"I own my child."

Conservative parenting doctrine part 1. Some parents see children's right to privacy as a threat to them, somehow. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome back to Death by Doctrine. I'm MJ.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

I'm Holly.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

I'm very excited to talk about today's doctrine because, like the Protestant work ethic, this one is another one of those fundamental pillars of conservative ideology that permeates like the entire fabric for society.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Yeah, you can connect this to almost anything in conservative thought right now. Like you can do the Charlie Day corkboard meme with this topic as I was doing while researching it. So excited to get into it.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

To start, let's look at all the different forms this doctrine can inhabit.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

All right. So we're talking about I own my child. I came up with just a lot of ways you see this manifest. This could also be my child as an extension of myself.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

I'm already having PTSD flashbacks.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

I am invested in my child, achieving my goals for them.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Yeah, very familiar with that.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Children have no right to privacy or medical consideration, even if I'm the one they want to hide it from.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Less personal experience with this, which I think is a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

There's a lot of iterations, you know? There's a lot of faulty ways to be a parent. It doesn't necessarily mean you're following this overarching issue of a doctrine. How about my child needs to be protected from ideas I disagree with? I have an unalienable right to make decisions for my child, even in cases where that would erode children's safety.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Boy, do we see this in the news all the time now.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Yeah. This is so interesting to me because for my childhood, I have parents who have different political leanings. Like my father is a very classic conservative, doesn't like Trump, but we do not see eye to eye on politics. My mom calls herself an independent, but functionally, for at least the past 15 years, that means she's voted straight Democrat. And she's not very political, but you know, she cares about human rights and things. So, but even with my parents having very different ideas of the world, they completely let me and my siblings make our own ideas about the world, like read whatever we wanted, consume different types of, you know, news and media. I remember watching like the Colbert report as a teenager at my dad's house and he didn't care. So I was really lucky, I think, to grow up in an environment where no one was trying to dictate my thoughts or protect me from ideas, and probably not unconsequentially, all of my siblings are left leaning, but we arrived at that independently.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

The bar for parenting is in hell. So even that, I would say two thumbs up. Yeah. Because the bar is that low. As an Asian American, I think the thing that gets me about this doctrine is the first two-point that you said. I mean, you see this in a lot of cultures, but especially in Asian cultures, there's this idea that the child is a representation of the family, like a pride sort of deal. So the stereotype, unfortunately, is true. They do push their children to be either doctors, lawyers, or engineers. The idea that if your child doesn't succeed in a conventional sense, it's like shame on the family. So I relate to more to the first two bullet points of like, I need to achieve more than my parents. Otherwise, like it's bad. So it's a different manifestation because different cultures have different flavors of this. We'll focus on the American flavor of this for today because there's already so much to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Yeah. I think what really makes that distinction for me from when I've prepared for this is like to what role the specific parents' ego is involved.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Of course, like parents' ego is involved in kind of like a more community-oriented society where family reputation and pride is more important. But I think for a lot of what we'll see here and what we'll get into, it's like specifically the parents' ego, not even how other families see this parent, but like it's all about them. So we'll get into that.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Okay, so let's just jump right in. So, what is this I owe my child as it manifests in today's society?

SPEAKER_01 4:01

I was thinking about this. I mean, unfortunately, when we're recording this, and undoubtedly for months to come after, so this will stay evergreen. Oh god. Yeah. I was thinking about this while thinking about all the ways that children are being held as uniquely vulnerable with so many of our political and cultural crises right now. And coming from a more left-leaning perspective, I think fairly children are often viewed as the linchpin of social movements. They're uniquely vulnerable. They're innocent by their nature, and they can suffer long-term consequences from political and social turmoil that they themselves have no means to prevent. Like there is no, they could have voted differently. There is no this child should be out protesting. Children cannot control the circumstances around them, and yet they can be affected by them so deeply. You see this in everything that we're dealing with. Children suffering around the world, being murdered by genocidal regimes, being detained by ICE in the United States, suffering from preventable diseases in the United States and elsewhere due to the negligence and ignorance or even helplessness of adults. And the reason that we evoke children like this isn't to be a gotcha. I think sometimes people can cynically view it that way. It's not because any one human life is inherently more valuable than another, but it's because seeing children suffer these consequences illuminates the very injustice behind all of this. Like it's not possible for a child to deserve any of this because they cannot control it. They cannot ask for it, they just can't deserve it. So it kind of like shows how any theory for why violence or negligence must happen is just wrong. Because of course, children are the easiest way to show how much it's affecting people who cannot possibly be asked to endure it. So, with all that being said, that was what I was carrying into this conversation. I know earlier you told me you did not want this to be a complete downer. My apologies.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

I don't think it's possible that this is not a downer. The topic is heavy and it's gonna be heavy, and we'll try our best to not be absolutely depressing. But yeah, I could see kind of where you're going with this because, on one hand, children are exactly as you described, they are innocent by by definition, and therefore whatever is happening to them is sort of inherently unjust. And it's not a gotcha, but some people can turn it into a gotcha, and even some people may use that as an excuse to justify other things, as we're about to see.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Yes. Oh, that is such a good point. I said it's not a gotcha, but I was talking really specifically about people with common sense and goodwill.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Which we lack a lot of today.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Because at the same time, as all of these discussions are happening, there's a mere doctrine happening in our society. And they also evoke children all the time. And it's twisted in a way that's really been nagging me. So this episode is my attempt to like get to the bottom of that. I'll just start by going through all the ways we're seeing it show up in society right now in conservative movements, but they love to talk about children. And my thesis is that they love to talk about children, but not really ever make it about children.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

