This week’s newsletter is a Fourth of July special edition. Instead of the regular segments, we’re sharing a few hot takes from the internets on three parenting-related topics to help you manage adult conversations during this year’s Fourth of July barbecue.

1. Ozempic is a worst case scenario for improving US healthcare

This interview with Calley Means is summed up best with this quote: “There’s nothing more profitable than a kid on pharmaceuticals.” Listen to the entire interview below to hear his perspective on why miracle drugs aren’t the solution to addressing the issues of obesity, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes.

How is it parenting related? Well, the number of 12- to 25-year-olds using any GLP-1 drug (Ozempic, Wegovy, etc) — including older medications first approved to treat diabetes in 2005 and for weight loss in 2014 — climbed from about 8,700 a month in 2020 to more than 60,000 a month in 2023, a nearly 600% increase (AP). And those stats are 6 months old.

2. Banning phones won’t make kids less anxious

Fellow newsletter writer Youngna Park wrote a thoughtful review of Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation”, the book every parent with an Audible account is talking about. Before advocating for a ban on phones, it’s worthwhile thinking about the holistic challenges kids and parents face today and develop an understanding of their root causes.

If you want to read more about the discussion on teen anxiety, check out the articles below:

• America’s Top Export May Be Anxiety (The Atlantic)

• New York City Is Moving to Ban Phones From School. Will It Work? (KQED)

• European parents band together for smartphone-free childhoods. (Christian Science Monitor)

3. People aren’t having kids not because it’s expensive, but because the social milieu perpetuates the belief that parenthood is incompatible with the pursuit of personal or professional excellence

This interview with Anastasia Berg (Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine) and Rachel Wiseman (managing editor of The Point) is one of the most illuminating discussions on how young people today decide whether or not to have kids. Below are just a few nuggets from the interview that stood out.

• In looking at countries where having children is easy, affordable, and in fact somewhat financially advantageous because their policies are subsidizing having children, we see that their birth rates are just as low as the US.

• Discussing parenthood in terms of opportunity costs is a very recent phenomenon (early 2000s).

• A survey of 300 men showed that there currently isn't an obvious or even an aspirational ideal for what it would mean to be a good man or a good father.

• A progressive feminist-oriented person today is generally very comfortable with men wanting to be active dads, doing as much if not more around the house. But they still very much are not comfortable with and certainly not inviting men to be active in initiating conversations about deciding whether or not the couple should have kids.

Those are the takes and that’s it for this special Fourth of July edition. You can now safely exit the bathroom and bring the heat to the party. Happy Fourth!