Jonathan Haidt's newest book, The Anxious Generation, is out. I bought a copy but haven't read it (though I've watched several interview of Haidt and he makes a compelling case). The statistics are sobering:
Here's a 7-minute video synopsis of Haidt's book to whet your appetite:
Jonathan Haidt: The combination of social media plus smart phones is irreparably damaging grade schoolers and middle schoolers. He offers this advice:
1. No smart phones before high school, when they are 14 (only flip phones)
2. No social media until age 16.
3. Phone free schools. No phones even in backpack. They must be kept in a locker.
4. Far more free play and unsupervised play to develop childhood independence.
Geoffrey Miller and Diane Fleischman have discovered the transformative miracle that parenting is. Before I became a parent, I didn't understand that having daughters was going to change me so dramatically and so positively. Parenting was equal amounts of hard work and joy. Among the many other benefits, it was my chance to be a kid again. We all grew up together. And now that my daughters are young women, I continue to appreciate being a father more and more each day.
Calendars don't lie. I've already used up most of the 1,000 months I'm ever going to have on the planet.
As an older dad, I took quite an interest in Rikki Schlott’s New York Post article about her relationship with her 84-year old dad. Reading this caused me to pause and hope that I’ve helped to give my two daughters (both now in their mid-20's) the tools they need to thrive in this insane world. Rikki, BTW, is, at the age of 22, co-author of a best-selling new book on the scourge of cancel culture: The Canceling of the American Mind. An excerpt:
My dad’s breadth of life experience and wisdom woke me to the transience of today’s fads and fallacies. It’s hard to humor my peers who demand safe spaces and trigger warnings when my best friend remembers the plights of World War II. It’s impossible to flirt with socialist politics when my father recalls the rise and fall of the USSR. It’s hard to spend my days scrolling through TikTok when my dad is a living testament to the wisdom a lifetime of reading can foster.
Having an older father also means it’s difficult to swallow the victim mentality of many of my contemporaries. While Generation Z indulges in identity politics and intersectionality, it’s an attitude my father would never accept from me. He’s a self-made man who pulled himself up by his bootstraps. Now that he’s provided me with an education and life beyond what he could imagine growing up on a goose farm, I won’t rest until I make the most of all the opportunities I’ve been given and do him proud.
Nietzsche wrote: “A person's maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child, at play”
Here's another example of an adult who kept his inner child thriving:
