In between parties for our nation’s 250th birthday party, I spent some time over the weekend opening six new <a href="https://trumpaccounts.gov/">Trump Accounts</a> for my six children, ages three to 12. They aren’t eligible for the $1,000 baby bonus for opening the accounts, but the younger four will receive $250 each from the Dell Foundation, available to children age 10 and under in most zip codes in the country. The older two may be eligible for a share of SpaceX stock after SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell announced, on the day the accounts launched, that she would gift two million shares to America’s children between the ages of 11 and 17.
During his speech at the launch in the Oval Office, Texas Senator Ted Cruz hit on one of the most important parts of the program: a new government initiative that doesn’t make Americans dependent upon the government. Comparing the program to the New Deal, Cruz explained, &#8220;Instead of having the government taking care of everyone, Trump Accounts are about making every child and every American a capitalist. Every one of our kids is now going to be an owner of one of the biggest producers in our country.”
As the power of the Democratic Socialists of America rises, parents and children <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-the-president-believes-trump-accounts-will-push-back-on-the-communist-threat">more than ever</a> need to understand the power and opportunity that comes in a capitalist society. President Donald Trump understands that nothing can turn you into a capitalist faster than watching the market make your money grow.
Americans have been ill-served in the school system, most notably in reading and math, for a myriad of reasons. One aspect of that poor education that’s little discussed is in financial literacy. In most schools in the country, public or private, the topic of investments never comes up. Americans don’t know how to save for their future, for college, or for their retirement. Most assume that investing is only for the super rich, that the only way they can grow their net worth is in a low-interest savings account offered at their local bank.
The education component is one of the most powerful assets of the Trump Accounts. Housed within a simple and easy-to-use app, the accounts allow Americans to dive into a crash course on investing. The app offers a dozen four-minute reads on topics such as “The power of compounding,” “What is a stock?” and “What is a fractional share?”
Americans can watch the seed money they’ve received grow in real time in their accounts. For the millions of Americans without financial accounts outside of a basic checking and savings account, this is their first chance to see how compounding works in action, encouraging further research into other kinds of investment accounts. The Trump Accounts can and should serve as a gateway drug into Americans opening a 529 account with their state or their own brokerage accounts with a firm like Schwab or Fidelity.
On the app, they can load projections based on the average growth of the market based on their child’s age and a sample monthly contribution.  I can easily see how a $50 per month contribution would transform my three-year-old’s account into almost $15,000 by the time he’s 18 and over $433,000 by the time he’s 60. For my 12-year-old, that looks like over $4,000 when she’s 18 and over $231,000 when she’s 60.
That sends a powerful message: the greatest gift of compounding is time. The earlier you invest, the better. But also, it’s never too late.
That’s not to say that from a tax perspective, the Trump Accounts are the perfect vehicle for growth and sheltering. Critics have argued that other kinds of accounts, such as 529 savings accounts and Uniform Transfers to Minors Act (UTMA) accounts, may be better options.
But depending on individual circumstances, the benefits for many Americans are clear: Employers (including parents who own their own S-Corp companies) and family members can easily invest in a child’s account. Philanthropists like the Dells and SpaceX can contribute and ensure that their fortunes are helping the next generation of American children instead of sinking into useless nonprofits claiming to fight climate, racism, or poverty. They can make a tangible impact fighting poverty instead of paying for office space and consultants.
Despite growing up poor (single mom on disability in a single-wide trailer park poor), I learned from my mom the basics of financial management. As a bored 22-year-old recent college graduate barely scraping by at my first job, I taught myself the stock market and used extra money I’d have spent on lunches to buy several stocks. Almost 20 years later, those investments have grown over 1,000%, from $3,600 to over $43,000.
I’ve similarly watched my children’s 529 college savings account grow astronomically. After some seed money from family at birth and regular contributions, my four-year-old’s account has already grown from $29,000 to $40,000. The value of my older three kids’ accounts has doubled.
After I got a taste of how I could make investing work for me and my family, I was hooked. Watching a few thousand dollars grow into tens of thousands has a way of doing that.
Millions of Americans are going to get their first taste of the thrill of investing and the power of capitalism thanks to the Trump Accounts. That lesson is priceless, and we’ll watch its impact compound for decades to come.
***
Bethany Mandel (<a href="https://x.com/bethanyshondark" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@bethanyshondark</a>) is a homeschooling mother of six and a writer. She is the bestselling co-author, with Karol Markowicz, of &#8220;Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation.&#8221;
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

Thinking little boy with fake money

The Trump Program That Could Create A Generation Of Capitalists

Children

Money

Personal finances

Trump Accounts

Upstream

There’s a new TikTok trend making headlines, and it’s all about moms smoking weed to survive taking care of their children.
They call themselves “garden moms.” Parents are calling pot a coping mechanism, describing their drug habits with zero shame. As the barriers to accessing marijuana crumble nationwide, with multiple states legalizing the drug both for medical and recreational use, users are bringing their daily use into the mainstream.
The Atlantic’s Sarah Levy recently <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/family/2026/06/gardening-moms-weed-parenting/687518/">reported</a> that she found about 76,000 videos under the #gardenmom hashtag. She interviewed an influencer named Taylor Mitchem, who has 120,000 followers and started smoking pot daily when her son was two and a half. Her reasoning was simple: &#8220;If you can have something that can take the edge off a little bit, why not?&#8221;
There have been enough articles about the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-high-cost-of-getting-high-how-legal-weed-is-destroying-a-generation">pitfalls of legalized marijuana</a>, and it’s not worth rehashing that argument here. But one of the most interesting aspects of the phenomenon isn’t specific to weed. It’s the larger issue of why these moms feel the need to escape their children in the first place.
In this case, the stigma isn&#8217;t just around the substance. It’s more about admitting out loud that you find your own children exhausting enough to need daily relief from them, whether that comes in the form of wine, weed, or whatever the next thing is. A cute hashtag can’t hide that basic truth.
Before the garden moms — also referred to as “cannamoms” — there were the wine moms who bragged that “Mommy’s sippy cup” was a stemless tumbler filled with chardonnay. Decades ago, there was Valium (“mother’s little helper”), and even before that it was the tranquilizer Miltown, which Levy noted was often prescribed to housewives in the 1950s for anxiety.
For years, women have been coming up with ways to manipulate their minds to cope with the stress of motherhood. Weed is the latest vehicle. It’s not likely to be the last.
And the weed mom trend isn’t new, either. Motherly <a href="https://www.mother.ly/health-wellness/self-care/cannabis-use-in-motherhood-rise-of-cannamoms/">ran</a> &#8220;High on Motherhood: The Rise of Cannamoms&#8221; back in 2024, quoting a mom named Susie who said weed gave her &#8220;the sweetest, most engaged moments&#8221; with her daughter while high. Writer Jamilah Lemieux <a href="https://www.romper.com/life/moms-who-smoke-weed">told</a> Romper the same year she thinks cannabis is headed toward the same social status as alcohol: &#8220;widely available, legal, and socially acceptable.&#8221; ABC News was <a href="https://abcnews.com/GMA/Family/weed-moms-wine-moms/story?id=66184880">asking</a> &#8220;Are weed moms the new wine moms?&#8221; back in 2019. Dr. Edith Bracho-Sanchez, a pediatrician at Columbia, told the network she&#8217;s watched it happen in her own practice: more parents turning to cannabis products to &#8220;take the edge off&#8221; of ordinary life.
Advocates often frame smoking weed as an enhancement to parenting rather than an outright escape. &#8220;I got high so I could be more patient&#8221; sounds a lot better than &#8220;I got high because I wanted to feel good,&#8221; even when the outcome is identical. And the outcome matters. Levy cites Kirby Deater-Deckard, a psychology professor at UMass Amherst, on how being chemically mellow slows your reaction time in an actual emergency. A relaxed parent isn&#8217;t necessarily a present one, and one who is overly calm could be dangerous if she needs to act quickly.
I&#8217;ve watched this shift happen in my own circle. Lately, weed is more prevalent, and, what’s worse, it’s a little too convenient. Ten years ago, getting high took effort: find a dealer, roll a joint, smell like a skunk, hide the paraphernalia from a toddler who notices everything. Also, it was mostly illegal back then. That kept a lot of would-be users from even trying. 
Then came the THC gummies. They have no smoke, no smell, no complicated rituals. Because of the convenience, they’re showing up in places where White Claws used to dominate. 
But there are still problems. This form makes it easier to lose track of how much you&#8217;ve had, and edibles are notoriously easy to over-consume. Romper reported that accidental child exposure to THC edibles has spiked over 1,300% in five years, which makes sense considering that they’re packaged like fruit snacks. The format that made cannabis more parent-friendly also made it harder to notice when &#8220;taking the edge off&#8221; has turned into being zoned out for several hours.
What almost none of this pro-weed content mentions is what happens when &#8220;a little bit&#8221; becomes a habit that&#8217;s not easy to quit. Slate writer Sammi LaBue <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2026/06/weed-health-cannabis-disorder-scromiting.html">described</a> developing cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome after prolonged marijuana smoking. This involved a condition of violent vomiting tied to long-term regular use, nicknamed &#8220;scromiting&#8221; for the screaming that often accompanies it. 
Alice Moon, a cannabis industry veteran, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/03/13/alice-moon-chs/">developed CHS</a> herself after years of regular use. It took two years and several doctors before anyone diagnosed her because the condition wasn&#8217;t well understood yet. 
You won&#8217;t find any of that in the #gardenmom clips. What you&#8217;ll find is a promise: a calmer, gentler version of parenting, one that doesn&#8217;t yell over spilled milk. The harder part to justify is feeling the need to check out in the first place. 
Cannamoms did not discover a solution to stress-free parenting. They’re just repackaging the same escape mechanisms that, over time, were exposed for being cop-outs. Wine, weed, Valium: It’s all part of the same playbook that treats children like they need to be endured rather than enjoyed. 
***
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

GettyImages-1457878238

How ‘Mommy Juice’ Got A Whole New Meaning

Drugs

Marijuana

Motherhood

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Just weeks before our nation’s 250th birthday, NBC News released a new <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/poll-america-250-riven-doubt-pessimism-glimmers-hope-rcna348912">poll</a> showing a “record-low number” of Americans are “extremely proud” to be Americans. Two groups, in particular, are driving the decline: liberals and young Americans. Just 29% of Democrats and 36% of 18- to 34-year-olds <a href="https://x.com/SteveKornacki/status/2066173092393533458">say they are “very” or “extremely proud”</a> of being American, compared to 90% of Republicans and 75% of seniors.
Individually, these partisan and generational divides seem like bad news. But taken together, they strike me as a source of optimism and even inspiration for American patriots.
Because there is another crucial difference between older and younger Americans besides their age and their politics: their knowledge of American history and civics. 
For <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/2890/younger-americans-get-much-lower-grades-than-their-elders-history-quiz.aspx?utm_source=chatgpt.com">decades</a>, surveys have found that older Americans know more about our founding, our Constitution, and our history than younger Americans do. A recent <a href="https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/america-at-250-surveying-change-and-continuity-on-civic-values/">study</a> by the American Enterprise Institute asked Americans about key elements of U.S. history such as the Bill of Rights, the Civil War, and the Cold War, and found, “Members of Gen Z were less knowledgeable on each historical landmark than were baby boomers.”
This is consistent with the abysmal data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (“the nation’s report card”). Students’ test scores in U.S. history have been <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ushistory/2022/">falling</a> for over a decade now. Fewer than 15% of U.S. eighth graders are proficient in the subject, and only one-fifth are proficient in <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/civics/2022/">civics</a>.
Nor is this epidemic of historical ignorance limited to middle-schoolers. Studies show similar knowledge gaps among <a href="https://www.goacta.org/2024/07/acta-releases-alarming-new-survey-showing-dangerous-level-of-civic-illiteracy-among-college-students/">college students</a> and <a href="https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/civics/new-study-finds-alarming-lack-of-civic-literacy-among-americans">adults</a>. Only one-third of Americans, for instance, know enough about our country to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/most-us-would-fail-u-s-citizenship-test-survey-finds-n918961">pass</a> the citizenship test we require for new immigrants.
In this context, America’s patriotism gap makes more sense. The people who love our country most tend to be the ones who know her best. American history is the second greatest story ever told. The problem is that we stopped telling that story to our children.
On the contrary, we have twisted the story. The elites who run America’s schools, news media, and the entertainment industry have spent a generation lying to our kids about our country. In classrooms across the country today, American history is treated like a horror story. Students don’t learn about our successes — only our sins.
Of course, kids inundated with anti-American propaganda are going to grow up to be less patriotic. On the other hand, if the root cause of America’s patriotism gap is ignorance about our history, the problem can be easily solved. All we have to do is tell the truth about America. That’s exactly what &#8220;Star Spangled Adventures: The Movie!&#8221; does.
&#8220;Star Spangled Adventures&#8221; is a series of animated shorts that tells the true story of the United States. Each episode introduces children to a hero or moment from America’s history, from Christopher Columbus and the Pilgrims through the Revolution, the Civil War, and all the way to the Wright brothers and Jackie Robinson. Launched three years ago by the American Cornerstone Institute, the series now has over 30 episodes and has reached hundreds of thousands of children and their families.
Through our <a href="https://littlepatriotslearning.com">Little Patriots</a> initiative, we worked with historians and educators to create original classroom resources to go along with each episode. We’re fighting back against historical ignorance one story at a time.
This year, in celebration of America’s 250th, we decided to turn &#8220;Star Spangled Adventures&#8221; into a feature-length film. The movie features the voices of stars such as Kirk Cameron, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/weekend-plans-with-gary-sinise-the-most-patriotic-actor-in-america">Gary Sinise</a>, Kevin Sorbo, and even a cartoon version of me! You will soon be able to stream the movie for yourself and your family <a href="https://starspangledadventures.com/">online</a>.
No nation is perfect, but ours is extraordinary. At no point in the last 250 years was there a country that presented more opportunities than America did. Sure, we had our faults. But every other country’s faults were at least as bad, and usually worse.
Today, Americans of every race, creed, and color are freer, more prosperous, and more secure in their God-given rights than any people in history. &#8220;Star Spangled Adventures&#8221; reminds us all that the best reason Americans should love their country is that their country is so lovable.
And the best way to revive American patriotism is to start telling our children the truth about the land of the free and the home of the brave.
***
Dr. Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., is founder and chairman of the American Cornerstone Institute. He previously served as the 17th secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

USA, Indiana, Lafayette

The Story About America Too Few Kids Hear

America 250

Movies

Patriotism

A notorious California Democrat who is looking to fill Nancy Pelosi&#8217;s congressional seat is again supporting legislation that protects sexual predators who commit crimes against children.
If passed into law, California&#8217;s AB-2691 would prohibit individuals convicted of sexual assault or human trafficking from holding public office in California. But thanks to Sen. Scott Wiener, an amendment was added to carve out an exception for those who committed crimes against children.
The bill unanimously passed through the California Assembly and was referred to the <a href="https://selc.senate.ca.gov/members">Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee</a>, where it was amended to provide protections for convicted pedophiles. The committee, which is chaired by Wiener, <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB2691">amended the bill</a> to clarify that the term &#8220;sexual assault&#8221; does not include several violations of California&#8217;s <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=PEN&amp;division=&amp;title=9.&amp;part=1.&amp;chapter=5.&amp;article=">penal code</a> involving the sexual assault of minors.
At a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAV_owqdREs">June 30</a> hearing on the bill, Greg Burt, vice president of the California Family Council, stated that the amendments were so shocking that he and his colleagues couldn&#8217;t believe they were real.
&#8220;When we read the June 24th amendment to AB 2691, our honest reaction was that it could not be real. We assumed we&#8217;d misread it. We sat in our office and tried to imagine how anyone could stand up and defend it. So I&#8217;m here today, generally hoping someone will tell us why crimes against children are being carved out of this bill,&#8221; Burt stated.
&#8220;Barring people convicted of felony sexual assault and human trafficking from holding public office is good policy. We want to support the bill, but the amendments — we were told this committee chair demanded — exempt convictions for felony sodomy, oral copulation, and sexual penetration against children.&#8221;
Wiener, who is <a href="https://www.scottwiener.com/meet-scott">running</a> for Nancy Pelosi&#8217;s congressional seat, has a history of pushing legislation that protects sex offenders. In 2019, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/newsom-signs-bill-that-could-alter-sex-offender-registration-for-gay-sex-with-minors">Wiener</a> introduced a bill, which is now <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB145">California law</a>, that shields young adults from mandatory registration onto the sex offender registry if the sexually victimized minor is at least 14 and within 10 years of their age. Wiener is known for his LGBTQ+ activism and has spearheaded multiple bills in the California Senate that push <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/meet-scott-wiener-nancy-pelosis-likely-replacement-probably-thinks-youre-a-bigot?author=Susannah+Luthi&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Meet+Scott+Wiener%3A+Nancy+Pelosi%E2%80%99s+Likely+Replacement+Probably+Thinks+You%E2%80%99re+A+Bigot">transgender policies</a> into state law.
<a href="https://senate.ca.gov/sd37">Senator Steven Choi</a>, the Republican Vice Chair of the <a href="https://selc.senate.ca.gov/members">Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee</a>, said at the hearing that he &#8220;could no longer in good conscience support&#8221; AB-2691 because the bill &#8220;excludes heinous crimes like sodomy of a minor or sexual penetration of a minor.&#8221;
&#8220;I supported this bill but I now believe that this bill must be opposed because of the absurd message that it sends — namely that it&#8217;s okay to have pedophiles and the child groomers in elected office. Until the highness of crimes involving minors are restored in the definition of a sexual assault under this bill, I will not be able to in good conscience support this bill,&#8221; stated Choi.
Wiener responded to Choi&#8217;s comments by defending the amended bill, claiming those who opposed the changes were doing so due to &#8220;pure politics and pure political cynicism.&#8221;
&#8220;I&#8217;ve been in politics a long time, and every time I think I&#8217;ve seen the height of cynicism in politics, there are some people who manage to set a new world record in political cynicism,&#8221; Wiener stated.
Wiener voted in support of AB-2691, which <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVotesClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB2691">passed</a> the committee with the pedophile protections in place in a 4-1 vote.
At the same hearing, Wiener openly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dems-kill-bill-to-ban-sex-offenders-from-public-office?author=Jacob+Wheeler&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=Dems+Kill+Bill+To+Ban+Sex+Offenders+From+Public+Office">opposed</a> AB-2753, a bill that would prohibit anyone on the sex offender registry from holding public office.
&#8220;I will be voting no on this bill and recommending that the committee vote no,&#8221; Wiener stated and explained that California&#8217;s sex offender registry was &#8220;extreme and broken&#8221; before he and other legislators started &#8220;fixing it.&#8221;
Wiener recommended changes be made to the bill in alignment with analysis provided by the Senate Committee on Elections and Constitutional Amendments, which states the bill creates concerns for members of the LGBTQ+ community and does not provide flexibility for changes in law over time in determining what constitutes a sexual offense.
&#8220;The bill does not make allowances for changes in law over time, so things that may have been sex offenses in the past, such as consensual sex between two men, would preclude a person from running for office under this bill,&#8221; states the <a href="///Users/meganbrock/Downloads/202520260AB2753_Senate%20Elections%20And%20Constitutional%20Amendments.pdf">analysis</a>.
Wiener did not respond to The Daily Wire&#8217;s request for comment.

