"The parent-child connection is the most powerful mental health intervention known to mankind."
- Bessel A. van der Kolk, M.D., Medical Director, The Trauma Center, Boston
The more stress free and secure an environment a developing child experiences, the greater success that child will have in life relationally, academically, and socially. At birth, a child's brain is 30% the size it will grow to by adulthood. The first three years of life mark the greatest period of brain development and growth in any person's life, followed by another less dramatic growth period during the teen years. Securing the best outcomes for society involves providing the best environments for children to thrive their first three years of life, during the greatest time of brain growth and patterning. Security matters.
I stopped at time 55 minutes. Going for bike ride. To hear the truth about the public schools feels like actual torture. McWhorter and I (YOB 1966) are both privileged in that we attended school decades before the woke craziness. Here I go again, calling for abolition of the things I value the most. USA Public schools K-12 must be completely abolished, not only because “parents are the enemy” according to school rationale. But, also because the rot is too deep and broad.
This might be controversial… perhaps the difference in a marriage is the wife. Before marriage, the man has much more power (from my observation) in the relationship. Once married, men tend to try to please their wives. In marriage, women help their husbands be better people and make better choices and being married gives the man more reason to be responsible (see auto insurance drops for men at 25, or when they get married). I have a huge influence on how my husband dresses, eats, spends his free time, relationship with his kids, and even his career ambitions. I think this is why, according to a whole host of research, married men are happier, live longer, and are more successful. (By the way, single women do better on those metics than married women.)
I really enjoyed this episode. I particularly enjoyed mins 26:45-38:00. All three of you provided some serious wisdom. It would make for a great short segment around the keys to success in life as defined but avoiding poverty, maintaining healthy relationships and being a productive citizen, regardless of race or gender.
Hi, I was disappointed that the conversation stopped short when discussing marriage rates/out of wedlock births in Scandinavia. There are SO many more social programs (child care, paternity leave, high quality free education, health insurance) that allow for a more equitable opportunity for young parents or single parents. I’ve also been meaning to ask how John proposes (practically speaking) ending the war on drugs ? No jail time ? For who ? I’m certainly an advocate for more mental health and drug rehabilitation facilities in the US…I know first hand (husband and cousin) how difficult it is to be accepted into a rehabilitative facility.
I live in the Tenderloin and I want the war on drugs turned up several notches. I also don’t like how prison disrupts family life and makes bad men worse. I am conflicted. By the way, despite our pathological silence (except if you explore the wrong - aka true virus origin theory), public health is primary beneficiary of the war on drugs.
I think we need a return to the old "insane asylums." They served a good purpose as the tent cities on our sidewalks remind us daily. Eliminating mental hospitals due to widespread abuse was, in my opinion, a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
A well regulated, technologically upgraded, more ethical, and humane system of mental health care facilities would be a real game changer. Imagine if we spent that 70+ Billion on arming Ukraine and Taiwan on our severely mentally ill instead?
Time 18:28- Loury asks “Why is marriage important?” When I compare care-giving from my father and mother to me vs. my care-giving to children who are not mine or not in my household; big difference. I do not care as much as my parents did. I have no children. If the majority of single-parent households were motherless, then it would be the girls who would be in trouble. Children entering puberty benefit from proximity of same-sex adults. Parenting involves self-interest more than anything else as children are extension of self.
Combatting the victim narrative! Hooray, once again. I see comments disagreeing with elements of the discussion--for instance, not believing in a father in the home, and yes, depends on the father--but anything returning to a fight for the good, for our common interests, for disagreeing with respect, not hatred, and for common humanity, not division into victims and oppressors parsed into racial groups--for all of this, a thank you.
The point is not directly "father in the home". The point is that in the single parent home the child or children only observe a parade of boyfriends cycling through. The single parent thus does not demonstrate how one maintains a long-term relationship. In a neighborhood where the children observe a large number of footloose males cycling through gives the children the idea that short-term sexual relationships are the only kind of relationships, thus no stability. Consider Bill Clinton's mother: she had a number of men cycle through and thus young Bill had no exposure to how real relationships, let alone marriage, are actually managed day to day. Sons, in particular, will get the notion that the female norm is fickle and narcissistic. Of course, essentially the same goes for single father households but single mother households comprise the vast majority of single parent homes.
