The Matt Walsh Show - The Internet’s Defense of Bad Parenting Is Insane

Episode Date: June 27, 2026

Recently, I commented on a video of the Supernanny making a good point about the failure of modern parenting. Of course, this started a parenting war online. Now, we must respond.- - -Today's Sponsor:ExpressVPN - Go to https://expressvpn.com/WalshYT and find out how you can get 4 months of ExpressVPN free!- - -Click here to join the member-exclusive portion of my show: https://dwplus.watch/MattWalshMemberExclusive- - -DailyWire+:Become a Daily Wire Member and watch all of our content ad-free: https://dwplus.watch/RealHistorySubscribe📲 Download the free Daily Wire app today on iPhone, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Samsung, and more.📜 Real History with Matt Walsh is available ad-free, exclusively on DailyWire+ https://dwplus.watch/RealHistory👕 Get your Matt Walsh flannel here:https://dwplus.shop/MattWalshMerch- - -Socials: YouTube — https://youtube.com/@mattwalshFacebook — https://www.facebook.com/mattwalshblogInstagram — https://www.instagram.com/mattwalshblog TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@mattwalsh_ X — https://twitter.com/mattwalshblog- - -Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Apparently, that's what she's called. I've never really heard of her. But she made a good point about the way parents today raise their kids or fail to. I guess we'll play the video. Here it is. I'm going to say something that might make you uncomfortable. So sit tight. We are slowly disabling our children. And I don't say that likely. I say that because I work with families continuously every day. And I'm seeing a pattern that's growing. Children who are. are capable but not being taught. We're pushing children along on bikes instead of teaching them how to ride them. We're keeping children in strollers who should be walking, climbing, building strength. We've got four-year-olds still using dummies when that was only ever meant to be a short-term aide. Seven-year-olds who can't brush their teeth properly without an electric toothbrush. Eight-year-olds who can't sit at table and use a knife and fork. Nine-year-olds who, who can't sit at table, don't basically understand bathroom hygiene, and I find myself asking, when did we stop teaching these

life skills? When? And before you get defensive, I understand modern life is busy. I do, but this isn't about time. It's about intention. Because every time we step in and do it for them or avoid teaching because it's slower, messier or inconvenient, we take away an opportunity for them to become capable and children want to feel capable. So we go back to basics, parents. We teach the bike riding with support. Then we're out.

We've removed the dummy when it's no longer needed. We show them how to brush their teeth properly, not rely on this electric tool. We sit at the table and we teach them how to eat properly. properly, we guide, we repeat, we expect. Not perfectly, consistently, because independence isn't something that just happens. It's taught parents. And if we don't teach it, we can't be surprised when it's missing. So that's what she said. I commented on that. She's right. Of course, meal time is a big part of the problem. Lots of parents negotiate with their children, allow them to

not eat what was served or just serve them chicken nuggets or mac and cheese for every meal. They don't teach table manners. They don't require that their children ask to be excused before leaving the table. They let their kids use electronics at the table, et cetera, a complete disaster. And plenty of comments responded to that. Plenty disagreeing or in some cases agreeing. So we'll go through some of the comments. Stephanie says, I'm Gen X.

Nobody taught me these life skills. We had to figure the shit out ourselves. Are kids getting too dumb to do this? Nobody taught you life skills? This is totally a general. Gen X thing, by the way. They love to brag about not being parented. Gen Xers love this. There's not a lot we could say about Gen Xers or that needs to be said, but this is one thing about Gen XX. They love to brag. They love to brag about not having any real parenting, as if that's something to be proud of. Well, if nobody taught you life skills, which is really like the whole job of a parent, that's basically your entire gig. And if no one did that, I can guess two things about you.

One is your parents sucked. Two, you probably don't actually have those life skills to the degree that you think you do. And this is something you hear a lot from people. They'll say, well, you know, that's how I was raised. And I turned out fine. I was raised that way. Look at me. I turned out fine.