San Francisco Pride 2026

Nancy Pelosi’s Would-Be Successor Makes Another Move To Protect Pedophiles

California

Scott Wiener

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&#8220;Toy Story 5&#8221; has struck a nerve. Since its release on June 19, it has become the highest-grossing &#8220;Toy Story&#8221; movie ever and pulled in the second-highest Pixar opening. The film captures something many parents have felt: the age of toys is over. Play-based childhood has ended, and we are now in the age of screens. The movie’s accurate diagnosis of the crisis in modern American childhood captures the frustrations parents feel over kids and screens. If you talk to most parents, they lament the state of childhood today, but they also feel a sense that the screens are inevitable.
The film captures this sentiment well by portraying the collective action problems that screens during childhood present. As Jonathan Haidt explains in his book &#8220;The Anxious Generation,&#8221; screens and their apps create negative network effects, where even kids who aren’t on smartphones or social media can still experience their negative impacts by how it changes the group social dynamics among peers. In the film, Bonnie has no one to play with because all the other kids are sitting inside on screens.
As Jessie, the beloved cowgirl first introduced in &#8220;Toy Story 2,&#8221; says, “No wonder she can’t make a friend; she is the only one out there still playing with toys.” All the other kids are just tap, tap, tapping away inside on screens. This collective action problem pressures parents to give in to the screens, despite their initial reservations. Oftentimes, like Bonnie’s parents in the movie, parents believe that giving the screen will solve the child’s loneliness problems and help them connect more with friends. 
While &#8220;Toy Story 5&#8221; captures how parents feel fed up with the screens, unfortunately, the film misses the mark on solutions and instead <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-lesson-toy-story-5-gets-dangerously-wrong">affirms a sense of helplessness</a> on the part of parents that screens are now just an inevitable part of childhood. As Bonnie’s parents hand her a tablet, they note, &#8220;Now that you are eight, we figured it was time.”
Sadly, the movie is mainly reflecting our cultural reality. The combination of social pressures and the dominant modern parenting strategy of child-led, gentle parenting leads most parents, despite their reservations, to fall into the “screen-time trap.” By age 2, 40% of children have their own tablet; by age 4, over half of children (58%) own a tablet, and about 80% of kids between ages 5 to 11 interact with tablets, according to Common Sense Media’s latest <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/report/2025-common-sense-census-web-2.pdf">survey</a>. Despite initial concerns, parents end up relenting to the screens, and they are told by the tech companies that they can mitigate any dangers by imposing time limits and controls. 
Thus, most parents (86%) have rules around when, where, or how their child can use screens, according to a Pew Research Center <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/10/08/how-parents-approach-their-kids-screen-time/">survey</a>. However, in practice, only one-in-five parents say they are able to stick to their rules around screens all the time. Furthermore, even companies’ own internal research finds that their time limit tools are ineffective. TikTok created the option for parents to limit children’s time on the app, and the company set the default time limit for children to 60 minutes each day. Their internal research showed that this tool didn’t put a dent in the average time children spent on the app. Minors’ usage dropped by less than 1%, from about 108.5 minutes each day to roughly 107 minutes on the app each day.
All of this shouldn’t surprise us if we correctly understand that interactive screens are designed to be addictive to our brains, especially the developing brains of children. Brain studies show that screens activate the same reward pathway in the brain as alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, as they release constant bursts of dopamine. Dopamine is responsible for motivation and incentivizes us to keep going to get a reward. But dopamine doesn’t produce satisfaction or fulfillment; it only creates a constant craving for more. Unlike natural rewards in real life, with screens there is no completion point, no consummation that triggers an opioid satisfaction response in the brain and then naturally winds down our motivation. Instead, a user is permanently trapped in a wanting phase, stuck dopamine chasing. 
A time limit will never be enough. Even 15 minutes of screen time a day creates a biological constant compulsion for more. As one mom said to me about managing screen limits, “It’s me, a drug-dispensing machine, and an underdeveloped child.” No wonder only one in five parents can stick to their screen rules. But what are parents to do instead?
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<div id="attachment_1119343" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1119343" class="size-medium wp-image-1119343" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/g_disneymovies_toystory5_6_b89f2798-300x168.jpeg" alt="" width="300" height="168" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/g_disneymovies_toystory5_6_b89f2798-300x168.jpeg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/g_disneymovies_toystory5_6_b89f2798-1024x576.jpeg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/g_disneymovies_toystory5_6_b89f2798-768x431.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/g_disneymovies_toystory5_6_b89f2798.jpeg 1300w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Photo courtesy of Pixar</div>
Unfortunately, &#8220;Toy Story 5&#8221; doesn’t offer parents a positive path away from the screens. The sad irony in the movie is that even once it becomes evident to her parents that Bonnie is being harmed by her screen, Lilypad, and its group chat, it is not the parents who take decisive action to take the screen away. It is Lilypad, the screen herself, who takes action when she realizes that for all the connection and friendship she promised, she has only ended up hurting Bonnie. (If only real screens were so self-aware; unfortunately, they are run by aggressive algorithms that keep kids addicted at whatever cost.) 
At this cultural moment, when the evidence of the harms of screens has never been clearer, &#8220;Toy Story 5&#8221; missed its opportunity to take a stronger stance and show parents that screens do not need to be an inevitable part of modern childhood and, in fact, a better way is possible: getting rid of the screens entirely. We don’t need better uses for screens, as portrayed at the end of the film when Lilypad connects Bonnie with a new friend in real life. We need loving, yet authoritative, parents who decisively take the screens away and instead guide their children toward a life of independent, imaginary play and in-person friendships. 
In my <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Tech-Exit-Practical-Freeing-Smartphones/dp/059373629X">book</a>, I outline this different path, called “the Tech Exit.” The definition of the Tech Exit is: no smartphones, social media, tablets, or video games during childhood or the teen years. If this sounds impossible, let me offer you a few tips for how to start on this journey to embracing the real-life childhood that you already want for your kids. It can be done, and it’s even possible to reverse course if you’ve already given your child screens.
First, you have to detox from all interactive screens if you have already given them. Start with a 30-day detox if you can. Prepare your family by explaining what you’re doing and why. Pick a day to start, and then do it. Get rid of all the screens from your house. Science shows that detoxes work to reset our brains — for anyone at any age at any time. 
Once you have detoxed, to keep going over the long-term, you will need to find other families. 
No parent can make this exit alone. From tablets in kindergarten classrooms to smartphone apps required of college and even high school students, we are all expected to participate in a society-wide social experiment. To counteract these pressures, parents must join together. By working with other families in your communities and schools, you can create counter pressures to push screens back out of childhood. 
This also means parents need to take a more active role in helping a child build an in-person social life, setting up play dates, helping them set up in-person activities, and helping them find friends who also aren’t on screens. Helping your children find friends and build a healthy social life takes work.
One older mom gave me as a young mom a word of caution: “You’ll have to work at helping children build a social life, especially when they’re tweens and teens. These things used to happen more naturally, but because kids are so plugged in now, you have to be far more intentional about it as a parent.” Parents can help by facilitating social activities in their homes, like having a fire pit in their backyard for teens to hang out around, putting a ping-pong table in the basement, or organizing hikes or service projects for teens to do together. 
Saying no to screens is ultimately about saying “yes” to so much more in real life. As we take screens away, we need to replace them with positive responsibilities and activities in the real world. Give children tools and tasks that foster independence and adult responsibility. For teens, it can be a car or a first job. For tweens and younger children, it can be a bike they are allowed to ride to their friend’s house or the neighborhood pool, a pet that is their responsibility, chores around the home, or even early informal jobs such as raking a neighbor’s yard or babysitting. Real-life responsibilities channel a child’s time and energy toward building productive life skills such as work ethic, care, responsibility, creativity, and problem-solving that will help them flourish both in the present and in the future.
This is the life we all want for our children and the bold solution that &#8220;Toy Story 5&#8221; should have held out to parents: Get rid of the screens entirely, get your kids outside, help them find friends in real life, and give them responsibilities. This is the path to true flourishing. 
***
Clare Morell is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of &#8220;<a title="https://thetechexit.com/" href="https://thetechexit.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://thetechexit.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1782928654208000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0hMMb9Wd14gC_Q6CvYcT5Y">The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones</a><a title="https://thetechexit.com/" href="https://thetechexit.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://thetechexit.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1782928654208000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0hMMb9Wd14gC_Q6CvYcT5Y">.&#8221;</a> She previously worked in the White House Counsel’s Office and the Justice Department during the first Trump administration.

g_movies_toystory5_still_3_52ea0cb0

What ‘Toy Story 5’ Should Have Told Parents About Screens

Pixar

Technology

Toy Story

A major toy manufacturer is under fire after one outraged parent realized an item marketed to children as young as 3 had inappropriate and sexual content printed on it. 
Zuru Mini Brands sells a miniature toy version of the popular Colleen Hoover romance novel “Without Merit,” which apparently includes actual lines of text that can be read by anyone who purchases it, per TikTok user Tam (@ basic_mom_moments). 
Tam said in the viral video, which now has over 5 million views, that some of the books she received were classics like “Moby Dick” and “Sherlock Holmes.” But she said her daughter was reading “Without Merit” and then allegedly told her, “Mommy, I can’t read this book anymore, it’s inappropriate.”
At first, Tam said she thought it was a silly yet harmless word such as “butt” or “dumb.” But when she took out the included miniature magnifying glass to look for herself, the last line of the first page of “Without Merit” said, “I was enjoying his hand on my boob.”
“My daughter is seven,” she said in the video, “and I had to have a kind of weird conversation with her about that, that I wasn’t really ready to have.”
<blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@basic_mom_moments/video/7649183440419523871" data-video-id="7649183440419523871" data-embed-from="oembed" style="max-width:605px; min-width:325px;">
<section> <a target="_blank" title="@basic_mom_moments" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@basic_mom_moments?refer=embed">@basic_mom_moments</a> 
I’m literally speechless. 🚩 Check your kids&#8217; Mini Brands books, parents. I cannot believe what I just read in a toy for my 7-year-old. @ZURU @Target please explain this. <a title="parenting" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/parenting?refer=embed">#Parenting</a> <a title="minibrands" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/minibrands?refer=embed">#MiniBrands</a> <a title="momlife" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/momlife?refer=embed">#momlife</a> <a title="target" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/target?refer=embed">#Target</a> <a title="fyp" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/fyp?refer=embed">#fyp</a>
 <a target="_blank" title="♬ original sound - the_real_tamtam" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-7649183415706733342?refer=embed">♬ original sound &#8211; the_real_tamtam</a> </section>
</blockquote>
 <script async src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js"></script>
The TikTok creator updated her followers with the response from Zuru in the comments, which she called “corporate garbage.”
A rep from the company responded by saying that the “ages three and up” label was for choking hazards, not content. She said the company “did admit” that there was “inappropriate content” that was “not OK for children.” Tam said the rep promised to pass the feedback on to internal team members and offered to send her child a free box of toys. “Not totally happy with this,” Tam <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@basic_mom_moments/video/7651793918429760798">noted</a>, saying she’s happy the company responded but was frustrated it happened at all. 
The brand Zuru is known for its popular Mini Brands collection of everyday household items. Everything from kitchen appliances to food, shoes, toys, and more can be purchased in miniaturized versions from the Mini Brands lineup. These are sold in blind bags and are a limited release to encourage buyers to keep buying and collect them all.
On the distributor’s website, these items are labeled as a “Surprise Toy for Kids, Teens &amp; Adults Ages 3+ by ZURU.”
Most commenters were outraged that Colleen Hoover&#8217;s books were included in the mix. But others noted that adults collected mini items too, and claimed this title was for them. 
“It’s literally a toy for adults which is why it’s in the toy section but it overlaps with kids toys. It’s the parent’s responsibility to check for what they buy their kids. She’s so annoying,” one Redditor <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/MiniBrands/comments/1u7nftd/so_this_is_why_minibrands_books_are_taken_off/?rdt=49002">said</a> of Tam. 
“She&#8217;d rather gripe in an online video than just monitor what her kid gets,” another person agreed. “Miniatures aren&#8217;t just for kids. They are for everyone.”
Editor&#8217;s note: A previous version of the article attributed Mini Brands to MGA Entertainment. The toy is manufactured by ZURU Toys.

Target toys

Adult Content Hidden Inside Popular Toy Goes Viral

Adult Content Hidden Inside Popular Toy Goes Viral On TikTok

Toys

United States

As children raced through the halls of the Trump Kennedy Center waving miniature American flags and wearing Minuteman hats, Dr. Ben Carson stood at the center of what he hopes will become a new movement in children&#8217;s education.
The former Housing and Urban Development secretary, 2016 presidential candidate, and renowned neurosurgeon premiered “Star Spangled Adventures: The Movie” on Sunday as part of the <a href="https://americancornerstone.org/">American Cornerstone Institute&#8217;s</a> Little Patriots initiative, an effort designed to teach American history to children through books, films, and educational resources ahead of the nation&#8217;s 250th anniversary.
For Carson, the animated feature is about far more than entertainment. &#8220;In order for people to really develop patriotism, they need to know their history,&#8221; Carson said in an interview with The Daily Wire before the screening. &#8220;I was noticing that fewer and fewer people seem to know their history.&#8221;
The concern is one that animated nearly every aspect of the event. Throughout the afternoon, families packed the venue for patriotic activities before gathering for a screening of the film, which follows Liberty the Eagle through key moments in American history.
Carson argued that too many young Americans are being taught a distorted understanding of the country&#8217;s past. &#8220;Probably the biggest thing that&#8217;s missing is that we have a country with an honorable history,&#8221; Carson said. &#8220;There are those who have taken some of the bad things that have happened and tried to make that characterizing.&#8221;
While acknowledging that America has experienced failures throughout its history, Carson said modern education often focuses exclusively on those failures while ignoring the nation&#8217;s achievements.
The result, he warned, is a generation increasingly vulnerable to ideological movements hostile to America&#8217;s founding principles. &#8220;We look around and we see socialism and communism becoming acceptable,&#8221; Carson said. &#8220;Those things are not compatible with our Constitution.&#8221;
That concern helps explain why Carson chose animation as the medium for his latest project. The challenge, he said, was finding a way to communicate history to children without sacrificing historical accuracy. &#8220;We throw some humor in there, but it&#8217;s heavily weighted with facts,&#8221; Carson said. &#8220;We did it that way so that not only would the little kids enjoy it, but the parents, the grandparents, the teachers would learn also.&#8221;
The film boasts an unusually star-studded cast for an independent patriotic project. Kevin Sorbo voices George Washington, Gary Sinise portrays Robert E. Lee, Pat Boone appears as Abraham Lincoln, and actor John Schneider lends his voice to Revolutionary War militia commander Captain John Parker.
For Schneider, best known for his role on &#8220;The Dukes of Hazzard,&#8221; joining the project required little persuasion. &#8220;I love this country. I was raised to love this country and honor this country,&#8221; Schneider told The Daily Wire on the red carpet.
What motivated him, he said, was seeing what he described as a growing effort to rewrite American history. &#8220;After I turned 50 or so, I started seeing this revisionist history coming in and saying that our country was bad,&#8221; Schneider said. &#8220;It really aggravated me.&#8221;
Standing just steps away from children wearing colonial-era hats and red, white, and blue outfits, Schneider said the event represented something increasingly rare in modern American culture: an unapologetic celebration of the nation itself. &#8220;It&#8217;s so great to be part of something that is defending our history,&#8221; he said.
Among those attending the premiere was longtime Carson mentee and ally Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner, who described the event as representative of the &#8220;heartbeat of America.&#8221;
&#8220;Patriots — even young patriots, little children — families coming together, celebrating our great country together, celebrating our faith in God together,&#8221; Turner added.
The premiere also served as a launch point for Carson&#8217;s broader educational ambitions. Alongside the film, Carson released a new book, “Built on Faith,” a children’s book discussing America&#8217;s founders and the influence of religious belief in their lives.
According to Carson, “Star Spangled Adventures” is only the beginning. &#8220;There are a lot of creative ventures in the works,&#8221; he said. As America approaches its semiquincentennial celebration in 2026, Carson hopes those projects will help create a generation that understands not only the nation&#8217;s history but its responsibilities.
When asked what he hopes families discuss on the drive home after watching the film, Carson&#8217;s answer was simple. &#8220;How can we see more of this?&#8221; he said. &#8220;How can we get more involved?&#8221;
For Dr. Ben Carson, that conversation may ultimately be the point of all his efforts going forward; the movie itself is only one chapter in a much larger effort to convince America&#8217;s youngest citizens that their country&#8217;s story is worth knowing — and worth defending.

Ben Carson

Ben Carson Wants To Teach America’s Children To Love Their Country Again

America

Education

An 11-year-old girl and her 12-year-old brother operating a lemonade stand in Boston got a <a href="https://whdh.com/news/police-searching-for-suspects-accused-of-robbing-childrens-lemonade-stand-in-south-boston/">brutal lesson</a> in urban lawlessness Wednesday afternoon when a pair of juvenile suspects robbed them at gunpoint.
It was roughly 4:44 p.m. when the suspects first appeared, <a href="https://police.boston.gov/2026/06/11/bpd-seeking-public-assistance-following-armed-robbery-of-childrens-lemonade-stand-in-south-boston/">casing the stand</a> with multiple walk-bys before finally approaching the children and asking whether they accepted Apple Pay. Before the kids could even answer, one suspect snatched the cash box right out from under them. The other made sure there was no resistance — lifting his shirt to flash a black firearm tucked into his waistband. The two then fled on foot. The cash box was later found nearby, empty. The take: approximately $50.
The children&#8217;s father, Dave Byrne, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/south-boston-kids-lemonade-stand-robbed-gunpoint">described</a> what happened: “One of them said, ‘we don’t have any money, but we’re going to see if my mother will Venmo me the money so I can pay for it.’ Next thing you know, they came back and said, ‘we’re just going to take this,’ and they took my son’s and daughter’s – their money, bank that they had all their cash in. And as they did that they flashed a gun that they had in their waistband.”<iframe style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; max-width: 100%; width: 100%; margin: 20px auto 5px; border: 0;" src="https://player.mux.com/6FRQ2nb7GBeXKH4wIW7qO00NmKjhcQxop?metadata-video-content-type=embed_video&amp;metadata-video-id=ab028f5a-6564-4019-bf11-ee034298874c&amp;metadata-video-stream-type=on-demand&amp;metadata-video-title=2026-6-12%20Children%E2%80%99s%20lemonade%20stand%20robbed%20at%20gunpoint&amp;poster=https%3A%2F%2Fdailywireplus-v2.imgix.net%2Fimages%2Fembedded-videos%2F01a00be1-68a7-4500-95f9-8c7e8af799b1.jpg&amp;autoplay=false&amp;accent-color=%23DB3D3B&amp;primary-color=%23ffffff&amp;secondary-color=%23000000" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
“They called me, I&#8217;m at work, they&#8217;re hysterical, saying, ‘someone just came with a gun and took all of our money,’” their mother Jennifer recounted. Byrne added, “My kids immediately just put their hands up and said &#8216;take whatever you want.&#8217; So, I&#8217;m proud of my kids for that and I&#8217;m proud of them for basically protecting each other, but also being smart in that bad situation.”
That pride, however, came wrapped in fury. “This is appalling, this is grotesque. This is something that should not happen to young kids,” Byrne said. “Can&#8217;t have a gun and can&#8217;t be robbing lemonade stands. It&#8217;s as easy as that.”
“The youngest one, my daughter, she was saying she’s scared to walk home from the bus stop, which is only two blocks away,” Jennifer noted.
Boston police released surveillance footage of the two juvenile suspects Thursday, and District C-6 detectives are actively investigating. No arrests have been made.
The story does have one redemptive note: City Councilor Ed Flynn announced that the stand will reopen Friday at 5:30 p.m, adding, “South Boston neighbors are helping these kids reopen their lemonade stand. Let&#8217;s show them how much love and support the Southie community has for them. It is also our understanding that 50% of proceeds will be donated to a local organization working to prevent gun violence.”
Anyone with information is urged to contact detectives at (617) 343-4742.

Kids Can’t Even Run A Lemonade Stand In Dem-Run City

Boston

lemonade

Robbery

Popular kids content creator Ms. Rachel visited an anti-ICE protest this week, where she sang a song with children about bringing &#8220;down the walls everywhere &#8230; until everyone&#8217;s free&#8221; outside of a detention facility that holds illegal immigrants.
In a video posted on social media, Ms. Rachel was seen outside Delaney Hall in New Jersey, where she joined children in the apparent anti-ICE protest.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Ms Rachel is outside Delaney Hall DHS center in NJ singing about knocking down walls and freeing criminal illegal aliens.
Parents, keep your kids away! <a href="https://t.co/MswGteLXM7">pic.twitter.com/MswGteLXM7</a>
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) <a href="https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/2064777964760318172?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 10, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Ms. Rachel&#8217;s anti-ICE protest is one of the furthest steps she has taken in explicitly expressing her political views as the character Ms. Rachel, but it&#8217;s not the first time she has been outspoken about her leftist views. Ms. Rachel has also pushed LGBT talking points and even told trans-identifying man Dylan Mulvaney in 2023 that she would like him to “be on our show, Songs For Littles!&#8221;
She has partnered with people like Jules Hoffman, an androgynous-looking character whose pronouns are “they/them/theirs” on her Instagram profile. Hoffman invited children to an event called “Queer Fam Pride Jam,” where a man dressed in a skin-tight leopard-print outfit danced provocatively in front of the kids as they handed him money. At the beginning of &#8220;Pride Month&#8221; in 2024, Ms. Rachel also released a video celebrating it and expressing her love for the LGBT community.
Ms. Rachel&#8217;s YouTube series &#8220;Songs For Littles&#8221; has grown rapidly in recent years, and her YouTube channel has reached 20.2 million subscribers. She receives over 400 million views each month, with her most popular video receiving over a billion views.
Ms. Rachel has gained massive popularity largely due to her uncanny ability to “entrance” and entertain babies and toddlers. She has even been called the “world’s babysitter.”
Ms. Rachel has also recently partnered with New York City Democratic-Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

