From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Being A Care-Free ‘Tween’ Is A Thing of The Past. The Culprit? Social Media.

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

15 years ago, girls ages 8-13 were worried about playing sports, sparkly lip balms, and which food-shaped earrings to wear. Now, young girls have 6-step skincare routines, smartphones, and no regard for many of the activities that used to be considered cornerstones of happy childhoods. So why is this happening, and how can it be good for our kids? Sean and Rachel are joined by their daughter and writer at The Federalist Evita Duffy-Alfonso as they discuss how the extinction of being a true “tween” reflects the damage social media and other cultural norms are causing in society. Later, they discuss how ‘mommy influencers,’ may be permanently damaging their children by sharing their lives online without permission and how parents can preserve the joy of their kids’ childhood by prioritizing their well-being over their desire for technology. Follow Sean & Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hey everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm Sean Duffy, along with my co-host for the podcast, my partner in life, and my wife, Rachel Campos Duffy. It's great to be back, Sean. We got a special guest today. She's a recurring guest on the show. It's always special when your firstborn shows up to the podcast. That's right. I meet Duffy Alfonso. is that what we're calling you now? Duffy Alfonso. You'll always be a Duffy to us. Yeah. Oh boy. Evita, so last week we had you on

and we sort of touched on that whole Stanley Cup phenomena and what was happening in social media for young girls. And then you, of course, take this to the next level. You write an incredible piece in The Federalist about how these trends are actually erasing what became sort of a really fun phase of life for girls, which is your tween years. We used to see tween sort of merchandise in stores like Claire. And what are some of the other tween stores we used to see that we don't see anymore, Vida? There was Justice and Limited 2. Justice was completely failed. And then I think it was bought by Walmart. So if you go into Walmart, you'll see a tiny little Justice section. But there used to be mega justice stores and malls across America, and they're free. They're non-existent now. And part of this trend, and I think it's a really great hypothesis that you have,

is that as social media has increased and become more influential and more ubiquitous, that young girls are no longer aspiring to be like their friends. The social media influencers are generally quite a bit older, so in their 20s. And so they're no longer aspiring to have things that teeny boppers, as we used to call it, or tweeny boppers used to have. They now want the products and the look that 20-year-olds have. Am I getting that right, Evita? Yeah, I think that the transition from childhood to adulthood used to be a lot gentler. I think a lot of you sort of only start to wear maybe lip gloss and then maybe you're and you maybe dress a little more adult like you're not in little doll clothes, but they're not what a 20

year old woman would wear. And now because of the influencer world and because young girls don't really have that gentle move into adulthood, they're actually trying to emulate 20 year old influencers. We've completely gotten rid of the tween and even teenage era. So you're seeing now 10-year-olds buying and using adult makeup, skincare, clothing, because that's what they've been influenced to do. There's Sephora employees who say that they've actually seen nine-year-old coming into their store, asking for really harsh anti-aging skincare products

because they're hearing about it on TikTok. And obviously, a 90-year-old doesn't need a chemical peel, but they want it because they're getting force-fed this TikTok consumerism. So can we just play one of these Sephora videos? Let me play a video here from one of the Sephora. And there's many of these, by the way, but this is just one example of Sephora employees sort of sounding the bell on this trend. These 10 year old girls at Sephora are crazy, but what's crazier are the parents that aren't parenting. So the other day when I was working, we were kind of busy. So the line was kind of long and this little girl walks up to me and her basket is literally overflowing. Like the amount of products that were in there, she had to have been maybe 9, 10, maybe 11 years old.

But regardless, definitely way too young to be shopping at Sephora. And I start grabbing the items out so I could scan them. And before I can start, she goes she goes wait I have two perfumes on hold can you get those two and I'm like yeah of course what's your name so I go grab her perfumes and then she goes can you scan those first so I can see how much they are so I proceed to scan the two perfumes and the two perfumes alone came out to three300. $300. Three. $300.

So after she saw the price of the two perfumes, I guess that wasn't enough. So she was like, okay, yeah, you can scan the rest of the items in the basket. She's by herself. So I'm kind of just like, who's with her? Like, did she come with a sister, a friend, her mom? Like, who is this little girl with? So I finished scanning all her products and her total came out to almost $900. I think it's fascinating that you have a child go into a Sephora store and want to spend $900 on perfume and then skincare. To your point, if you talk, well, these kids, they have baby faces. They are babies. Skin peels and skincare for a

nine and 10 and 11-year-old is outrageous. And tell me if I'm wrong on this. There was a time where parents had some pretty decent control. Yes, they might see different magazines of 17 or is it Mademoiselle, whatever you got- Cosmo. Cosmo, whatever it is. They might see some of those, but they're flipping through pictures and they knew it was, they're looking at a magazine that was for people that were older,