You know, it's serious when Holly uses the word thesis. I know where you're going with this, but yeah, take me through all the manifestation of the conservative use of children in their political talking points.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Yeah. So here's a few things going on here. In the conservative mindset, talking about gay people or being gay in the world is akin to grooming children, but it's not disqualifying for a politician to be investigated for pedophilia.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

To the point where the pedophilia is not even just a one-off case. It's like a system of pedophiles working together, and that is not disqualifying for some reason.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Yes. Like there was the whole former QAnon conspiracy built around the fear of a bunch of pedophiles running our government. And it turns out that for conservatives, that's kind of true. And yet here we are. Absolutely excuses being made everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Absolutely no pushback.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Related. Here's another contradiction. The possibility of a trans child playing sports is a threat to women's sports, but it is okay to repeal Title IX regulations that protect girls and young women from sexual harassment and discrimination.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

One of my favorite things to do when people are being transphobic in the context of sports is okay, let's play a game. Let's take turns naming currently active women athletes. I'll start. Neve Charles, who plays on the Chelsea women's team. Go ahead, your turn. I bet you I can win because I watch women's football. I'm not even that into women's sport. They don't care about women's sports. Like it's so obvious that they give zero shit about what's happening to women's sports.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Right. My youngest sister, she did sports all through college. And this drives me the craziest because I can name like five specific issues for women's sports that no one wants to do anything about coaches abusing their athletes, the rise of eating disorders being pushed on female athletes, um, funding differentials between women's and men's sports at every level. But yep, this is apparently what children really need is discrimination. All right. And then um, here's my last one. Obviously, there's probably 15 more, but child abuse is a pervasive issue in society. But medical efforts to identify and prevent child abuse are a violation against me, the parent.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

I imagine this is about they would probably frame it as like an invasion of their privacy. And then when they say their privacy, it's the parent's privacy and not actually the child's privacy.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Child abuse is their child learning things in school that parents don't approve of and not, you know, actual child abuse.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Not what happens at home.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

So there's a lot going on here.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

And there's a nugget behind all of it, I think. Protecting children isn't about each child's right to thrive, at least in the current political landscape for American conservatives. It's about protecting parents from the things that make them uncomfortable. This is a doctrine held by people who do not see children as separate human beings that at age-appropriate times need the independence and autonomy to develop into adults. But rather, these parents see children as their property. I own my child, my child is an extension of me, I should dictate my child's entire experience through the world.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

And you see this from a historical perspective as well. Like from a legal standpoint, children were literally the parents' property in many Western cultures, written into the laws for quite a long time. And it wasn't until the Industrial Revolution, when child labor was like really messing kids up, that there started to be this legal distinction between child as property and child as a person. There's a long history of this. Unfortunately, this is not new. It's making a resurgence, which is why it's problematic.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

And I don't think this concept in its most mild form needs to be completely removed, right? In a lot of circumstances, it makes sense that we can't have children necessarily making their own doctor's appointments for a long time or navigating everything alone. And ideally, children would have, you know, supportive parents willing to communicate with them about these things and learning to navigate them.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Children are to some degree helpless and they do need some guidance from their parents, which is their duty to take care of their child. It's not like a privilege to keep your child alive. It's your duty as a parent. You brought the child into this world. It is your job, your moral and ethical job to make sure that child is healthy and thriving. There's this idea of like entitlement of like, oh, because I did this for you, like you, therefore, X, Y, and Z. And I think that's part of the philosophy that they're holding on to.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Yeah. Their children owe them something for how well they're being raised, whether or not they agree with that back in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Okay, so let's get into it. Let's start with the most serious stuff, shall we? Why not?

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Yes. We're gonna talk about medical privacy today, specifically a child's right to medical privacy. And I chose this. There's so many things we already mentioned, like, but we've discussed some of them in different topics before, and they're very important, but they kind of intersect here in my eyes. Like we've discussed sex ed and curriculum controversies for parents, we've discussed quote unquote medical freedom and the anti-vax movement that will pop back up in here.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

And we've discussed homophobia and transphobia. That I think is so prevalent in the conversation right now, but it's part of this medical privacy concern as well, because obviously I think a lot of what is driving the new controversy around child's privacy rights is fear about children having a place to discuss identities and sexuality without parents knowing about it.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Because the conservative movement is sort of starting to lose grip on the culture war, they're really like returning to this homophobia and transphobia as their main talking point to try to really hang on to the base that is slipping away from them rapidly. It's been in the news many times, particularly the Super Bowl halftime show. Did you watch the turning point USA version?

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Yeah, MJ. We tuned into it right away. No, of course I didn't watch it.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

I also didn't watch it. This is one of my favorite things. Like you can find commentary videos on things that you don't want to support. So they already watched it for you.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

So you don't have to give it any views.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Yeah, you don't have to give it any views, but I've watched a commentary breakdown of the Turning Point USA halftime show, and it is as bad as you think it was. And there was a lot of explicit transphobia in the actual songs. Oh. And you know what really gets people going is really explicitly political songs. Bad Bunny's performance was also political, but it was artistic in a sense that there's metaphors, you know?

SPEAKER_01 13:46

And it was political in the sense that, like, now talking about different cultures existing and I guess just having a joyful wedding and having a good time is political.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

The whole point of art is that you need to be one layer removed. Because if you're not one layer removed, it's just propaganda. It's not art. There was a lyric that got memeed to hell. I tell my daughter that little girls are not little boys or something. It's so cringe.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

That's the thing. It's like I can't even get mad about this because it's so sad.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Their lives suck.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Everyone else just had a great time watching a good halftime show performance, and they sought out worse art to make themselves unhappy. Like, have fun with that.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

It's so bad. So, yeah, this has been their talking point. So let's explore this. How does this have to do with privacy?