It matters more at a community-wide level. Kids who grow up in fatherless homes are more likely to have problems, but the kids who grow up in communities where almost no one has a father in the home are almost guaranteed to have problems. Where few or no men in a community are modeling masculine virtue & keeping adolescent males in check, you get a huge chunk of males who become destructive in one way or another and very few with the skills to be successful. And girls, not having good male role models whose traits they would seek in potential partners are more likely to choose to have children with unworthy males. But yea, just telling people that there needs to be a father in the home, while true, probably won't do a whole lot. I'm partial to blaming morally corrupt messaging that people internalize from mass media and the broader culture that it's helped create. Hollywood & the like needs to be regulated & pornographers prosecuted.
Good point. A community where there are hardly any fathers could really get out of control. I hadn't really thought of it that way, but, yeah, I definitely see your point and agree.
I was thinking more in terms of one kid. If he's born handsome, smart, athletic, and easy-going, I don't think a missing dad is going to put him on the road to ruin. And I'm not saying a dad isn't beneficial; I'm just saying it's no cure-all. And if the dad is an alcoholic with a hair-trigger temper or some similar, that's probably a net negative.
And the reality is that everyone has imperfect parents, with some having especially defective ones. But the more husbands and wives (or even if they're not married, co-parents) trying to get along and do the best for their kids and their community, the more models children have that they can then learn from and from which they can hopefully identify the best qualities that they can try to emulate in their own future relationships.
What is the best argument against allowing more charter schools? Surely there is an argument more compelling than "people think it's Republican" or "it's not anti-racist enough."
I just want to make the point that things aren’t so rosy in Scandinavia. Sweden has been experiencing heightened gun and gang violence in recent years which has led to the election of the country’s first right-wing government in half a century. Low marriage rates among Sweden’s immigrant mothers has been found to be correlated with high rates of violence and gang affiliation. Perhaps people who are already assimilated and relatively affluent are able to absorb the negative externalities associated with out of wedlock children better than people from economically marginalized, less resourced communities.
Discussion was far to muffled for me to listen, accurately. Sorry. I could make out several sentences, but all discussion seemed as though it was passing through tumbler of yogurt. Raising the volume did not help much.
"The parent-child connection is the most powerful mental health intervention known to mankind."
- Bessel A. van der Kolk, M.D., Medical Director, The Trauma Center, Boston
The more stress free and secure an environment a developing child experiences, the greater success that child will have in life relationally, academically, and socially. At birth, a child's brain is 30% the size it will grow to by adulthood. The first three years of life mark the greatest period of brain development and growth in any person's life, followed by another less dramatic growth period during the teen years. Securing the best outcomes for society involves providing the best environments for children to thrive their first three years of life, during the greatest time of brain growth and patterning. Security matters.
I stopped at time 55 minutes. Going for bike ride. To hear the truth about the public schools feels like actual torture. McWhorter and I (YOB 1966) are both privileged in that we attended school decades before the woke craziness. Here I go again, calling for abolition of the things I value the most. USA Public schools K-12 must be completely abolished, not only because “parents are the enemy” according to school rationale. But, also because the rot is too deep and broad.
This might be controversial… perhaps the difference in a marriage is the wife. Before marriage, the man has much more power (from my observation) in the relationship. Once married, men tend to try to please their wives. In marriage, women help their husbands be better people and make better choices and being married gives the man more reason to be responsible (see auto insurance drops for men at 25, or when they get married). I have a huge influence on how my husband dresses, eats, spends his free time, relationship with his kids, and even his career ambitions. I think this is why, according to a whole host of research, married men are happier, live longer, and are more successful. (By the way, single women do better on those metics than married women.)
Women make married men more civilized than the rest of us. I say this as unmarried homosexual man.
I really enjoyed this episode. I particularly enjoyed mins 26:45-38:00. All three of you provided some serious wisdom. It would make for a great short segment around the keys to success in life as defined but avoiding poverty, maintaining healthy relationships and being a productive citizen, regardless of race or gender.
Hi, I was disappointed that the conversation stopped short when discussing marriage rates/out of wedlock births in Scandinavia. There are SO many more social programs (child care, paternity leave, high quality free education, health insurance) that allow for a more equitable opportunity for young parents or single parents. I’ve also been meaning to ask how John proposes (practically speaking) ending the war on drugs ? No jail time ? For who ? I’m certainly an advocate for more mental health and drug rehabilitation facilities in the US…I know first hand (husband and cousin) how difficult it is to be accepted into a rehabilitative facility.
I live in the Tenderloin and I want the war on drugs turned up several notches. I also don’t like how prison disrupts family life and makes bad men worse. I am conflicted. By the way, despite our pathological silence (except if you explore the wrong - aka true virus origin theory), public health is primary beneficiary of the war on drugs.