but they were, you know, felt pretty cool looking at that themselves. But they weren't compelled to engage in behavior that might be behavior for a 17, 20 year old, 25 year old. That wasn't the case. And parents had a lot of control over that. And again, to your point, Rachel, they oftentimes looked up their friends. Or their friend's sister, older sister, maybe. It was their social sphere of people that they knew in their school or in

their neighborhood or in their community. Well, now with social media, these influencers are talking directly to the kids. Yes, that's the difference and yes that's the difference and they don't have the mental capacity to judge whether this is a wait if you've got a nine-year-old or a 10-year-old or an 11-year-old um you know the mental capacity that they have they think they want something they think they need something because this influencer told them and they'll try to move hell or high water to get these products. And as a parent, you don't know where I put, I had some confusion with some of our younger girls. Where is this coming from? What's driving these asks from these kids? And I think it's a far more,

it's a far more challenging environment for a parent to try to navigate these trends and influences that our kids are now being inundated with, because these influences are talking directly to them about products that they need, which we all know that they don't. I think it's worth mentioning, and we kind of talked about this last week, but the way that advertising has changed. And Michael and I, my husband and I were actually discussing how, you know, back in your day, or even back in our day growing up, you know, we were we were advertised to maybe in television ads, but it's in the family room. And so your parents can see it. You saw billboards. Right. I mean, the advertising was much more out in the open. You know, I would see, you know, just justice ads in magazines, maybe. But a magazine magazine is tangible and it's in your home. Now, people are, young kids are being targeted with advertisements and their parents have no idea because it's on your phone. And so I could have my phone like this and we're in the living room and you have

no idea what I'm looking at. And there's a really, there's a good movie that I hope we talk about, but it's called 13 Going on 30, where a young girl is 13 years old and she wants to be 30. And she actually wakes up as a 30 year old. But there's an interesting part of the movie where she's she's looking at. This is the Jennifer Evita Evita. This is for people who don't remember this or haven't heard of the film. This is the Jennifer Garner film. It's actually a really great movie, by the way, if you way. I'm always looking for good movies to watch with my girls. And this is a good one. It's fun.

It's got a great message. Jennifer Garner's in it. So continue. And the dad, too, by the way. I like chick flicks as well. Yeah, she does look like a good chick flick. It's true. That's like his things you don't know about Lumberjack Sean Duffy is he actually really likes chick flicks.

Okay, go ahead. Well, she's just in her room and she's she's looking through this magazine and she's looking through the these adult women and she says to her mom i want to look like these women and then her mom goes up to her and she goes oh honey those aren't people those are models and she sort of checks her and she's not this is not normal these are These are touched up. This is not a real person. And I just thought it was a great way that her mom was able to look at what she was viewing because it was in her hands and say, oh, let me bring you back to reality. You don't really want to look like that. And they don't even really look like that. And now you can't have those parental moments because of how, because of how the

phone makes things so, so insular and not, not very out in the open. And I also think, again, the power of, you know, somebody who is, you know, very, you know, pretty or popular on social media. And by the way, probably has a filter going on as well talking directly to you responding to messages and comments that you might have you know that as a young girl is sending to this person they're creating this faux connection and it's all meant to sell them things and the girls are sadly falling for it now Now, we talked a little bit, Shana Vida, about these 20-something and older influencers. But another really sort of dangerous trend that I'm seeing, I think it's very alarming,

is the daughters of the Nepo children, right, of the very rich and famous, like Kanye and Kim Kardashian's daughter, North, for example who northwest that's right who has her now she's coming out with her own skincare line she's what 11 years old um by the way if rachel had named that child she would have named her southwest yeah because i am from the southwest i only named my kids christian name so that wouldn't have worked for me. But I think that this is wrong on all kinds of levels. First of all, Northwest's lifestyle, her access to money.

Do I know how old is Northwest? She's 10? Is she 11, Evita? 9, 11? I don't know how old she is, but she's young. She's not a teenager. Why don't you look that up in a second? Yeah, she's not even a teenager.

I think she's 10. She's a tweenie, I think. So first of all, her lifestyle is so not relatable, shouldn't be relatable to most little girls. And now she, of course, has her mom, her aunts, who all have these billion-dollar lines of clothes and makeup. And so now she's entering the skincare area. And the idea that an 11- or 9-year-old, what is she?

10. Have we figured it out yet? She's 10. She's 10. The 10-year-old needs a skincare line is crazy. She has 560,000 Instagram followers. Right? Yeah, she's half a million Instagram followers is probably going to keep growing because now now that she has something to sell, her mom is probably going to keep pushing this as well.