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yes. Oh man, okay, I gotta get back out of the my mind just went elsewhere. So medical privacy is all about a couple of specific things. There's a lot going on here, obviously. But when anti-vax and anti-LGBTQ tenants of the parents' rights movement, which we've referenced before, are the most visible and they're often the most pressing around the extent to which children should be able to speak with doctors without their parents being present or seek out important medical care, particularly surrounding things like STD testing or birth control methods without needing to tell their parents. So those are things that in recent decades, things like HIPAA, and then specifically a lot of states have really strengthened to try to address some really critical public health initiatives. And probably always, but especially recently, some parents have really started to rally against the idea that their child can discuss or seek health care without their knowledge.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

This is not new. I remember them freaking out that they were handing out condoms in health class about like, oh my God, this is encouraging them to have sex. And as someone who didn't have sex in high school, let me tell you, that did not change that trajectory.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Having one condom didn't enable you.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

That did not change my trajectory at all. Whether I got that condom, I didn't even take it because I knew it wasn't happening. But this is the more extreme version. It's not just about condoms in health class. They don't even want their child to be even outside of their leash, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Yeah, they're earshot even. So I was drawn into this idea from one of my favorite places on earth, the anti-vax mom's social media space.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Endless content.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Yes, which I, you know, have been deep diving a lot over the past year or so for various death by doctrine and associated everything as public health episodes. So I've been there for other purposes, and you kind of tend to find a lot of these other threads being picked up. And I first ran into parental rights around like medical privacy while looking up stuff about mRNA vaccines and parents looking for like doctors who will go outside of vaccine schedules. So, like that's pretty common on Instagram, is parents will like give each other tips on how to find a doctor who won't force a vaccine that they don't want. So, you know, find the worst pediatricians in your area.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Also, it's a vaccine recommendation schedule. They cannot force it on you by law. So I don't know what they're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

This is a real thing and it is valid. I stand by these doctors. Some doctors' offices will refuse to continue care for children who do not receive essential vaccines, which is what these parents don't like.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

They can refuse service, but they can't force it on you.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Yeah. They're like, How dare my doctor refuse service? And it's like, you are an endangerment to every other child in this room. So yes. But yes, that's what they're stressed about. And going even further than anti-vaxx, I also saw parents asking about doctors who won't ask them, the parents, to step out during a medical appointment.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Now that is the most self-own, self-telling, what's the word? Self-revealing.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Yes, revealing.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Like why?

SPEAKER_01 17:52

It shocked me because I remember my mom, you know, when I was young enough to need my mom in the room with me, or I even wanted her in the room with me. I remember her leaving for things like them talking about my period or, you know, just basic stuff. And it was never a stressful time. But these parents are acting like this is, you know, a five minutes where the doctor is gonna indoctrinate you and make you trans, I guess. I don't know specifically what their fears are. So there's absolutely no time where they think it's appropriate to be out of the room. So at their most basic level, these parents are upset that there might be a medical discussion that's not under their purview. And that is really unhinged.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Both of us are married to doctors, and I just want to say they are so busy. They do not give a shit. And that makes me sound kind of bad, but they're so busy, they're not interested.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

They don't have an agenda outside of doing the best they can. I always think about this when I read about like people fearmongering about epidurals or whatever for childbirth.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

And like, if my husband doesn't have to do an epidural, that's just a break time for him. Like, yeah, he's not trying to make you do anything. He's happy to do it if you want it.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

This is especially true for attendings. Like, as a resident, maybe you want to be like, oh, I want practice, so maybe I do want to do them. But once you're an attending, if someone says, I don't want something, they're actually celebrating behind the scenes. They're like, yes, I don't have to do it. Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

It's this conspiracy brain. It's this idea that a pediatrician, for whatever reason, is going into this job, I don't know, wanting to make your child have sex behind your back, couldn't be further from the truth.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

In five minutes.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Yes. So more animated moms in the social media space were seeing this as part of an agenda. An attempt to coerce their children into talking about gender identity or introduce inappropriate concepts that a preteen couldn't possibly have any exposure to, like, what is sex or what is the name of my sexual organs? So it's overprotectionism to really an intense degree. Like the idea that there's no place to talk about sexual health at an age-appropriate level at your doctor's office is alarming to me.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Incredibly so, and revealing. What are you doing to your child that you can't let them be alone with a healthcare provider, you know?

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Yeah. Well, they kind of twist that one because this isn't everybody. I think most people, even in these unhinged spaces, had a more low-level, like, what could they need to talk about that I couldn't be there for? Like just a very egotistical view.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Less malicious, but still equally problematic.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

But the most conspiracy-minded participants who suggested this for doctors were suggesting that it was like suspicious for doctors to want to be alone with kids, which is just an idea that makes me ill. It's the same like fear-mongering about child abuse without understanding or purposely not understanding the very reason we implement policies like this, it is to prevent child abuse.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Let's get into that. Like, why would they want alone time to speak with your uh child for five minutes?

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Yeah. MJ, do you have any insight into that?