I think we need a return to the old "insane asylums." They served a good purpose as the tent cities on our sidewalks remind us daily. Eliminating mental hospitals due to widespread abuse was, in my opinion, a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
A well regulated, technologically upgraded, more ethical, and humane system of mental health care facilities would be a real game changer. Imagine if we spent that 70+ Billion on arming Ukraine and Taiwan on our severely mentally ill instead?
Time 18:28- Loury asks “Why is marriage important?” When I compare care-giving from my father and mother to me vs. my care-giving to children who are not mine or not in my household; big difference. I do not care as much as my parents did. I have no children. If the majority of single-parent households were motherless, then it would be the girls who would be in trouble. Children entering puberty benefit from proximity of same-sex adults. Parenting involves self-interest more than anything else as children are extension of self.
Combatting the victim narrative! Hooray, once again. I see comments disagreeing with elements of the discussion--for instance, not believing in a father in the home, and yes, depends on the father--but anything returning to a fight for the good, for our common interests, for disagreeing with respect, not hatred, and for common humanity, not division into victims and oppressors parsed into racial groups--for all of this, a thank you.
Word.
Not a believer in "father in the home" as a magical solution.
The point is not directly "father in the home". The point is that in the single parent home the child or children only observe a parade of boyfriends cycling through. The single parent thus does not demonstrate how one maintains a long-term relationship. In a neighborhood where the children observe a large number of footloose males cycling through gives the children the idea that short-term sexual relationships are the only kind of relationships, thus no stability. Consider Bill Clinton's mother: she had a number of men cycle through and thus young Bill had no exposure to how real relationships, let alone marriage, are actually managed day to day. Sons, in particular, will get the notion that the female norm is fickle and narcissistic. Of course, essentially the same goes for single father households but single mother households comprise the vast majority of single parent homes.
It matters more at a community-wide level. Kids who grow up in fatherless homes are more likely to have problems, but the kids who grow up in communities where almost no one has a father in the home are almost guaranteed to have problems. Where few or no men in a community are modeling masculine virtue & keeping adolescent males in check, you get a huge chunk of males who become destructive in one way or another and very few with the skills to be successful. And girls, not having good male role models whose traits they would seek in potential partners are more likely to choose to have children with unworthy males. But yea, just telling people that there needs to be a father in the home, while true, probably won't do a whole lot. I'm partial to blaming morally corrupt messaging that people internalize from mass media and the broader culture that it's helped create. Hollywood & the like needs to be regulated & pornographers prosecuted.
Good point. A community where there are hardly any fathers could really get out of control. I hadn't really thought of it that way, but, yeah, I definitely see your point and agree.
I was thinking more in terms of one kid. If he's born handsome, smart, athletic, and easy-going, I don't think a missing dad is going to put him on the road to ruin. And I'm not saying a dad isn't beneficial; I'm just saying it's no cure-all. And if the dad is an alcoholic with a hair-trigger temper or some similar, that's probably a net negative.
And the reality is that everyone has imperfect parents, with some having especially defective ones. But the more husbands and wives (or even if they're not married, co-parents) trying to get along and do the best for their kids and their community, the more models children have that they can then learn from and from which they can hopefully identify the best qualities that they can try to emulate in their own future relationships.
What is the best argument against allowing more charter schools? Surely there is an argument more compelling than "people think it's Republican" or "it's not anti-racist enough."
Also this: https://www.propublica.org/series/evaluating-charter-schools
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_htSPGAY7I&t=629s
An amazing conversation among three giants !
They bring clarity to an important issue as well as positive rather negative ideas for forward progress.
I just want to make the point that things aren’t so rosy in Scandinavia. Sweden has been experiencing heightened gun and gang violence in recent years which has led to the election of the country’s first right-wing government in half a century. Low marriage rates among Sweden’s immigrant mothers has been found to be correlated with high rates of violence and gang affiliation. Perhaps people who are already assimilated and relatively affluent are able to absorb the negative externalities associated with out of wedlock children better than people from economically marginalized, less resourced communities.
According to your portrayal the anti immigrant policy is rational. Not every country has to save the world.
“Oh I doubt that, John” lulz
Glenn is fired up!!!
Discussion was far to muffled for me to listen, accurately. Sorry. I could make out several sentences, but all discussion seemed as though it was passing through tumbler of yogurt. Raising the volume did not help much.
Yes a transcript would be much better for some of us.