And it sends a message one that you need a skincare line at that age. By the way, every every 50 year old wants to have the skin of a 10-year-old. It's really bizarre. It's so stupid. But it's powerfully enticing to these young girls. And it's making them, not just the money, it's making them wildly insecure, thinking about things that they shouldn't be thinking of. At 10 years old, you should be thinking about climbing a tree or going to Girl Scouts or going to your soccer team. I hope you're not going to Girl Scouts anymore. Yeah, Girl Scouts got ruined too.

You might play with Barbies. You might be riding your bikes with your friends. There's a whole bunch of things 10 and 11-year-old girls and boys do that's not on their phone looking at and they are showing influencers and they're and we're finding study after study that these young girls younger and younger they're becoming more and more insecure on their self-esteem is suffering because they're comparing themselves to people who are filtered people who are much older people are much richer people instead of just at this point just blossoming and becoming who they're supposed to be.

Barstool Sports has had like a couple videos where they'll record a bunch of college-aged girls as they're walking to a party or they're walking to class and they're all wearing the same thing. Like they all have the black leggings, the Ugg boots and the white sweatshirt. Like it's all the same and it's really kind of weird. And you're seeing that with a lot of young girls too. In this, between years, I think it's really important that you start to sort of find yourself. You're sort of starting to figure out what are my interests? What are my hobbies?

How do I want to dress? I mean, the emo phase that a lot of people went through in the early 2000s was like a way of self- part of and buy into this really uniform way of dressing, of looking and of acting, which I think is really it's killing a lot of the self-expression and creativity that is really important at that age. We'll have more of this conversation after this. From the Fox News Podcast Network, subscribe and listen to the Trey Gowdy Podcast. Former federal prosecutor and four term U.S. congressman from South Carolina brings you a one-of-a-kind podcast. Subscribe and listen now by going to foxnewspodcast.com.

So a couple things come to mind. So, again, our young girls don't have a phone. We have a 15-year-old who doesn't have a phone. But what I find interesting is, and again, we mentioned before, they can access an older sibling's phone, or we have computers in the house, and they can try to grab and access social media, but they're not with it all the time as if they had a phone to themselves. But their friends who do have phones and are on this all the time

are conduits for this information to kids that don't have phones from the kids that do have phones. So there's one phenomenon that makes this really challenging to parent through. But the other is, it's become so easy to buy stuff online with a phone. Most of the time, if you didn't have one of these stores that tweenies, tweenie kids like, they couldn't get it. They couldn't access it because they didn't have a store in their community. They didn't have a mall that they were close to that they could go to and find these outlets. Well, now with the way our phones work, it becomes really simple if you don't have a store just to buy the stuff online or to follow a link that they found

one of the social media influencers, you know, pitches on the product. And again, I can't, I've got rid of a lot of liberal content in our house, like Disney Plus, we've gotten rid of, and others. But I'm kind of reliant, we're reliant on Amazon. And Amazon and others have made it so easy just to click a couple buttons. And boom, the stuff is coming to your house. I've been a couple times where I'm like, what's in my what's in my amazon cart from the kids that they're putting stuff in that they think i might yeah i mean you think you're just pushing purchase for yourself you just bought a bunch of stuff for them you're like i don't know how do i stop this comes out i'm like who bought this and like you did dan i'm like why didn't you put in my card now i then i'm like did rachel put

this in or the kids put it in so i then have to save it for later um but again the ease of which you get the information and the ease of which you can purchase it um is remarkable and the question i have was some of the i mean this stuff's not cheap how do these kids have the money how do the parents have the money to fund these ridiculous i mean unnecessary skin products evita for these little for these little for these little girls who don't need it or even if they did have the money why would they allow them to spend their money in that way something that's so unnecessary that's only feeding these insecurities that young girls um are going to have anyway uh why would you want to you know magnify that and and then this consumerism which is

another part and then i think you brought just a great point avita the the sort of homogenization of it all like that you're they all want to be like these people that they see on social media instead of learning to be who they're meant to be. But individuals, we don't like individualism, Avita. We like to all look and act the same. Like a herd. We're good little communists taught in school, dress the same children, think the same thing, children. I know this can be maybe in a slide, and it's not super related to young girls particularly,

but maybe I mentioned this before too, but I have loved in American history how because we're such a big country, things are really regional. There's a regional culture in Wisconsin that's not the same as it is in New Jersey. That's not the same as it is in California or Texas. It's all very unique and distinct. There used to be a time where you would go to the to the East Coast and in the West Coast and the accents were starkly different to the point where there was almost an English accent on the East Coast or a Scottish accent in Appalachia that you could sort of pick up on. And with social media, because of how widespread it is,