And then you look at them. And it's like, yeah, but no, you didn't. Actually, you didn't turn out fine. It's always the most dysfunctional people with lives of pure misery. Lives that you look at them and you're plunged into despair just by looking at them. And they're always the ones that go, I turned out, hey, I turned out fine. No, you totally did not turn out fine. You actually turned out really poorly.

Apparently no one's told you this, but because you didn't have a parent to tell you. Let's see Dwayne Harris says To say that we're more busy than our ancestors is wrong They got up at 4 a.m. and worked till the sun went down outside And then did chores inside till midnight They didn't waste time with social media and chit chat and TV And somehow they found time to raise not one, not two

But average of seven children Had to wipe their own ass, have manners and respect elders By six years old It's us We're too consumed with ourselves Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think you're absolutely right.

So when parents today try to use the excuse of people in general are always using as an excuse, oh, I'm too busy, I'm too busy. First of all, you're not nearly as busy as you think you are. And that goes for all of us, myself included. We all think that we're really busy. Some of us are more busy than others. But in reality, if you were to just log the amount of time you spend a week, simply staring at a screen that you don't have to.

I'm not talking about for work, you would see that just there alone, you got more than enough time to do anything you want with your life, and it's just being consumed. And that's part of the thing with the screen is that it eats up your time in a way that you don't feel. This is one of the issues with it. It's got this lobotomizing effect when you're staring at a screen.

So it could eat up like, you could be looking at a screen for 50, two minutes and it feels like it was five. And that's one of the reasons why people think they're way busier than they are. You know, they get home from work, whatever, they put the kids to bed. Then they get out their phone and they stare at it and they look up at the clock and it's like, oh, it's already bedtime. And you see, I had no time in between putting the kids to bed and now I have to go to bed because I got to get work in the morning. Well, actually, you had like three and a half hours, but you just spent it just like doing this with your phone the whole time. And that's why.

Patrick says, Ah, yes, let's raise more subservient order followers and permission slip seekers. What could go wrong? Well, this is the dumbest thing. This is the dumbest thing. Yes, you want to raise children to follow your orders and in many cases seek permission. Like, of course you want to raise your children. kids that way. That's called being obedient, being disciplined, being humble. Do you think the problem

is that kids today are too humble and too obedient? Is that, Patrick, is that what you think? You think the problem we have in society today is that kids are too obedient, too well-behaved. They are too prone to deferring to adults, you actually think that's our problem. You know something else? Just so you know, every great man of history that you can name, if you can name any, which you probably can't, literally all of them, every single one, was a man who respected hierarchy and respected people in positions of legitimate authority. and definitely, definitely respected the authority of a parent over a child. Every single one.

So this thing of, oh, no one's in charge of me. I don't have to listen to anybody. That is, no great man has ever had that attitude. Sorry. Acknowledging that there are people in the world who know more than you, acknowledging that there are people who have authority that you do not have, acknowledging that you owe respect to your superiors, to your elders, all of that is necessary for to be a, not just a great person, but to be a functional person in society.

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That tells me they're not mature enough to have kids. My parents forced me to eat what they made. I hated it as a kid, but as an adult understand why. Yeah, I agree. You know, you hear this from adults. They say, well, my parents made me do that, and I really didn't like it. So I'm not going to make my kids do it. Have you not grown up at all?

Like, yeah, you're supposed to go through the phase as a child where your parents are telling you to do something and you really hate that you have to do it. And so you say to yourself, well, when I'm a parent and I have kids, I'm never going to make them clean their room. This is so unfair. Yeah, when you're like 12, you might have that view. But by the time you're 32, you should have grown up. Now when you're 32, you should have gone through the evolution where you realize that, oh, no, I'm a lot. actually like, of course that you should clean your room. I'm glad my parents made me do that. When I have kids or with my kids now, I'm definitely going to make them do those things.

