shoot hoops?

01:21:08.760 Why are you like, they've had some time to be a little disgusted by the phone obsession

01:21:14.480 of other kids.

01:21:15.800 So, I mean, I, I certainly agree the longer you can put it off, the better.

01:21:19.280 Let me pause you there, Dr. Sacks.

01:21:20.540 We're going to squeeze in a break.

01:21:21.380 And then I want to bring in some of our listeners who I'm sure have got some questions for you.

01:21:26.480 A couple of quick hits, if you don't mind.

01:21:28.500 I'd like to get your, your thoughts as a family doctor and a psychologist.

01:21:32.700 I've heard you talk about this before, but I think it's important for the viewers to know

01:21:35.280 this preferred pronoun thing.

01:21:37.940 They sit down in college.

01:21:39.140 What's your, what's your pronoun?

01:21:40.720 And I don't want my children to be asked that.

01:21:43.820 And I certainly don't want them to be forced to give that.

01:21:47.120 So what's, is there any risk?

01:21:49.400 Is there any damage being done to our kids and being asked that question over and over?

01:21:53.020 And how would you recommend people handle it?

01:21:54.960 Yeah, I do think it's harmful because it is problematizing gender.

01:22:00.200 It is making kids question what really should not be questioned.

01:22:07.880 You know, we've learned so much over the last 20 years.

01:22:11.620 The first edition of Why Gender Matters came out in 2005.

01:22:15.060 And when I was writing that 20 years ago, I assumed, and I think most people writing on

01:22:20.980 this topic assumed that gender identity, whether you're male or female, is more fundamental

01:22:27.560 than sexual orientation, that turns out not to be the case.

01:22:33.900 Bruce Jenner announced that he's actually a woman.

01:22:37.360 Bruce is now Caitlyn.

01:22:39.800 His gender identity has changed from male to female, but his sexual orientation has not

01:22:46.160 changed.

01:22:47.060 He only wants to do it with women and he's not getting rid of his penis either.

01:22:52.120 So it turns out that gender identity, whether you feel yourself to be male or female, is

01:23:01.060 malleable.

01:23:04.200 But sexual orientation is less malleable.

01:23:08.220 That's a surprise.

01:23:10.840 The preferred pronoun thing is harmful because it's implying that, hey, you can be anything

01:23:19.320 you want to be.

01:23:20.060 You can be a he or a she or a z or a zur, as Professor Bigler at UT Austin prefers.

01:23:27.780 And making this questionable is harmful.

01:23:32.860 Again, I devote a good bit of space in the new edition of Why Gender Matters, showing that

01:23:38.020 kids who do best are boys who are comfortable being boys, girls who are comfortable being

01:23:45.280 girls.

01:23:45.720 That doesn't mean stereotype.

01:23:46.640 So what should they say?

01:23:48.480 What do you think?

01:23:49.200 I mean, like, what would you recommend they say when asked that?

01:23:51.300 Well, as a parent, if you're at a school where they're saying preferred, what are your preferred

01:23:56.160 pronouns?

01:23:56.940 You need to leave that school.

01:23:58.080 Or you need to reach out to the school with other concerned parents and explain why the

01:24:06.720 school is mistaken.

01:24:08.180 It depends on the school.

01:24:09.560 Some schools, I find the leadership is still open to reason.

01:24:13.100 And I encourage parents, when that's the case, band together with other schools.

01:24:17.520 If your kid is young, try to interview.

01:24:19.300 At the college level, hopefully your kid is ready to say, I'm not comfortable talking in

01:24:23.640 those terms.

01:24:24.340 Move on.

01:24:25.600 Yes.

01:24:25.840 My pronouns are figured out.

01:24:28.400 Okay.

01:24:28.980 Quick questions.

01:24:29.860 Abby, my faithful assistant, has been taking detailed notes with everything you say.

01:24:35.500 She's writing it all.

01:24:36.160 She's got two young girls.

01:24:37.460 She had a question for you about sleepovers.