we're losing a lot of the distinct cultural differences that I think used to really define America and make us a really interesting country and now um all we get is whatever's trending on tiktok and i just i find that kind of sad that's actually happening globally i mean and we and to be fair we've been seeing this for a while you know people you know complain about going to the wall of china and seeing a mcdonald's nearby you know whatever, like, you know, we're seeing, but it's amplified, right? Starbucks on every corner, it doesn't matter if you're in Berlin, or, or Madrid, or, you know, like you still, it's losing, losing that regional or national flavor. That's happening. But it is sad to see it happening on the youth scale. I want to move

into sort of a related topic. I thought this was really fascinating to me because there are now a lot of girls who are influencers. You don't just have to be Northwest to be an influencer. You could be a girl from Iowa or Massachusetts who starts an account. And if you have enough people following you, you're an influencer. You'll have different companies will reach out to you depending on how many followers you have. What? Yeah.

You can make some pretty good money. And so you start- I'm going to keep talking in this podcast. We'll take a break. We'll get an appliance that came in. And so you start- I'm going to keep talking this podcast. We'll take a break. We'll get an appliance that came in. And so you guys keep going. I'll be right back. The microwave came in

and the guys in the kitchen are texting down going, we need your help. I'm going to continue this, Evita, because this is really interesting. So you don't have to be Northwest. You can be somebody from Iowa, from Massachusetts. You can be an influencer.

You can have followers. And there are also some children who are being born into influencer families. So their parents have figured out that they can make a lot of money and showcasing the kids through their YouTube channel or their Instagram channel is a lucrative way for the family to make money. And our producers came across the story, which I thought was fascinating.

This is a girl. She calls herself Claire Ibita. It's not her real name. She's using a protected name. real name she's using a protected name and actually she says as when she gets older and she's sort of over the age of 18 she plans to divulge who she is um to kind of explain how traumatizing this can be and how stunting this can be so this is what clear says she says um that when the family's channel started to rake in views, both her and her parents, both her parents left their jobs because the revenue from YouTube channel was enough to support the family and to

land them a nicer house and a new car. And she says that she thinks it's not fair that she has to help support everyone. She says, I try not to be resentful, but I kind of am. Once she said she, I try not to be resentful, but I kind of am. Once she said she told her dad that she didn't want to do a YouTube video anymore. And he told her that they would have to move out of their house and her parents would have to go back to work, leaving no money for nice, quote, nice things. When the family is together, the YouTube channel is what they talk about. Claire says her father has told her he's not just her father. He's also her boss.

She says it's a lot of pressure. She says that when she turns 18 and can move on her own, as I said, she's considering going no contact with her parents. Once she doesn't live with them anymore, she plans to speak out publicly about being the star of a YouTube channel. She says she'll even use her real name. She wants people to know that her childhood was overshadowed by social media stardom and that it's something she didn't choose. She wants her parents to know nothing they do now is going to take back the years of work that she had to put into it with her family. It's really fascinating, isn't it? I mean, it's super fascinating to me, having done reality TV in my 20s.

Growing up, Evita, we have been offered, you know this, probably, I would say, a dozen times, at least, from different production companies, different networks, has said, we want to do a reality TV show with your family because dad was in Congress, mom was on TV. We have nine kids and oh my gosh, this would be a great thing. And something intuitively inside of our gut and Sean and I's gut, we knew we could make a lot of money doing this. And we just said, we know too much from having done reality TV. We thought it would really hurt you guys that we thought it would disrupt your childhood and make you so self-aware in such a negative way that naturalness that kids have would be gone. Well, I'm back. Welcome back, Sean. Welcome back, Sean. To be really honest about that conversation, when asked, Rachel said no, and I said, how much?

That's true. But in the end, when we would talk about it, you agreed. Yeah, we don't want to tweet the kids out. Yeah. Yeah, I think that a reality show is almost a little worse than a YouTube video, because at least the parents have some control over what's going out. But the effect on kids is very similar and very concerning. I wouldn't have liked that growing up. And I have a lot of sympathy for the amount of influencer children who have to grow up like this. Influencer videos oftentimes, I mean, they're promoting products and it's invading lives.

But oftentimes they'll have a video around someone's birthday party and a video around a trip to the Mall of America or a trip to Disney. And instead of these trips and experiences and life moments being about the moment, it's about the video. And we have to say something or act and look excited so that the video is successful. and look excited so that the video is successful. And it means that for a lot of these kids, like their life is constantly on, that they're constantly basically working and not just enjoying themselves and being a kid, which I think is really damaging.

