AILSA CHANG, HOST:
If you are a parent, or even if you just know a parent, what I'm about to say to you will come as no surprise. Raising kids is hard, right? Like, really, really hard. So hard that in 2024, the U.S. surgeon general issued a public health advisory warning about the stresses of modern parenting. And many parents report experiencing fear and shame that they're just not measuring up. Brittany Luse is the host of NPR's It's Been A Minute, and once a month she joins me to unpack surprising trends in culture. And she's here to tell us why, as common as parental fear or shame may be, experiencing it too much can be really harmful and not just for families. Hey, Brittany.
BRITTANY LUSE, BYLINE: Hi, Ailsa.
CHANG: OK, so you and I are not parents, but we have so many friends who are, so let's talk about this. Are the parents all right?
LUSE: Well, the quick answer is no, unfortunately. Parents are navigating a world that can sometimes feel full of potential threats to their children's wellbeing, whether we're talking about a video game with violent content or something more serious, like a severe food allergy or gun violence. Every parent wants to do their best to keep their kids safe, but how they go about achieving that feeling of safety, that's where things can get dicey.
CHANG: Right, and none of these concerns that you're talking about are really all that new, but the guidance on how to deal with them is always changing, right? Like, tell us more about that.
LUSE: Yes. Well, the desire to protect their kids from all possible harm can sometimes nudge parents toward high-control, perfectionist or authoritarian parenting styles that may not be beneficial for their children or themselves. Here's Cynthia Wong. She's the executive director of the Dispute Resolution Center at the Kellogg School of Management. She studies how fear and shame affect a parent's self-image and, in turn, their kids.
CYNTHIA WONG: What happens to parents is that when they are in a situation of threat, they look to see patterns in the environment that can help explain things. They use oversimplified explanations to try to regain agency. They're clinging on to what they view as the right ways of parenting - things that will prevent anything bad from happening. And what's the best way to prevent bad things from happening? Well, let's take it away, rather than let's unpack this. Let's unpack our feelings of fear and why it's driving it.
LUSE: Wong also noted that that kind of fear-based parenting approach, no matter how well intentioned, might feel better in the moment, but it can hurt kids down the line. But parents aren't making these decisions in a vacuum. The pressure to be a good parent may leave some parents vulnerable to persuasive - even manipulative - messaging from parties that may not have their best interests in mind. Think politicians running fear campaigns or uncredentialed social media influencers famous for their advice. And that messaging, which is presently available on social media 24/7, has been historically aimed at mothers. Here's Karen Leick, author of "Parents, Media And Panic Through The Years."
KAREN LEICK: If you look at the history of all these conversations, many of these articles and discussions are in women's magazines. So if you look at Ladies' Home Journal or Good Housekeeping or some of these magazines that a lot of women got every single month, they would have these long articles about how to be a good parent, and a lot of them are kind of fear-based.
CHANG: Yeah, there is so much pressure. And, Brittany, you also found that the way that parents approach child-rearing, it doesn't only affect parents and kids. It affects nonparents as well, right? Like, how does that work?
LUSE: Well, there's actually a very famous contemporary example of a successful fear campaign, initially aimed at mothers, that has had widespread life-altering consequences for all of us - the anti-vaccine movement.
CHANG: Ah, yes.
LUSE: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has often championed anti-vax movement talking points. And we've already seen policy changes at the federal level away from vaccines that prevent serious illnesses like hepatitis B, as well as hurdles that have made it harder to get COVID-19 vaccines. The CDC also, in a really stunning move last month, said a link between vaccines and autism could not be ruled out, even though that has long been debunked by high-quality research.
CHANG: Exactly. And there are some massive implications to that. But also, parental fear and anxiety seem like natural, just human responses to an increasingly complex world. So how can parents discern between legitimate causes for concern and someone who's just trying to capitalize on their anxieties?
LUSE: That is a great question. Here is what Cynthia Wong had to say.
WONG: You have to do a lot more research these days. You have to make sure the media you're consuming is from a legitimate source. And part of it is taking that time to realize that fear is an automatic response, and taking a step back and saying, what's driving my reaction?
CHANG: What's driving my reaction? That is such important advice.
LUSE: Yeah, for, like, a lot of things across the board. But I want to share one more thing. I do want to point out a few examples of how well-founded parental concern has improved safety for everyone. Parents have led important social campaigns about drunk driving and gun violence, to name a few. So when combined with well-vetted research and honest messaging...
CHANG: Yeah.
LUSE: ...Parental concern can be a way to change our world for the better.
CHANG: That was Brittany Luse. She's the host of NPR's It's Been A Minute, a show about what's going on in culture. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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