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Well, there are certain topics where if the parents were present in the room with sort of compromise the honesty of the child for various social reasons, social pressures. I'll start with the more innocent side and then sort of move up the seriousness scale. The most innocent thing is like maybe they have something weird happening during puberty and they're a little bit embarrassed because it's their breast or their genitals are experiencing something. You know, normal parts of puberty happen, and they're embarrassed to talk about it in front of their parents. And if their parents don't leave the room, maybe they just never bring it up. That's like the most innocent version of that. The less innocent version of that is maybe there's a bruise on the child's forearm that's indicative of a very common abuse thing, which is twisting of the arm. So like a twisting bruise, and the doctors clocked it. And obviously, you're not gonna have the potential abuser in the room when you ask the child how they got this bruise, right? And that's like a more serious side of this, but it's a whole range of things, a whole range of reason why a doctor may want to speak with the child alone.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Yeah. Your point about abuse is obviously the more extreme and ideally the most rare need for this. For most people, it's gonna be, you know, kids don't want to talk about certain things in front of their parents, but we do want to make sure they're getting the right medical care. But in terms of abuse, according to Brain, the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, 34% of child sexual abuse cases reported to law enforcement. So those are just the ones that we know about. They are perpetrated by family members. And only 7% of these cases at all involve perpetrators who the child did not personally know. So even if it's not the parent in question who's attending the appointment, which would obviously be horrifying, it could be like an aunt or an uncle or a family friend. And that would still maybe be enough where the child wouldn't feel comfortable bringing that up in front of their parent. Like these can all be reasons why things don't get uncovered in time to protect a child.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

34%, depending on what source you go to and what sort of definition of methodology that you use, some estimate says it's as high as three-quarters that's a perpetrated by a family member. Regardless of the actual numbers, because these numbers are always impossible to fully determine because a lot of these go unreported and some of these require estimates that takes assumptions. But the point of this is it is very likely, in fact, more probable than not, that the child who is being abused is being abused by someone that the child knows, possibly their parent or legal guardian. And that's why this protocol is so important to have that space to make sure that the child's responses aren't being compromised.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

And this, really importantly, is not a personal attack on patients' families. It's a built-in check to the system to create opportunities, to share information, hopefully, with a safe adult. A reasonable person, even if they have a little anxiety about stepping out of an exam room, and I could totally see that happening like the first time you leave your child alone in a medical office, a lot of anxieties can pop up. But a reasonable person can see that the society-wide benefit of saving a child from an abusive situation or making sure a child asks an important question about something that's been on their mind is worth a few minutes of their time. In this case, a few minutes of your time being spent just chilling in a hallway for a second. And a lot of parents even welcome that. It's obviously the worst-case scenario that your child is experiencing something you don't know about. And any chance to uncover that to save your child from more uncertainty or anxiety or pain is welcome in a lot of parent size. Like this is an important safeguard.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

So when we're looking in the social media space, we're seeing parents like have these reactions. What I see in the these comments on Instagram reels about doctors and how evil they are is parents who cannot separate their children from their own ego refuse to see the world this way. Like they cannot step outside of their own perspective. Because like the common reaction they'll have to people who actually point this out, because it's not a super popular take, right? A lot of people will say, like, what's wrong with you? Hey, I think it's probably for the best that we do this. Um they'll be like, hey, but my child is not abused. I obviously do not abuse my child. How dare you suggest that I should be the exception? And it's like you're insisting that medical professionals make snap judgments about how safe you are in the spot. And like the only data they have in this scenario is that you do not want them to speak to your child alone. So, like, what kind of judgment do you think they're gonna be able to make?

SPEAKER_00 25:23

This line of logic never makes sense. It's like, I shouldn't wear seatbelts. I'm a very safe driver. You can apply this to almost everything. You sound silly when you say it.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

Right. It's like we cannot make guidelines or laws or policies assuming that everyone is perfect all of the time, and we all grow up in perfect families, and nothing bad ever happens to us. Like, people will fall through the cracks in insane ways. We have to put in safeguards the reason that these laws were invented were usually because enough instances happened where it kind of justified their creation. Like they're not being created without a reason. Just because your child is hopefully safe does not mean that this doesn't help other children. So, like this egotism is so frustrating because it's silly on its face that they're taking it so personally, but it's also just so uh, I don't know, like they have their blinders on, right? Like they're refusing to see the world as it is.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

And that's a gentle way of putting it. My interpretation would be they are incapable of viewing their child as an independent person, which is the whole premise of this episode. And I'll just add this before we go on. A lot of abusers don't think they're abusing their child. So they don't think they're abusing their child, but maybe they are, and they just don't think that whatever thing that they're doing is a problem.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Yeah. And abuse can take so many forms. Like when we're talking about how prominent homophobia and transphobia are in these discussions, you can see the need for this, right? Like parents are denying their children opportunities to have anyone to talk about things like their gender identity or their sexuality. That could get into a very bad situation if their parents insist on controlling all of their medical conversations and don't approve of LGBTQ individuals. It's pretty scary. So we talked a bit about abuse. Uh, I mentioned homophobia, but advocates for adolescent autonomy, so like children's right to have some reasonable safeguards to have access to their own healthcare decisions. These advocates are concerned that not offering lanes for especially teens to seek healthcare without their parents could lead to more spiraling issues, like teens being at risk of contracting STDs or getting pregnant because they cannot get screenings or contraception. Maybe they're just uncomfortable talking to their parents about these things, so they make a bad choice. Or maybe they're afraid to talk to their parents about sex due to their parents' socially regressive overcontrolling attitudes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

I mean, I don't know. Why do you want to know if your child is having sex? That's also wild to me that you're so concerned about this. Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