TODAY – Season 73

The Political Transformation Of Ms. Rachel Continues

ice protests

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
YouTuber Jesse Ridgeway, who goes by McJuggerNuggets to his over 4 million subscribers, has sparked heated debates over the last week after announcing that he and his wife had chosen to get an abortion. The couple recorded themselves explaining that decision after discovering the unborn child had a high likelihood of being born with Down syndrome.
The pro-life crowd rightfully called out this evil for what it is: eugenics. Even some leftists seemed to grapple with the larger ramifications, with several X commenters expressing their cognitive dissonance that abortion on demand for any reason is good, but also people with disabilities should be protected.
Ridgeway <a href="https://x.com/McJuggerNuggets/status/2062315803177881822">said</a> when he first found out the baby may have Down syndrome, he was &#8220;optimistic&#8221; and would try to &#8220;make it work&#8221; if the child was just &#8220;a little slow intellectually.&#8221; But he decided against it. &#8220;I just didn&#8217;t fully understand what Down syndrome entailed,&#8221; he explained. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t realize just how rough it is for the child, let alone the family … more often than not, they would be fully dependent on others for the rest of their life.&#8221;
The one thing no one seems to be talking about is how Ridgeway opened up a conversation that should be seen as a gift to the pro-life argument. That is, he exposed the reality of why abortions are happening, and it’s not the extreme situations that so often dominate headlines.
Pro-abortion advocates would love for the general public to picture abortions happening only when the baby was going to die anyway, or when the woman was raped, or very, very early in a pregnancy when the fetus was supposedly nothing more than a meaningless clump of cells. For years, pro-lifers have pushed back on that narrative with facts and reason. But it took a random YouTuber to show the reality of who is getting abortions and why.
Per the National Library of Medicine, the most <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3729671/?shem=rimspwouoe,">common reasons</a> women seek abortion include “financial reasons (40%), timing (36%), partner related reasons (31%), and the need to focus on other children (29%). Most women reported multiple reasons for seeking an abortion crossing over several themes (64%).&#8221;
Studies show that at least 67% of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome in the United States are aborted. In Iceland, there are almost no cases of Down syndrome because those who have it are killed before they have the chance to be born.
Between 350,000 and 400,000 Americans have Down syndrome, meaning they were born with an extra chromosome. When polled, these individuals consistently say they are satisfied with their life and were happy they were born, as The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/youtube-star-ends-life-of-unborn-child-after-down-syndrome-diagnosis">reported</a>. 
The Ridgeways going viral for the killing of their unborn child has prompted parents, siblings, and friends of people living with Down syndrome to post stories of why their lives are amazing. They speak of challenges, yes, but also of a surprising joy that can only come from accepting reality. People of faith would call this following God’s plan. However, even non-religious people can understand the futility in trying to control the world and the peace that comes from embracing life as it comes. 
It also points to a larger question: Who is qualified to determine what makes a life worth living? 
Stories such as the Ridgeways&#8217; are gleefully held up by the pro-abortion crowd as proof of why abortion should exist. But this viral Down syndrome story is a bridge too far for many people who recognize that Trisomy 21 isn’t life-limiting enough to warrant a death sentence. They are pointing out how people with Down syndrome are often the happiest individuals they know. Why do they deserve to die for being “differently abled,” as progressives would say?
I used to have a distant acquaintance who was an ob-gyn who performed abortions. We would get into surface-level debates all the time about abortion. I will never forget the one time she conceded to me on one point: sex-selective abortions. She recalled a time her patient, who only wanted two children, came into her office to schedule a second-term abortion after finding out she was pregnant with a second girl. “All I could think about was this woman’s adorable toddler, with blonde curls and big eyes, and think she was making a huge mistake terminating a healthy pregnancy,” she told me.
Even someone participating in such an evil act had a moral standard. Most Americans who believe abortion should be legal also have lines they won&#8217;t cross, which are commonly determined by gestational age. But the thing about lines is that they are incredibly arbitrary. If we tell mothers only to abort for life-limiting medical reasons, then who gets to decide what counts as life-limiting? 
Ridgeway has made it clear that the real justifications people give for abortion — Down syndrome, my boyfriend broke up with me, I wanted a boy instead, I’m just really tired — are flimsy excuses when it comes down to it. Abortion is never the right choice. Now that the reasons it keeps happening are out in the open, we can start having honest conversations about it.

GettyImages-1254817645

He Thought He Was Defending Abortion. Instead, He Exposed It.

Abortion

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Today’s college students probably don’t remember, but when the iPhone first rolled out in 2007, some technology analysts thought it would fail. “There is no likelihood that Apple can be successful in a business this competitive,” wrote a <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-should-pull-the-plug-on-the-iphone">MarketWatch</a> columnist. Microsoft CEO <a href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2007/04/ballmer-says-iphone-has-no-chance-to-gain-significant-market-share/">Steve Ballmer</a> was even more emphatic: “There&#8217;s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.” 
Well, they were wrong, in more ways than one. The iPhone not only became the most popular smartphone in the world, but also helped accelerate the digital transformation of society. The iPhone, and the slew of competitors that followed it, undeniably changed the way we communicate, consume media, and interact with each other. As a new <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w35310">research paper</a> suggests, it also changed the nature and method of how we form relationships and families as well. 
Observers and commentators have been speculating that smartphones have been affecting marriage and fertility decisions for over a decade now. The argument goes something like this: How can the phones not have had an impact? Staying at home to binge-watch a show has <a href="https://ptbwrites.substack.com/p/hello-netflix-my-old-friend">gotten easier</a> and more enjoyable than when the alternative was reading a novel or schlepping down to the bar. Finding an image or video for sexual gratification has gotten easier than when the nearest X-rated movie was kept behind the counter at the video store. Every airport terminal, cocktail reception, or subway ride — places where we used to mix, mingle, and maybe even meet-cute — is relatively more boring compared to the feeds, podcasts, and videos burning a hole in your pocket. 
In other words, it’s less about the devices themselves than the entertainment and communications alternatives they enable. That’s been the supposition, and now those of us who said smartphones and digital media have changed something fundamental about youth and young adulthood in the 21st century have new empirical grounding for this belief. 
The strength of the new working paper comes from another oft-forgotten detail about the iPhone’s rollout: For the first few years after Apple introduced the new device, you could only get it on the AT&amp;T network. By comparing counties that had AT&amp;T mobile broadband access in the time the iPhone was being rolled out to those that didn’t, researchers Caitlin Myers and Ezekiel Hooper of Middlebury College were able to estimate what increasing iPhone access did to birth rates. 
Taken at face value, their results suggest a meaningful, measurable impact of smartphone access on birth rates. In particular, they find particularly large impacts on young women in their teens and early 20s who lived in areas that were early adopters of AT&amp;T broadband coverage (birth rates among older women were more steady.) If their point estimates are correct, this difference could explain as much as one-third of the decline in fertility over the past two decades. As Myers and Hooper sum up, “the iPhone, and the smartphone era it inaugurated, materially accelerated the post-2007 U.S. fertility decline.” 
None of this is to say that this paper can be taken as gospel. The rollout of 3G broadband service, for example, could be correlated in an unseen way with characteristics that were driving down fertility. (Imagine if the urban neighborhoods that were more likely to be selected for 3G access were also more likely to have young women who were disproportionately likely to turn against motherhood after the Great Recession.) The iPhones in 2007 were far less addictive and immersive than the modern-day versions, with users more likely to be checking e-mail and painstakingly logging into MySpace than getting notifications of new likes and comments. The introduction of the iPhone also coincided with a year of tremendous economic tumult and the near-collapse of the global financial system. 
The researchers try to account for these differences as best they can, by re-weighting the data to account for differences in observable characteristics, but differences that can’t be identified by reviewers (such as cultural norms, local attitudes toward marriage, and other intangibles) could still be causing the paper to look stronger than it is.
Then again, no one research paper will ever be the definitive last word. And what this new work does is give us more evidence (as if more was needed) that the digital revolution is upending the way we interact as humans, something Pope Leo XIV’s new <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/an-encyclical-for-the-ages-ai-universities-and-builders-of-humanity">encyclical </a>Magnifica Humanitas explicitly addresses. The specific technology itself is almost immaterial; if Steve Ballmer had been right, and the iPhone had flopped, the introduction of social media, short-form video, and always-on communication, information, pornography, and entertainment on whatever device would have still had an impact on our dating and mating culture. 
At this point, anyone who is arguing that phones didn’t change societal scripts in a meaningful way has the burden of proof. We can feel it in small ways, even if we don’t like it — like Ben Lichtenstein, a 24-year-old interviewed by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/03/31/magazine/quit-smartphone-addiction-social-media.html">New York Times</a> magazine earlier this year. “I’ve noticed that I can’t so much as wait for the elevator without scrolling through TikTok,” he said. “It’s the best distraction. It makes the time pass. But more and more, I’m like: Why do we want the time to pass?” 
We need to try to build tools, habits, and norms that reclaim not just the time in the elevator lobby, but the institutions, rituals, and phone-free meet-ups that used to help couples hit it off. If we don&#8217;t address the impact of digital tech on our family formation decisions, the consequences could be dire.
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Patrick T. Brown (@<a href="http://www.twitter.com/ptbwrites">PTBwrites</a>) is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he writes on pro-family policy and publishes the Substack newsletter <a href="https://ptbwrites.substack.com/">Family Matters</a>.