On top of the fact that most of them aren't getting paid, there are no labor laws around influencer children and how they should be compensated for the work they do. And they are doing work because their parents are videoing and producing, but they are the content. They're the talent in a way. And so really backward, I think it's a really big problem in our society.

And it's probably going to end up being legislation on how to handle it because there's going to be a lot of kids coming forward saying that there have been in childhood. There have been outtakes from what this looks. So you see the final product of the instagram video of the birthday party say and i don't know how these outtakes have ended up on on tv if it was you know on on social media if it was by accident oh are you talking well i'm i've seen like the outtakes of the moms. Come on, smile. It's like a birthday party.

Come on, smile. Let's go. And so, you know, sorry. I was going to say there was a really horrible video that went viral last month about a mom who she I think it's like the second time it's gone viral. The dog had died or they had put the dog down and she was recording her son crying. And the mom had been was basically saying you know i saw this sad act like you're sad and he was like i am sad and she's a piece like act like you're more sad and this is a really raw moment their family dog has died and the first thing she can think of

is i'm gonna put a camera in front of your face and make sure that you're acting sad enough for and he was crying he the kid was crying actually so how did that end up how did that end up on tv like what did that clearly that mom did not post that did she did so what happened was she had she had failed to review her edited video and didn't actually cut that part of it out so she uploaded it herself and then didn't actually you know hadn't realized that she had put this part in that she didn't want. And the backlash from people was really stark. They thought this was disturbing and weird.

It was. She had to take down all of her social media and was basically, you know, had to end her influencer mommy career. But there are a lot of parents who have outtakes like that. And we have no idea what's happening behind the scenes. And they carry on. So talking about outtakes, we did some commercial. I was just thinking, we have to have full disclosure, because we've had, now, if you're in Congress,

when Sean was in Congress, we had to do ads, and we sometimes used you guys in the commercial, and they always involved a lot of bribery. The day that we shot commercial happy come on come on do it we did i mean we're guilty of that too and it would always be like if you guys just get through this day i promise we'll go to derrick and i remember when we shot that commercial where you went off to college we had to do that one um you know i mean it's hard you had a lot of kids and you're trying to no one's i always people always go what's it like to have nine kids i'm like i'll tell you what it's

like no one's ever happy all happy at the same time and so you can imagine you're trying to shoot a campaign commercial your kids are part of the commercial and you know you're you're bribing kids all the time with barbies with lip gloss gloss, with Dairy Queen. But imagine this. I mean, this is like once or twice a year. This is these kids' lives on a weekly basis. These were full-day shoots, right? Yeah. And the kids are part of some, not part of others. They're really long days that we're tied up in.

I want to actually do, I'm going to try to find this video and put it in here where we have an end product where we all sit on the couch and the kids say different lines. But then we did an outtake of showing how the process was made and I'll put in the word. Yeah, we'll add that to this and we'll find it.

Can I take a different, let me take a different take on what happens here with social media. It really is capitalism, right? You have little innovators and innovative families that are like, you know what? We're interesting. We have a following. Let's build a following.

Let's create a little enterprise around our ability to sell products and ideas. And some of them are way more successful than others. Some aren't successful at all. But it really is a small business enterprise that these families are engaged in. Now, you might go, well, what do they make? I mean, again, we have a lot of people who don't want to be scientists or mathematicians. They don't want to get the real school.

And they're like, I want to actually be an influencer because I can talk about my life and myself and sell products. And you really give nothing back to society, really the cause of our culture um but i don't disagree with that i've seen some influencers that i'm like looking at their lives some of these women avida you know them that are on farms and they're showing their life and and some of it's fake but some of it's real and some of it's fascinating to me. And they're selling products that I actually go, I can use that. Yeah, I think it's hard to... There are a lot of mommy influencers who influence other moms,

but they're really cautious and they never show their child's face. Or they're farm influencers, but they talk about themselves and they talk about their work and what they do, or even maybe their kids, but in a vague way to really protect them. And I don't have a problem with that. I think if you want to be an influencer and you're a mom and you want to make money on the side, there's no problem. But it's when you start to exploit your kids and how cute they are and their day-to-day lives and exposing personal things about them growing up that they probably wouldn't want on, you know, in the public square that then things start to become less cut and dry on how moral it is. We'll have more of this conversation after this.

So I think, I don't know if I told you this, but I've met on social media very often, but whenever I get on, I'm like, this is so amazingly addictive and you can pass time. And it's fascinating the videos that you see. he went to the airport once and he called me and he's like, you won't believe what I did. I just spent like 30 minutes or whatever. And he's like, I just was looking at reels. He'd never done that before. And I'm like, it was really kind of it was really fun. And it was really interesting. And then time passed quickly, right?