Or the idea that if you don't talk about it, it's never going to happen. Just bury your head in the sand some more, but you could end up in a pretty bad situation. If you don't want to talk to your child about these things, that's fine actually, but just make sure they're having a space where they can go to.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

Yeah, like you don't have to do it.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

And that will take care of a lot of it for you.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Support sex ed so that you don't have to do it. That's the whole premise of sex ed.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Yeah. Another concern, teens who live in, you know, oppressive homes are at a higher risk of depression in isolation because they have no safe place to discuss, as we said, gender identity, sexual orientation, or separately, they might have, you know, mental health concerns that aren't getting addressed, or maybe they've gotten too far into substance abuse issues. Like these are all just realities of some teens' lives that could be addressed by a responsible professional earlier and maybe aren't going to be talked about with parents.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

As an Asian American, especially this piece about mental health, it's very stigmatized, probably more so in the Asian community. And there are parents who straight up don't believe in therapy and think any sort of mental health issue means that you are quote unquote crazy and bringing shame to the family. That's very stigmatized. And if you don't have this privacy or this space where teens could seek help, they're just gonna get stuck in that and possibly spiral in a negative direction and potentially have some other health issues down the line.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

So for parents who don't believe in any medical privacy, for even their like late teen children, either they don't know or they don't care about this, right? It's leading to a world that will have more teen depression, more uncontrolled STDs, likely more alcohol and drug abuse, and unsafe sexual situations for teens. They think that they can protect their child from these consequences by extending their control and their influence. And they also think that the suggestion that their child could be affected by these problems is the greatest possible offense. That that would make them look bad, and that is the problem. And like, yikes. That's all I have to say about it.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Uh well, actually, I have way more to say, but sometimes you hear this, they will have a very common counter-argument of like, well, I'm just protecting my child. What's wrong with protecting my child? And they would point to the other side of the political spectrum and say, Hey, you do the similar thing too. Like you also restrict your child's access or whatever. I just want to address this very common counterargument that they have, kind of how silly it is. So the notion that parents are responsible for the well-being of their children is very natural. Children are relatively helpless, and it's unlikely for a child to say, brush their teeth regularly without prompting them to do so. So there is some spaces where parents do need to step in and be like, no, you have to brush your teeth. The problem isn't so much that parents sometimes make their child do something that the child doesn't want to do, the problem is the content. What are the parents trying to make the child do or not do? That's sort of the more important question, not the they are restricting their child. And I think the current context provides a very good opportunity to examine this idea. Right now, the current federal government and its public health agencies are fully compromised, as we have discussed in many of the previous episodes and other public health is for everyone episodes. RFK Jr. and his goons have completely dismantled the childhood recommendation schedule, for example. There's other things that they did, but fully tore up public health institutions. In this case, I would say a parent would be correct to say I'm gonna vaccinate my child against the RFK CDC's recommendations. Why is that okay? And you not wanting to leave your child alone with the doctors for five minutes not okay. And it comes down to content because at the end of the day, vaccines are good, you know?

SPEAKER_01 31:42

It's really just like I don't know how to put it better than there's a difference between good things and bad things. And sorry, like if you, you know, are doing your best to go by actual research, not Instagram research, then you can differentiate those with a high degree of accuracy.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

For example, I know a parent, they're concerned about how addictive mobile games are and how addictive like YouTube algorithm is. So they have a no-screen policy for their toddler up until like six, I think. The toddler didn't have like a screen device. And that is just not the same as a parent saying, I don't want there to be any mention of homosexuality in school libraries. They're just not the same thing. It's a false equivalence because one is shielding the child from legitimate concerns, addictive mobile gaming app. The other is you're trying to essentially indoctrinate bigotry.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Right. It's the difference between like actual, you know, physical and brain-oriented behavior and like ideas. I think that is a huge thing.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

It's not good parenting to try to control your child's ideas or exposure, which I think is what a lot of this comes down to. The idea that your child will discuss things that you're not comfortable with, just ideas that exist in the world, whether that's the possibility of using a condom or having an SD test that makes you uncomfortable, or whether it's the idea of your child having questions about their sexuality that you're not comfortable with, like that's a huge distinction.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

At the end of the day, the problem is their views. They love to use this like, what's wrong with protecting my kids against porn? Well, the problem is you're defining any gay stuff as porn, even like holding hands.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

Right. Like put up a web block against porn if you want. That makes a lot of sense to me. But your child reading a book that has a gay person in it is not the same. And that is where we fundamentally disagree.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

The problem is the content. Protecting their child is fine. It's your belief that we have issues with.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

Right. We are not family abolitionists on this podcast. And that is, you know, an important distinction to make for anyone trying to strongman the opposition.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Anyway, just thought I'd bring that up because I feel like that's a very common counter-argument that they throw when they're oppressed.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

That is a great point. And I'm sure we just stuck it to them. We've changed our minds, changed their hearts. Yeah, that definitely did it. Uh, I have bad news, MJ.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

So actually, I was looking into this and I thought it would be mostly like social driven. There are political advocacy groups around this, of course. Like it's all part of the umbrella parents' rights movement that you can also see when we're looking at school education and sex ed and vaccines. But actually, this has been a little bit of a current event.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

Why does that not surprise me?

SPEAKER_01 34:22

No, and you won't believe who I'm going to introduce as part of my current event.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Okay, tell me. I'm ready.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

You will believe it. It's RFK Jr. Oh no. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

Him again.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

Actually, you shouldn't have set it up like it was gonna be a surprise. It's always him. It's always been him. It's always been him. So in December 2025, the HHS's Office of Civil Rights released guidance about parents' rights to their child's medical records under HIPAA.