01:24:39.320 She read in the Washington Post last night that we should not be allowing our kids to

01:24:42.880 have sleepovers because you never know what the potential risks are in the other home.

01:24:49.540 There could be a sexual assault happening.

01:24:51.740 There could be a pedophile.

01:24:53.060 You never know.

01:24:54.300 She and I were both saying, what?

01:24:55.820 We both had tons of sleepovers and don't necessarily see a problem with them.

01:24:59.680 But what's your thought on it?

01:25:01.620 I'm all in favor of sleepovers.

01:25:03.800 Of course, as a parent, you need to do your due diligence.

01:25:06.880 But I know my daughter's friends' parents.

01:25:12.220 We've often had supper together.

01:25:15.120 And yeah, I think that's a good kind of experience for kids to have.

01:25:21.040 I don't see any problem with sleepovers with families that you know.

01:25:24.740 Let me get one in there from me, which is my daughter's coming into the age where she's

01:25:30.280 arguing with me a lot, right?

01:25:31.840 She's sort of getting an attitude.

01:25:34.040 And, you know, you say, like, you tell her to do something, she doesn't do it.

01:25:37.800 You tell her again, she doesn't do it.

01:25:39.140 You say, if you don't do it now, there's going to be a consequence.

01:25:43.220 And then you get the, great, I look forward to that consequence.

01:25:46.180 I love consequences.

01:25:47.400 Bring it on.

01:25:48.040 You know, you get sort of the snark, which, of course, sends my blood boiling.

01:25:51.760 And I'm like, so what am I supposed to do?

01:25:55.560 I've had people say, don't engage.

01:25:57.100 Don't.

01:25:57.300 It's like, I have to make her do it.

01:25:59.640 I don't know.

01:25:59.960 What's the, what's the advice to parents like me dealing with that?

01:26:04.160 Well, every family is different, but I do advise parents, uh, no question marks.

01:26:10.980 Uh, that is, you don't say, do you think maybe it's time for us to leave the playground?

01:26:17.500 Uh, you say, Hey, in 10 minutes, we're leaving the playground in five minutes, we're leaving

01:26:22.940 the playground, leaving the playground in two minutes.

01:26:25.560 It's time to leave the playground.

01:26:28.100 You may need to explain your daughter says, why can't I have a phone?

01:26:35.380 And it's fine to explain, but you don't negotiate.

01:26:39.000 You stand your ground.

01:26:40.200 Uh, and it may happen that, uh, a child gets very upset with you.

01:26:47.280 So, uh, let me give two examples very quickly.

01:26:50.220 So for 18 years, I was an attending physician at Shady Grove Hospital in Rockville, Maryland.

01:26:55.080 And one night I got a call from the ER, uh, not to admit a patient or even to consult.

01:27:02.180 Uh, 15 year old daughter, 15 year old girl was a victim of sexual assault.

01:27:06.700 Uh, and mom was very upset and had asked that I come in to talk to her and, and make sure

01:27:13.960 everything's okay.

01:27:15.520 Uh, daughters being, having a forensic exam, um, because there's going to be charges filed.

01:27:22.420 Um, so I met mom in the consultation room just to get adjacent to the ER.

01:27:27.040 And when I came in, mom's first words were, I knew I shouldn't have let her go.

01:27:31.660 It was a frat party at the college.

01:27:33.120 She's 15 years old.

01:27:34.220 I knew I shouldn't have let her go.

01:27:35.340 And you want to grab mom and shake her and say, well, then why'd you let her go?

01:27:39.420 But I didn't do that, of course, because I already knew the answer.

01:27:42.240 She wants to be her daughter's best friend and a friend is a peer.

01:27:46.000 A friend cannot command.

01:27:47.200 A friend cannot say no.

01:27:49.080 So I shared that story at another school, Academy of the Holy Names in Tampa, Florida.

01:27:53.880 And mom came up to me afterwards and shared her story.

01:27:57.120 Her 14 year old daughter came up to her and said, Hey, guess what?

01:28:00.780 We're all going to Cancun for spring break.

01:28:02.520 And mom looked at her phone.