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The Family Formation Crisis May Have Started With A Trade Most Americans Gladly Accepted

Birth Rates

family

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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Are todays’ kids too badly behaved and poorly parented to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/19/us/kid-free-children-public-places-cec">share adult-oriented spaces</a>, such as restaurants, weddings, and public transportation? Or do the childless adults <a href="https://mamasaywhat.com/no-kids-allowed/">demanding insulation</a> from children’s antics as they sip their lattes, say their vows, or commute to work just need to get a grip and grow up already? 
This is one of those <a href="https://x.com/foxnews/status/2059712468092432581?s=43">Internet Discourses</a> in which people are <a href="https://x.com/daniellebfranz/status/2059808260987801815?s=43">talking endlessly</a> past one another, ignoring that both things are true: Yes, American parents absolutely need to raise kids who behave better, and, yes, childless adults who want to live without interruptions from crying babies or laughing preschoolers need to be ignored like the overgrown toddlers they are.
A couple things are happening at once here, confounding our collective ability to see and act on the nuanced reality.
One, lack of accommodation for <a href="https://eppc.org/publication/what-makes-america-family-unfriendly-a-qa-with-tim-carney/">children and families</a> is real, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as fewer people have children and it becomes less common to see children out and about. It then also becomes less presumptive to take children into true and special consideration when making policy and other decisions.
Two, millennials, in mass thrall to <a href="https://www.collegiatetimes.com/opinion/gentle-parenting-it-s-setting-kids-up-to-fail/article_cc30dc0d-a40d-4d6f-815b-a339ab012085.html">gentle parenting</a> and its lies about <a href="https://unherd.com/2024/12/the-cruelty-of-gentle-parenting/">child development</a>, have produced way too many badly behaved kids and not enough well-behaved ones. As a result, people see so little decent parenting in public that we’ve forgotten how varied even good child-rearing can look in relation to kids of different ages. 
Children should be expected to exist in public
A few weeks ago, I took my four children — ages 11, nine, five, and two — into the kind of Center City Philadelphia coffee shop where one does not typically see children (let alone four of them in one family). No one bothered us, and everyone was kind to us. But we sure got a lot of stares. You know who did not provoke that level of interest? The several dogs on leashes inside this same establishment. Why? Because that eatery, given its clientele, is clearly more commonly frequented by canines than by kids. 
Is this a problem, in and of itself? Of course not. But when children’s presence is alien to large and growing swaths of the population, an unfamiliarity with kids’ norms and needs takes root far beyond a few froufrou coffee shops. 
Take our response to the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/12/12/nx-s1-5638421/new-study-reveals-effects-of-covid-school-closures-on-students-mental-health">coronavirus pandemic</a>. Remember how bars opened ahead of schools in many places? Remember how our inane decision to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/04/school-closures-predictable-disaster/682431/">close schools</a> at all was ultimately a regressive tax on poor and working-class children? Remember how senior citizens and childless adults tended to oppose the reopening of schools more than anyone else? When children are largely hidden from view — when their needs are not apparent to people beyond their parents — the devaluation of their well-being is normalized. 
For example, my sons have provoked their fair share of adult upset over the years for existing in pools. In one memorable incident, an elderly woman came over to yell at my then seven-year-old and five-year-old (and me) because they were jumping repeatedly into the pool, giggling and splashing — and had gotten her wetter than she wished to be. I responded charitably due to her advanced age, but one has to wonder what manner of society produces senior citizens who enter pools of their own free choice during a time designated “family swim” and then publicly react in anger when they encounter, um, water.
Such a curmudgeonly attitude toward children’s noise and play in shared spaces, and our acceptance of it, reflects values that are exactly backwards. Children’s needs should be our top priority; childless adults’ desires should be our last. In a healthy culture, any adult who said or behaved otherwise would thereby forfeit her right to any regard or respect. 
Gentle parents are ruining America — and maybe your dinner
As I <a href="https://lawliberty.org/the-case-against-gentle-parenting/">have written</a> <a href="https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2025/11/99390/">many times</a>, <a href="https://www.deseret.com/opinion/2025/01/01/gentle-parenting-mufasa-lion-king/">gentle parenting</a> — defined as prioritizing young children’s feelings over their behavior — has many unintended, negative consequences for kids and parents alike. A baseline of decreased tolerance for children in public spaces is one of them. 
There are two things at play here. One is that too many of today’s kids really are abominably behaved. A few months ago, I took my five-year-old in for a sleep study. The veteran nurse who cared for him shared with me that she could no longer count on children his age to sit still while she prepared them for evaluation. Many won’t listen when their parents instruct them to sit still. Some kick, scream, or hit. A substantial percentage need to be pacified with screens in order to complete their appointments. 
If you ever frequent restaurants, churches, or other public spaces where children are present, none of this will surprise you. Beleaguered parents weakly pleading with five-year-olds who don’t sit still to “make a better choice” over a plate of French fries at the local diner is common. Indeed, this kind of permissiveness and abdication cuts across enough demographic divides of class and political ideology that it’s no longer accurate to associate it only with those who profess “gentle parenting.” It is, per Hannah Spier, normative “<a href="https://hannahspier.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-the-pathological-mother">millennial parenting</a>.” This is a colossal and multifaceted problem that requires swift and thorough remediation.  
That said, the other aspect of decreasing tolerance for children in public spaces is childless adults’ determination to denigrate whatever inconveniences them without regard to the context — in other words, to be gentle parented by society, including by children, themselves. 
As <a href="https://x.com/stephmurrayyyy/status/2060369884786180504">Stephanie Murray</a> has pointed out, the child throwing a tantrum at Target may actually have great parents. After all, he’s screaming because he isn’t getting what he wants, and that’s likely because the adult in charge isn’t giving in. Sure, the five or six-year-old screaming wildly outside the grocery store while his mom attempts to comfort him is almost certainly a gentle-parented disaster with overindulgent parents. But the two- or three-year-old screaming just as wildly? She usually isn’t!
Indeed, it’s the very parents who are willing to let their toddlers throw tantrums — in public and in private — who produce preschoolers who have long since stopped doing so. Children of such parents were told “no” constantly and consistently in toddlerhood, and they learned that tantrums neither changed “no” to “yes” nor garnered them any attention. 
So, yes, it’s on parents to ensure that preschoolers are civilized into the ability to behave appropriately enough in adult-oriented spaces. But it’s also on the rest of society to have the maturity, decency, and grace to remember that the well-named “terrible twos” should not involve house arrest for young families. Moreover, to any right-thinking person, running and laughing kids are not an affront to public peace but the primary reason to preserve it. The dad of a crying toddler on an airplane or the mom of a grade schooler who accidentally drops some books with a thud at the library, for example, should garner genuine smiles and sincere sympathy from other adults, not scowls and eye rolls. 
Frankly, we should all begin from a premise of gratitude to today’s parents for raising the next generation. After all, in this anti-child, anti-family ecology, that’s no longer a given. 
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Elizabeth Grace Matthew writes about books, education, and culture, including <a href="https://elizabethgracematthew.substack.com/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener">on Substack</a>.

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How Gentle Parenting Helped Turn America Against Children

Parenting

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