SPEAKER_00 34:47

Oh no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

Now the letter is not like inaccurate. Like the letter itself is the context with which it's being sent is annoying, but the letter itself is like accurately describing HIPAA. Like for the most part, parents do have access to their minor children's medical records, except in specific cases. Like doctors do not want to cut parents out of a child's medical care and medical records unless there's a specific reason. That reason being that the child and parent have agreed to this, or there is reason to like cut the parent out of that conversation, aka like abuse or protecting the child's rights. Or in many states, they have even stronger laws than HIPAA that are in place. So like children have more rights to pursue things like getting STD testing without their parents' consent. So that is put in place obviously to help us reduce a lot of preventable disease in our teen population. So the letter is not inaccurate. However, at the end of the letter, the director of the Office of Civil Rights, or OCR, writes OCR is making parental access to children's medical records an enforcement priority and will use all civil remedies available, including civil money penalties, to ensure compliance with this privacy rule requirement.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

The absurdity is off the charts because for the Office of Civil Rights to make this their priority is frankly laughable, given the state of the country that we're in. Like you're at the Office of Civil Rights. You care about parental access to children's medical records more than, I don't know, actual civil rights issues.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

Well, they made being woke illegal.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

And medical grants no longer can even mention the idea of race or gender. So this is all they have left, MJ. This is this is all they can do. It's the emphasis on enforcement that is wild about this guidance. It's not that they are like changing HIPAA with this, they don't have the power to do that, but they're sending this out and they were targeting health agencies and grant receiving organizations. And part of what they're trying to do is make sure that, you know, medical providers are opting parents in to start. So, like what will happen just naturally is some places that use like Epic or MyChart might ask children to like approve their parents onto their records. So they're saying, like, hey, instead of doing that, make sure you have give parents the right to their children's medical records unless you need to take it away, which is really just like an admin thing, right? For the most part, that's totally fine. But there's another thing they're trying to do, which is go along with RFK Jr.'s uh wild anti-vaccination agenda.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Of course.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

So along with this letter, RFK Jr. releases an accompanying video, which he posted on Twitter.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

Because he can't write letters. Yeah, makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

Yes, and I had to listen to it. Three minutes of this man talking. Wow. And in the video, we find out what is motivating this. Um, he claims that a child in a Midwestern state received a federally funded vaccine at school without their parents' consent when that child had a religious vaccine exemption in place.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

Which is not a legitimate exemption, just to be very clear, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:48

Yeah. Even if it's allowed, like name the religion, kind of insane. And I looked into this claim, and basically there's no news that I could find about it.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

No.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Like RFK Jr. didn't, you know, state where this was or any information. So we just have to take his word for it that this happened. And if it's true, I'm like, well, obviously, the only reason this child got a vaccine was because they wanted one. So that's a whole can of worms. But yeah, that is enough to make this the HHS's Office of Civil Rights enforcement priority. And while the letter is pretty reasonable with the current standing of the law, RFK Jr.'s video unsurprisingly takes a much more authoritarian approach to whether children have rights to privacy.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

This really does sum up the entire topic that we just discussed. It's not about actually protecting children. It is about anti-vax under the guise of parents should have control over their children. It's all intertwined. Like the red yarns crisscross each other in multiple places.

SPEAKER_01 38:46

They see this as a tool to prevent vaccinations, to prevent children from receiving gender-affirming care, to prevent children from being able to access anything outside of their parents' control in purview. And it's convenient, right? They're going to try to shut down any avenues that the law currently has. Hopefully, they wouldn't be able to pass new laws through Congress and the Senate, but you never know.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

There is one positive, even though it's like a really, really tiny positive that I can take away from this, which is at the end of the day, these authoritarian fascist or conservative ideologies, they operate on the basis of hate and exclusion, which means it's kind of like the snake that eat its own tail, or a boros. Is that the term? Yeah. Eventually they have to eat themselves because your ideology requires you to continue eating something. And we're starting to see the first sign that they are starting to eat themselves with this. The one silver lining is that they're running out of things to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

Yeah. I do think that it is, I guess, fortunate that there's so much going on, and Republicans are so unfocused and constantly running in every which way that they're incapable of weakening HIPAA at this stage in time because they just simply don't have the legislative focus to do so, even if they had the numbers. So what's scary about this is these agencies being ordered and focused on these incredibly political, incredibly controversial and punishment-oriented actions. But whether the OCR actually has the bandwidth to crack down on this, I feel it's probably questionable given the staffing situation in our federal departments.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

It is silver lining that they simultaneously made themselves weaker while trying to pursue a fascist agenda. The Ouroboros meme, the snake eats itself, et cetera, et cetera.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

Yeah. And it is relatively popular across the board still for there to be like child protections in the law around medical privacy. Not nothing crazy, no parents being left out of the process completely, but these laws that are in place and that are in place in many states that are stronger than HIPAA and therefore like our add-ons to those protections. They're in place or not unpopular at this point in time. So they would be unpopular to retract and force Republicans to have conversations about preventing child abuse, which I would not say they're really great figures to talk about that right now. And hopefully people would crack down on that kind of decision should it continue. But I can't say I'm incredibly optimistic that this was the direction we're headed.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

No, optimism died like three years ago. Yeah, we'll see where it goes from here.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

I had kind of a related like when I was trying to look up the general popularity of this, it was a little bit hard to find that information. But the last credible thing I found was in 2018, the Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania did some studies. It was just a sample study of like parents' opinions about whether children should have alone time with doctors and how they viewed that over time. And parents were pretty like neutral to positive about it, like thinking it was important for their children. Interestingly, though, that had a big gender differential. Like parents who had sons were twice as likely to find it positive than parents who had daughters.