01:28:04.360 She's like, well, I can't get away that weekend.

01:28:06.340 And I said, I didn't say you're going to Cancun.

01:28:08.540 We're going to Cancun, me and all the girls.

01:28:10.820 And mom said, you're 14 years old and you're going to Cancun, Mexico with a bunch of 14 year olds.

01:28:15.960 I don't think it's safe.

01:28:17.180 And her daughter said, it's totally fine.

01:28:18.540 It'll be safe.

01:28:19.080 We'll have our phones.

01:28:19.800 We'll stay together.

01:28:20.440 We'll be fine.

01:28:21.980 And mom said, no, I'm sorry.

01:28:23.580 You're not going.

01:28:24.600 And she told me her daughter exploded and started screaming at her saying, I hate you.

01:28:28.820 I hate you.

01:28:29.240 You're going to totally ruin my whole life.

01:28:31.580 And mom said, well, to be honest, sometimes I'm not so fond of you either, but I'm your

01:28:36.980 mother.

01:28:37.900 And that's a job.

01:28:38.780 Like any job, it has a job description.

01:28:40.600 And item one in my job description is I have to keep you safe.

01:28:43.200 And I know more than you do about the behavior of drunk young men.

01:28:47.520 And you're not going.

01:28:49.460 If you're doing the right thing as a parent, there will be times that your child gets very

01:28:53.400 angry at you and may say some very hurtful things.

01:28:57.480 That's part of your job.

01:28:59.560 That's part of your job.

01:29:00.480 My mom used to say that.

01:29:01.540 I had the, I hate you line on my mom one time.

01:29:03.980 My mom, who's great said, Megan, you are my daughter and I will always love you, but

01:29:09.960 I don't like you very much right now.

01:29:11.700 Turned to Walker.

01:29:12.360 Cause she's calm, cool as a cucumber.

01:29:14.440 Good old Linda.

01:29:15.400 Let me bring in Amy from California.

01:29:17.000 Who's called in with a question for you.

01:29:18.340 Hi, Amy.

01:29:18.840 What's your question for Dr.

01:29:20.200 Sachs?

01:29:22.260 Okay.

01:29:22.700 I'll try to keep it together.

01:29:25.760 10 years down the road, my child's 23.

01:29:28.980 I had a lot of stuff going on 10 years ago.

01:29:32.380 Tried to be the best mom I could at that time.

01:29:34.940 But now I'm the mom of one of those kids that's having a lot of these issues.

01:29:42.360 What, what can you advise?

01:29:44.400 Give me advice for someone going through it after the fact.

01:29:48.420 I can't rewind the clock.

01:29:49.560 I don't get a do over.

01:29:50.840 How can I help now?

01:29:52.580 Can you summarize a little bit the issues when you say all of these issues?

01:29:56.120 Um, everything you talked about, um, everything I knew at the time, too much Instagram at the

01:30:02.920 time for her, um, overweight, depressed.

01:30:06.980 Three years ago, she came to me and said she's gay.

01:30:09.820 Her girlfriend now, um, went through a bunch of anorexia stuff.

01:30:13.940 Um, in high school is now even thinking of, um, affirming to being a male.

01:30:22.380 And I'm, I, I support my child.

01:30:25.940 I love my child.

01:30:26.940 I will do anything for her.

01:30:28.540 And I just want to know, is there anything I can do now?

01:30:31.800 10 years after that.

01:30:32.940 I can't, I can't, I can't go back into all those things you're talking about today.

01:30:37.280 Cause it was 10 years ago.

01:30:41.120 That is my most feared question.

01:30:44.260 Um, I have a lot of strategies that I can share with confidence.

01:30:48.760 If the child is 10, 12, 14, 16 years of age.

01:30:55.400 And I share them with confidence because I've seen them work at age 23 or a young woman.

01:31:04.100 I'm, I'm, I'm at a loss.

01:31:10.540 I'm not the best person for you to ask.

01:31:12.980 I have very little to offer that I'm confident will be effective.