Passed. I'm like, no wonder this is so addictive. But this is a different story. So I did this again, this was like a 20 minute I had a blow and I'm scrolling through. And I got this ad in the middle. It wasn't it wasn't an influencer ad, but it was an ad in my feed. And they were selling this little it was it could it could suck or it could blow this little gun. They this this is the perfect thing to clean out your car. And it had these little attachments that gets all his little nooks and crannies.

You can blow it out and suck it up and then your car's going to be clean. I can't believe you fell for this because I've never seen you wash my car. Like, I don't understand where this came from. I watched the video and I'm like, that's amazing. What was the ShamWow?

I was like the ShamWow guy that was selling this device. And I was like, I think I need one. But why? Can I just say? Why why because you don't wash the car like i would love it like if you were a car washer i'd be like yes that great like he loves to wash the car see here's the thing it was inspirational i is i aspire to clean my cars more and i thought this would help inspire me to get out there and do it. And so as part of that inspiration, I'm like, I need this little vacuum sucker blower device. And I bought it. And it was really easy. I took a couple clicks. And then I kept asking him, like, hey, is it? Did I get

scammed? And when did my when did it didn't come in for a long time? It didn't come in, it finally came in. And I have even openings I saw I just came in this week and it was in a little box. I was expecting something much bigger. It was small. It's charging right now. I can report back how my first Instagram purchase off an ad worked. I'm not an Instagram guy. Then I saw the ad and I'm like, I don't know if I'm one of the

millions of people who just get sucked into this thing and start buying. I don't buy from Instagram. What's the TV station where they just sell stuff? QVC. Yeah, QVC. Is this like QVC? They just pitch stuff and I'm like a QVC shopper now? I don't know. Maybe. But I'm going to tell you how good this little

vacuum for my car is supposed to work. We will see. Yeah, it is very enticing. The videos are quick and they get you really quickly. They got me. They got you. You got sucked in. I love that. Avita, bring this home for us. What should we learn from this, from the social influencers, what's happening to the tween years, how they're changing, sort of the homogenization of childhood experiences?

What's your take? And the final question, Navita, is how do we address it? Not as a, we can't change the culture, but as families, what do you think families can do differently to make sure we're protecting our kids from this massive influence that's coming

from friends at school on social media, but their own feeds that they see? Yeah, I think it's going to be really hard. I think the major thing which you guys already doing is to not let your kids have an iPhone and not let them have social media until they want to buy it themselves or they're out of the house. That really is the only way and then also putting yourself in a community with like minded parents because if you do take away the phone and you say i want you to you know be a

real kid but you send them to a school where the their peers are not acting like real kids um then you're going to have the same effect so it's finding a community um with like-minded parents to protect your kids from what's out there because i mean it's there are i i would never say that i had the most idyllic you know it was it was not the perfect childhood because i there was always you know a bad really bad american pop culture um i'm saying i didn't have a perfect childhood but i'm seeing really even stark bizarre differences from when i was growing up to now when my siblings are growing up that um i think should be really concerning to everyone the other thing i'll say is i there was this great quote we didn't really

get into it but there was this great quote that, not a quote, but something that a Christian camp counselor said to me in middle school. I went to a super Catholic summer camp and they said that the girls are growing up too fast and the boys are growing up too slow. And I just think that that is really, really true. And to keep it in mind in your family that, you know, you want to preserve your daughter's innocence and also make sure that you're giving your son's responsibility because the culture is trying to do that to them. And it's having a really negative impact. I think the advice that you have, especially about the like-minded friends, it was interesting. We have a fourth grader, a girl, and she told me the other day, she said, I really want a phone.

And I was really surprised because she's actually the most creative. Yeah, she said that to me. Margarita said she wanted a phone. And she's the most creative, the one who, you know you know she asked for tape from santa because she makes so many you know little projects on her own and she she's just very um creative and and keeps herself busy and i said well why would you want a phone and she said not having a phone is really interfering with my social life and i said really in what way is it interfering and she said because all the other kids have have phones and they were communicating with each other over break and talking, you know, via text.

And I can't do that. And I said, are you saying everybody does? And she goes, well, not everybody. And then she named these two other girls. Well, those two other girls are her best friend. And I thought, oh, okay, good. So those like-minded parents are really helpful for her not to feel isolated. So she has her closest, best friends.

Those parents see the world, or at least the dangers of social media and introducing them at too young of an age, the way we do. That made me go, it just, listen, I wasn't going to change and give her a phone because she said that, but it just made it easier when I knew those other daughters, my other friend's daughters also didn't have them. And so I think that that's a really, really great point. And I think other parents are looking for support. I think a lot of parents don't want to give their kids the phone. They feel that pressure.