SPEAKER_00 42:01

Would you look at that?

SPEAKER_01 42:03

So that's something to chew on, huh?

SPEAKER_00 42:05

Yeah, that is something to chew on. Oh boy.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

It's all gender.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

We cannot escape it. It is a social construct so ingrained in everyone's psyche.

SPEAKER_01 42:14

Right. My teen boy should have the right to talk about condoms with the doctor. But my teen girl will be corrupted if she does. I guess. I mean, I don't know that that's what that factor is, but I have to mention it's about that.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

At the end of the day, these things are hard to determine, but I could totally see that gender dynamic playing out in that scenario. What a wow, it's bleak. We'll touch on this a little bit. This is a public health podcast, after all. What is the health implication for this doctrine, the I Own My Child doctrine? And on the individual level, the health effect is mostly borne by the children in question. Unfortunately, the parents are largely unscathed by this doctrine. They are the ones doing the harm. You gave several examples already, Holly. Obviously, the most direct example is preventing abuse. When it comes to how this harms children, by removing that alone time with the doctor, you are essentially, on average, reducing the number of chances that potential abuse is discovered. And obviously, with SED, birth control, those sorts of things as well. This one is slightly more tangential, but there is some data behind this. The type of people who abuse their children and the type of people who are controlling has major overlaps. If you're openly advocating for this level of control over your children, I own my child, you're probably, on average, more likely to mistreat your kid than the average family. I can't prove this.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

Yeah, that feels intuitive.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

The numbers work out that way. So this doctrine, I own my child, on average is directly harming children because the parents who believe them are likely not good parents.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

Right. These are the children who actually most need this intervention.

SPEAKER_00 43:49

Another subtle effect is the mental health effect of the lack of privacy on the child. We don't have direct data for this, unfortunately. Not that I could find. Listeners, if you have insights on this, please email the show. However, as an Asian American, And I know plenty of people who grew up with very controlling parents. Every one of them hated it. I don't think there's someone out there that's like, my parents were super controlling my entire life, and I loved it. I don't think that person exists. I don't know if you know anyone like this, Holly.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

No, no, no. My husband is South Asian, and at best he laughs about it, but you know, it was tough.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

And it's not good for your child to be in a very controlling household. Control does not effectively prevent the child from doing something. We've all been kids before. That's just not how kids operate. They will simply get better at hiding it and lying to your face. The basis of trust is communication and reciprocity and not control.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

Yeah, kids are so smart. I own a Peloton, like the spin bike, and it has like a screen. And I got this suggested post from like a parent who is a Peloton, and they were like, What should I do? I banned my child from watching YouTube and I caught them like watching it, like logging into my Peloton and watching it on the screen. I was like, that is so clever. Like, you will not stop a child.

SPEAKER_00 45:01

And they're working out.

SPEAKER_01 45:02

I don't think they were working out, unfortunately. I think they were just like standing and watching. But yeah. Oh. I was like, kids will get around it. You cannot, you know, you gotta work smarter than them.

SPEAKER_00 45:12

So another related trend, this one is not confirmed by data, so I can't speak to the validity of this, but in the therapist space, many practicing therapists are noting instances of parents accusing therapists for causing their child to cut them off. Unsurprisingly, if they're afraid of a doctor's visit, they are probably gonna be against therapy as well, because it's also another space where a parent can't be present. And boy, is therapy a generally a good thing and people should have access to it.

SPEAKER_01 45:39

Yeah, that's really dark to not want anyone to affect what you've already done to your child's thought patterns and brainwaves.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

Oh boy. Another part of this doctrine that has a negative public health impact concerns education. When this belief of control over education is taken to its logical extreme, you end up with homeschooling, and that is the focus of the next episode. So stay tuned for that deep dive.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

Yay, it's all connected.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

And one last thing before I get into the societal impact of this doctrine. This is more of a rant. There's one very simple solution to all of these parents' concern about uh my children are being exposed to X, Y, and Z. Very simple solution. Be a good parent. And this is a through line I see with parents who believe in this doctrine. Being a good parent is very difficult. It's a learned scale, and like many skills, it needs to be learned, practiced, and honed. If someone, for whatever reason, does not want to spend a time and effort to become a good parent, the easier path is one of control. Control is shitty people's parenting. For example, instead of teaching your child about sex, which may be uncomfortable, let's just avoid it altogether. You know, let's just do abstinence only. And I would argue that abstinence only is rooted in control. So is book banning, so is anti-vaxx. These are all manifestation of the doctrine I own my child. And at its core, it's a refusal to do actual parenting. They don't want to have those conversations and navigate those topics with their child. It applies to good motivations too. For example, vaping is bad for you and you should not let your child vape. However, the proper way is to communicate and educate your child about why they shouldn't vape. However, a forceful enforcement of no vaping by, for example, saying, You can't lock your door, I need to search your bag every day for a vape. I need to like open your closet every day to see if there's a vapor cigarettes in there. That's just bad parenting, even if the motivation is good.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:25

You know, just be a good parent. It's easier said than done. But right.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

It feels rich coming from us. As a not parent, I am always like extremely reluctant to make any broad statements about parents. But I think this is a pretty basic one, right? Control over your child, denying your child the autonomy to learn and grow is denying them, you know, the opportunity to become full-fledged human beings. I guess if that's your goal, there you go. But they're gonna find like outlets, they're going to learn things whether you want them to or not. You can exert the most control and your child will find a way. So healthy communication, doing your best to offer those open lines of communication doesn't mean things will always be rosy, but it's certainly a lot more effective and a lot better for everybody involved than straight up control.