You should be at that point when you're in your 20s and 30s and you've got a lot of like grown adults who still have the mentality of 12 year olds. As a parent, if you are not making your kids do things that they don't want to do, then you're a terrible parent. Because most of the basic duties and responsibilities around the house are things that your kid is not going to want to do because who would? They're not going to want to clean their room. They're not going to want to obey your rules. They're not going to want to, you know, have to forego eating ice cream whenever they want. And on and on and on. Like all the things, all the basic duties and responsibilities, they're not going to want to do. And if you as a parent are not making your kids do those things, then you just are failing in the most

basic way as a parent. I mean, my parents tried to make me eat, but I was picky. They say you can't leave the table till you eat. I say, okay, and not eat. And then they'd get up for bed, and they'd make me what I want because they can't not feed their child. I will die on this hill after six kids. There's no such thing as a picky eater.

Okay, that is a skill issue as a parent. I know parents get upset when I say this. It's true. There's no such thing as a picky eater. Unless your kid, like, legitimately has some kind of mental issue, I guess there can be cases like that. But putting those aside, if you have a, you know, sort of normal, mentally healthy child, picky eater is a skill issue.

That's a parenting issue. We don't have picky eaters in our house. How did that happen? Six kids, six kids, we don't have picky eaters. How do we do that? Have we just got lucky? No, it's really simple. You eat what's put in front of you.

and if you don't eat that, then you won't eat anything. Okay, and you hear these parents and say, well, I try that and my kid will just refuse to eat. How long is your kid going to go on this hunger strike before they just eat what's put in front of them? Because I guarantee you what you're doing is you're telling them, eat that or nothing. And then they refuse and then like an hour later you feel bad because they're hungry and so you make them chicken nuggets. That's what's happening. what you have to be willing to do if you really have like a if the picky and really if you do this at a young age you won't get to the picky eater phase if you do get to that phase then you're going to have to

probably get to a point where okay you're not going to eat any dinner tonight you're going to go to bed and you're going to be hungry it'll be you're not going to die like your kid's not going to starve to death that's not going to happen but like you might have to get them to a point where they're actually really hungry And they're begging you for a snack or like they're, you know, for what they want to eat. And you just say, no, sorry, I know you're hungry, but you're not, here's your meal. Like, we're not depriving you of food. It's right here.

A delicious, gorgeous meal. Please eat it. But you might have to get to that point. So, and we've had, you know, we've had, look, we've gone through this with our kids, with a few of them in particular, where they, where they try it. They test it. And they test, they try out being a picky eater. And so the rule is like, you're not getting up from the table until you eat your food. And we've had a few kids, a time or two, that have said, okay, well, I'm not going to.

It's like, okay, well, then you're going to sit there. An hour and a half later, they're still sitting at the table. Okay. But you're not getting up until you eat that. You want to sit here for another five hours? That's on you. And eventually they'll eat it. Other comment says, this is half right.

There is no call for kids to ask to be excused from the table. Do you ask to be excused? Is the table a prison? Bad ideas lead to worse ones. Now, I'm a big believer in having kids ask to be excused. Do I ask to be excused from my own table? No, because it's my table. Because it's my table in my house with my food that I bought.

And so, no, I don't, who am I going to ask? No, ask, see, the kids ask me. because I'm in charge and this is all the stuff that I provided for them. Who am I going to ask? I don't have anybody to ask. I don't have to ask.

I don't have to ask to be excused. I can do whatever I want as far as that goes. I'm not my child. See, I'm in charge. The child's not. And so we're big believers in that. The kids should ask to be excused from the table. Is the table a prison?

No, but my house is not a prison. And yet they can't just walk outside and go wherever they want without asking me or asking their mom. It's not a prison. It's not a prison, but my six-year-old can't just disappear wherever she wants without getting any permission, obviously. Does that make it a prison? No, it just means we are the parents.

We are in charge. You have rules to follow that we don't have to follow because we're the authority figures. So, and, you know, we didn't, I think for a while we didn't do the whole, like, you have to ask to be excused. And I think probably 10 years ago, I would have felt like, that's a little, you know, I don't know, it's a little unnecessary. As the kids have gotten older, I've really, that's when we started to instate this rule, because, you know, when a dinner is prepared and efforts been prepared. and efforts been put into preparing this dinner, no, you're not just going to sit there at the table silently for five minutes and they just disappear. Like, no, it's ungrateful.