And if you reach out to them and go, I'm not going to do it, and I'm not going to do it, and I'm not going to do it, they're like, yeah, you know what? It's that kind of positive peer pressure, even among adults, to draw the line on that is really helpful. So I just quickly, we, and we got, um, our 15 year old, she's like, I want a phone. Dad is 15.

This is ridiculous. I want a phone. And so it took me a little bit of time, but I found a phone that would work as a phone and you could text up, but it didn't have, it didn't, it didn't have a web browser. You couldn't buy apps on it.

Um, it was pretty limited. You can call and you can text on it i'm like perfect yeah and i gave it to her we gave it to her and she didn't really like it because it's not about actually calling someone or texting someone it was about i want to get which was how she was selling the idea of getting a phone she's, I need it because when I'm at school and I have to text you, or if my friends have to text me about homework. And so we're like, all right, so here's your phone with the texting,

and you can call me if there's an emergency. She wasn't satisfied because deep down it really was about the apps. Because I'm a camera either. A camera can't send or share videos and pictures off the phone. But again, I was getting concerned about going, hey, listen, if something did happen and she's calling, you have to call or text us. Great, but you're right. She was selling us on that, but that's not what she wanted it for. She wants it for social media.

So we peeped her game. We called her out. We called her bluff. And we're like, sorry, this is what you asked for. This is what you get. And she does find ways to get around that. She uses her older sister's phone. I find her sometimes on the computer and I have to reprimand her.

But I mean, look, I'm trying the best I can. And I think my takeaway is as this technology evolves and as advertisers find new and creative ways to use technology to influence and access our kids, we can't stay in the mindset of when Evita was a little girl. We have to be innovators ourselves as parents. We've got to keep innovating with the times and figure out how we continue to protect our children from the new attacks that come, what is now social media, but who knows what it's going to be five or eight years. And I also think like just flipping the way you're thinking about it. So it's not that you're saying no to your child. It's not that you're, and it can feel that way because they definitely want to make you feel like you're robbing them of something or you're being so strict, you're not letting them, you know, be like other people.

You have to, in your own mind, have the confidence as a parent and trust your gut and go, no, what I'm doing is I am saving and preserving your childhood. Because every other cultural force out there, whether it's social media, TV, Hollywood, you know, you name it, even your kid's school with all the inappropriate sex ed out there. Every other force out there is trying to rob your child of their childhood, of their right to innocence and to creativity and to that beautiful period of time where you don't have adult pressures

and they're trying to put consumerism, materialism, sex ed, everything onto a period of life where up until very recently it was reserved for them to explore and be children. And so it is our job to preserve their innocence, preserve their childhood, protect them from all these forces that are trying to rob them of that. What I actually tell them, I don't know if you heard me say this,

I'm like, listen, God gave me a job to be your dad. And I don't want to answer to God one day to go, I didn't do my job. And I know you want to do this. And again, if we were friends, maybe I'd let you do it. But I have a job to protect you and to make sure I'm having an impact on the things you've seen, the things that you do that are age appropriate. And that's my job as your father. And you have to answer for that doing my job because you're the gift that was given to me. I have not heard them strongly argue back or push back against me on that. It's like, this is about what I have to do and the responsibility that I have as your dad. We're not friends. I'm Papa. Papa has a role here.

And you're right. You're going to die one day, Sean, and you're going to have to answer to God whether you did your job or not. I was just going to die one day, Sean, and you're going to have to answer to God whether you did your job or not. I was going to add that sometimes there are a lot of concerns about the iPhone. We really focus on kids, but there's also, I mean, dad said he's wasted 30 minutes on or an hour on reels. It can be bad for adults, too. And they're also collecting information on us via our iPhones about what our preferences and likes are. And they're also collecting information on us via our iPhones about what our preferences and likes are. There's entire illegal databases that the feds have collected on individuals.

And we don't know what the purpose is. And so a colleague of mine actually said, you know, I'm concerned about the data collection for myself. And I also don't want my daughter to have this iPhone for all the reasons that we've just expressed. And so for those two reasons, he said, you know what? My wife and I are going to lead by example. And they bought themselves dumb phones. And they said, if it's good enough for my kid, it's good enough for us. And that's what we're going to do. Some people have jobs and they can't have dumb phones and they have to have their iPhone.