SPEAKER_00 48:11

How does this doctrine I owe my child harm us at a societal scale? If you believe in this doctrine, you will likely support and vote for policies or politicians that's detrimental for everyone. You will probably vote for the right-wing politician who says he's all about family values while actively committing adultery and sex crimes. This is not an exaggeration.

SPEAKER_01 48:30

Nope, many such cases literally happened.

SPEAKER_00 48:32

The obvious one is the effect of the anti-vaxxers, which is one of the core group of these parents in the I Owe My Child Doctrine. At the time of recording, Canada and UK have both lost their measles elimination status. The US is experiencing a record-breaking surge in measles cases and is on track to lose our measles elimination status as well. In 2025, they saw more than 2,200 cases of measles in the US, which is unprecedented for a while. And in 2026, this year, the initial uptick in January is already looking worse than last year. More than 800 cases already as of recording. Flu related deaths are also increasing, and 90% of those flu-related deaths occurring on children are children who are not fully vaccinated. This is the direct result of the medical freedom movement, along with the anti-vaxxer groups like Children Health Defense. By not vaccinating, they are increasing the risk of infection spreading. And worse, they're not just keeping this to themselves. They are working to undermine vaccinations altogether. The FDA just announced that they will not review the Moderna's COVID and flu vaccine updated version. I didn't read into it, but which is obviously awful. We want to have those vaccines. But yeah, that's one of the ways that this doctrine undermines public health in the most direct sense, is the anti-vaxxers. And we're all getting sick because of it.

SPEAKER_01 49:47

We have mumps in Maryland now.

SPEAKER_00 49:49

Wow, really? Now that is a wild comeback. I have not heard of a mumps in Mark.

SPEAKER_01 49:52

Yeah, I actually we did have a mumps scare at my college campus, which is not a big campus, which is why it was such a big deal and they had to send like four kids away. So I have lived through this before. Yeah, it should not be a thing we're experiencing.

SPEAKER_00 50:05

Last point. This one is a little bit more abstract, but if you believe in I own my child, at the core of that belief is the idea that you, as the parent, know what's best for your child about everything. So in that case, it's kind of promoting a sort of isolationism. People who believe in this doctrine are also advocating for stripping of public services. They're voting for politicians who don't believe in things like public education. They don't believe in things like universal childcare, welfare, or public libraries or public media, because all of those things are forces that's outside of the nuclear family unit. You can't have those. If you want to be the main authority for your child, you want to keep that unit as tight as possible. Kind of like a cult.

SPEAKER_01 50:48

I hesitate to use that word, but yeah, if that's your goal, that's your goal. I always find this so wild because I don't even know what's best for myself, let alone like a baby that I'm trying to raise. I really rely on other people's expertise to navigate my life.

SPEAKER_00 51:04

This should be of no surprise. People who believe in this doctrine tend to be from a particular political leaning. Personality begets ideology. I'm quoting this from someone else. I can't remember who, but I don't want to take credit for this quote. Prior to someone becoming a fascist, they were first and foremost an asshole. If someone believes in this doctrine about absolute control over their own children, it is not surprising that they also lean towards control-based right-wing political thoughts. And as we have observed and are currently observing, those things are so bad for us, health-wise and well-being-wise.

SPEAKER_01 51:38

Yes. Anybody can be an asshole, but current conservative politics are enabling assholery at a mass political scale. And that is the difference, is whether we want to be assholes in an authoritarian way or whether we're just assholes in our personal interactions.

SPEAKER_00 51:58

Do we want our politics to be founded on the premise that a parent has a hundred percent control over their own children? I don't know, man. That's not appealing political ideology to me.

SPEAKER_01 52:09

It's not an appealing ideology, and it's also deeply hypocritical, even for people who are expressing it, right? Because if I took this libertarian view and I was like, okay, great, my child is trans and I fully support them, and I want to help them get all the gender-affirming care that they need, and I want them to go to the most liberal school on earth and read every book on the planet and do whatever they want in college, then these parents would throw a fit. That's just not a view that they hold actually true. It's the problem with a lot of libertarian thinking, right? They don't actually mean it.

SPEAKER_00 52:41

That is one of the many problems with this ideology and doctrine. But there you go. That's the I own my child doctrine. And hopefully we have done a good enough job convincing you why this is bad for everyone involved, not just the child in those families, but for society as a whole, because they are not going to advocate for the things that we need. You think that I owe my child people is gonna advocate for universal child care, sending their child to a publicly funded pre-K? No way.

SPEAKER_01 53:08

Don't spoil next episode, MJ.

SPEAKER_00 53:10

So that's the next episode. Next episode, we're gonna talk about how these people also have a, I want to say, irrational fear of childcare services. Is that accurate?

SPEAKER_01 53:19

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

Anyway, well, that's next episode. So tune into that. But thank you so much for listening to Death by Doctrine and everything is public health production. If you like the show, please listen to more of this.

SPEAKER_01 53:30

We won't stop even if nobody listens.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

I do this for nobody else.

SPEAKER_01 53:34

We do this for our own, I wouldn't say mental health. It's probably not that helpful for my mental health, at least. But um, we do this for our own sake, and so we get to complain to each other in a more structured format.

SPEAKER_00 53:44

Ranting becomes productive if you write like a thesis.