01:31:16.820 I have to go back to say, we need to, uh, do a thorough evaluation, talk about medication,

01:31:24.600 but I have no special, uh, insight in that situation.

01:31:29.960 Do you have any thoughts on where she can look doc?

01:31:31.920 Like what is there a resource?

01:31:33.160 And my, my first instinct was church, you know, go prayer when all else fails.

01:31:38.500 There are still good psychologists, psychiatrists out there.

01:31:44.740 You need to vet them carefully.

01:31:47.200 Um, but, uh, in that situation, in my experience as a physician, medication is very likely going

01:31:56.160 to be, uh, on the table and counseling is going to be necessary.

01:32:00.480 So you need to find a good counselor, uh, who, uh, shares your perspective, who's in touch

01:32:07.300 with reality to help your daughter through a difficult time.

01:32:11.580 Amy, thank you for taking that risk and sharing that with us and God bless you.

01:32:16.320 Well, we will pray for your journey.

01:32:18.280 Um, sorry that there's not a better answer.

01:32:21.920 Uh, let's, let's try Teresa in Virginia.

01:32:25.700 Who's got a thought or a question.

01:32:27.160 Hi, Teresa.

01:32:27.700 What's on your mind?

01:32:29.780 Hi, I've really enjoyed the show today.

01:32:32.300 Um, I agree with so many things that you guys have said, you know, whatever happened to

01:32:37.560 parents being afraid to be parents, you know, I, I knew the kids, my kids hung with, I didn't

01:32:43.580 give them phones till they were 15 and had their learner's permit.

01:32:46.840 I had spyware on their electronics.

01:32:49.620 I knew what my kids were doing and I wasn't, I didn't care if they liked me or not.

01:32:53.740 And the thing that I think I worked in a middle school for 15 years, and I can tell you that

01:32:58.620 puberty and middle school are a toxic combination for these young kids who are already going

01:33:04.460 through so much.

01:33:05.560 And all of this craziness that our society is accepting and planting in their brains is

01:33:12.320 so frightening to me.

01:33:13.480 But the one thing that I see more than anything, and you guys have touched on it, is the demise

01:33:18.780 of the family unit.

01:33:20.780 You know, like we don't.

01:33:22.280 I got to, I got to cut you off there, Teresa, because we're up against a break there.

01:33:25.140 And I don't, I want to give Dr. Sachs, uh, the last minute to comment on the family unit.

01:33:30.100 Yeah.

01:33:30.580 And I'll say it again, prioritize the family, uh, cancel the play date, make a family date

01:33:36.080 instead, uh, cancel the computer coding class.

01:33:38.980 If it interferes with supper at home, fight for supper at home with your kids, the parent

01:33:43.920 child relationship is more important than your kids being popular with same age peers.

01:33:48.540 And Dr.

01:33:49.220 Sachs has also said the family vacation is for the family.

01:33:52.720 Don't bring friends along for your kids to be distracted with.

01:33:56.500 They're supposed to be interacting with you.

01:33:59.020 Oh, what a shock, right?

01:34:00.820 That's there's all sorts of great advice in all these books.

01:34:03.080 Dr.

01:34:03.320 Sachs is a pleasure.

01:34:04.240 Pleasure to meet you.

01:34:04.920 Please come back.

01:34:05.580 There's so much more to go.

01:34:06.260 Thanks again.

01:34:07.040 Uh, all the best.

01:34:09.040 We've all been thinking about Amy.

01:34:10.920 Amy, we have resolved here that we're going to find an expert who can give you advice when

01:34:15.420 you have the 23 year old who's struggling.

01:34:17.500 We're on it for you.

01:34:18.460 Thanks for listening.

01:34:19.620 And we'll talk tomorrow.

01:34:23.720 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show.

01:34:26.040 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:34:28.500 We'll talk tomorrow.

01:34:36.460 Thanks for listening to the Megan такие-

The Megyn Kelly Show - January 18, 2023

Truth About Gender Differences, Danger of ＂Affirm Only＂ Care, and Parenting Today, with Dr. Leonard Sax ｜ Ep. 474

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