And that's fine. I wish I could. But for a lot of people, that is an option. And it's worked out really well for him. By the way, a dumb phone is like the old school flip phone. It dials and you might have a hard time hitting the three buttons to get a letter on the text. But yeah, it is dumb, but it works as a phone. And also, you've made such a great point because a lot of people don't realize that in school, a lot of these tech companies, they seem oh they're so great they're donating ipads to the school um this idea of kids on ipads during school

first of all i think it's the wrong way to learn but there is a lot of data collection that's going on um for sure that way your child um both on their phone but on their iPads and computers at school are the product. The CEOs and the creators of tech companies and apps, there's a really interesting documentary and articles about how they do not allow their children to have phones. They don't let them have apps. Oh, I know. If the creators of the apps or the CEOs of the tech companies

are not letting their children have an iPhone, why are we letting ours? There's a point. that's a great point. There's a, just to talk about dumb phones, and I think I might have mentioned this before in the podcast, but there's young dating adults in their 20s that have two phones. One is the dumb phone, and one is their smartphone. When they go out, they bring their dumb phones, which is where there's been a resurgence of the sales of the dumb phone because they don't want to sit there and they know the attraction and just sit at the bar or whatever they're doing at

the party and looking at their phones. They want to stay in contact. So they take the dumb phones out with them. There's been an explosion in sales of the dumb phone because there's a knowledge of young people that are going out and being social of what their smartphone is doing to them, which is fascinating. Well, it becomes a crutch. And I've seen this, especially with young men who are very insecure socially. And what they'll do is they'll use the phone as a crutch. So instead of, you know, they may even be in a group setting and they just may be nervous. And they'll go to their phone or they're walking, you know, they may even be in a group setting and they just may be nervous and they'll go to their phone or they're walking, you know, at school.

Yeah. So it's a way it's like where you feel uncomfortable because everyone feels uncomfortable in an unfamiliar situation or they were a little insecure putting themselves out there. So if they just are looking down on their phone or put their earbuds on, it's a way to manage social anxiety and it becomes a crutch and they stop growing socially because of that. I think that's one of the biggest problems. I see it a a lot especially with young men okay i don't know if i don't know if i told you the story already but i once i went into a dunkin donuts to buy some coffee and um one of our one of my little sisters came in and she wanted me to get her something and i didn't tell me if i said the story already last week but i said okay that's fine go and tell her what you want to the person at the register and she was like basically no you had to do it for me and this is a this is a teenage girl she

was able to order by herself and i said i'm fine buying it for you but i'm not going to buy it for you unless you order it for yourself and she got right she got mad and she stormed off into the car but to that that we have teenagers who are afraid to order their own food uh i think is a is a really this is a big problem i didn't know no no this is a problem that this is a problem that that is beginning to be identified which is they they communicate so much via text that they're losing these social skills in fact fact, there is a woman, we highlighted her on Fox, she's making a killing. Basically, parents are sending them to her and their kids to her, and she's training them on how to have good phone etiquette. And even companies are sending some of their young

employees to her, and she's making a killing, basically teaching young people how to have phone etiquette and not be afraid of ordering or speaking on the phone. But this is a major thing where, you know, when we were kids, or I would say young adults, even to get your money, you had to go to the bank. Everything is on your phone. You never have to speak to a human again. And so people are not learning how to speak to humans. And I think it's interfering with eye contact. It's less.

They're not learning how to read social body language the way maybe our generation did because you had to. So we're losing just the basics on social skills because of the phone. So, yeah, the phone is becoming a crutch and it's having all kinds of consequences. And we need to just be aware of it. This is a problem we're going to continue to grapple with as a society, as a culture, and as parents. And we'll continue to have this debating conversation, you know, as we kind of navigate. Again, we're navigating it not so much with Evita

because, again, this was not a problem. But as the young ones come up, we'll continue to do stories on this. Evita, if you have a final word, you can give it to me. Otherwise, I'm going to say goodbye to you. One final thought? Nope. I think it was a great convo. How about nine-year-olds don't need skincare routines?

Let's just leave it on that. No. It's an eight-year-old. And 13-year-olds should be able to do it. All right. All right, listen, thank you for joining us on the podcast. Listen, if you like our podcast, please rate, review, subscribe. Wherever you get your podcasts, you can always find us at foxnewspodcast.com.

Please subscribe, get your notice whenever our podcasts drop. Until next time, I'd be to thank you, Rachel. Good to see you. Sorry about my little vacate there. Oh, no. I'm glad the microwave is broken. Thank you. Thanks for stepping up for that.

All right. Bye, everybody. Listen ad-free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple podcast and Amazon Prime members can listen to the show ad free on the Amazon Music app. From the Fox News Podcast Network, I'm Janice Dean, Fox News senior meteorologist. Be sure to subscribe to the Janice Dean Podcast at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And don't forget to spread the sunshine.