It's, this is a family time. We're sitting at the table together. And you can't, as a child, decide to just put a kibosh on family time and walk away from the table, not even saying thank you for the meal or anything. We're not going to allow that. So, yeah, nobody should ever be forced to. eat something against their will. It's cruel and creates bad eating habits. That is insane. Some of these people, nobody should be forced to eat something against the way. Okay, what's the

other option? What is the other option? So you're just going to let your kid decide what their own diet is. You're going to let your four-year-old. So your four-year-old is going to be his own nutritionist, his own dietitian. You'll let your four-year-old decide every meal for himself. That's insane. You're being a bad parent. You're being a bad parent because you're refusing to do the job. Being a parent is making these decisions for your family in many cases, making decisions that are right for your kid that they will not make because they don't know what's right and healthy for them. You do. You're the parent. So you feed them hopefully a nice meal that has like protein and maybe some vegetables and stuff like that. that because they need it for their growing bodies. They don't know that they need that.

And so you have to force that on them. This is just basic parenting. Completely insane. And it doesn't create bad eating habits. It does exactly the opposite. All of my kids have like, you know, for kids have really good eating habits. And they all just eat. We make a meal and they eat it.

Whatever it is. We make a healthy meal and they eat it. that's about as good eating habit as you can have. And that's all takes. I finally, scrappy little text and says, I agree, but I haven't figured out the magic trick

to keep my five and seven-year-old seated at the dinner table. It drives us crazy. Yeah, well, look, seven years old, this should not be a problem anymore. You know, five is a little bit on the, like two, I mean, really, once your kid starts eating solid foods and they're sort of at the dinner table at that point, from that age until about, you know, maybe like three and a half, four can be a little rough

and you just have to get through it. By seven years old, they should certainly be at a point where they can sit at the table, you know, politely and basically still and eat the food. And at seven years old, if you can't get them to sit down and eat dinner, they should have that skill by now at seven. I mean, seven is late in the game. So the trick, which is not magic, is just consequence. And I think this is where parents flinch. This is where parents very often flinch.

And you're at the point, you're long sense at the point, in my opinion, where the consequences should be pretty severe for the seven-year-old. And that's, but by severe, all I mean is something as simple as if you don't sit still at the table and eat in a civilized way, if you're bouncing all over the place, you're not sitting down, you're trying to make it all about you. This is family dinner time. It's not about you. You're going to sit down and you're going to be civilized and polite. And if you're not going to do that, then we're going to send you to bed without dinner. And you actually have to do it. You know, it's basically all the old-fashioned stuff that like our parents and grandparents did.

That, you know, it was actually right. You should be doing that. Sending your kid to bed without dinner should be a thing that you do sometimes if you need to. And I'm telling you right now, especially at seven, like that'll make, that'll make an impression. And we've had to do that a few times with our kids for various reasons. And not very often. We've had a few kids where, you know, it's like six o'clock and you're going to bed. You know, you're bed without dinner. do that a few times, makes an impression.

And that's what consequences should be. They have to be something that is unpleasant for the child. Not going to hurt the child. Anything like that, they're perfectly safe. But it will make an impression, and it will be really uncomfortable for them. And they're not going to enjoy it. And that's what you have to do. So I think with your seven-year-old, you could break him of this habit in the span of 12 hours.

Just try it tonight. Give him a couple warnings. I'm sure you've already given him a million warnings if he's seven. But if he doesn't listen to that, okay, you're going to bed. You're not going to eat, go to bed. Something tells me the next day he's going to be seated at the dinner table very politely, and he's going to eat what's put in front of him. That's the way kids work.

It's not that hard. I mean, you know what, it is hard. Being a parent is hard. I'll backtrack. It is hard. It is difficult, but it's simple, especially with young kids. It's simple. It's not complicated.

It's not complicated, even if it is hard to do. So that's it. Okay, bye.