In short
Podcast Summary: What Fresh Hell - Parenting Panics Through the Ages
Podcast Details
- Title: What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood
- Hosts: Amy Wilson and Margaret Ables
- Episode Title: Parenting Panics Through the Ages
- Episode Description: The hosts explore historical moral panics surrounding new technologies (like screens and AI) and their perceived impact on children, comparing them to past societal fears.
Key Themes and Concepts
- Moral Panics: A recurring societal phenomenon where fear is amplified regarding new media or technologies, believed to threaten moral values or cognitive abilities.
- Historical Context: The episode draws parallels between current fears about technology and past moral panics including:
- The printing press
- Heavy metal music
- Comic books
- Video games
Major Discussions Historical Moral Panics
- Socrates on Writing: Early fears that writing would impair memory and critical thinking; a reflection of ongoing debates about new forms of communication.
- Victorian Women Reading: Concerns over women's literacy and its potential to disrupt societal norms.
- Penny Dreadfuls: The fear of sensational literature corrupting the morals of youth, despite little evidence of harm.
- Radio and Television: Initial fears that these new media would lead to cognitive decline and moral decay; yet, they eventually became integrated into daily life without catastrophic consequences.
Current Technology Fears
- Screens and AI: Ongoing debates about the impact of screens on childhood development and parenting, echoing historical concerns about new media.
- Setting Healthy Limits: Encouraging parents to balance concerns with informed perspectives, emphasizing critical engagement rather than panic.
Key Takeaways
- Patterns of Panic: A predictable cycle exists: introduction of new media → rapid youth adoption → adult discomfort → predicted moral decline → eventual adaptation by society.
- Reframing Fear: Parents are reminded to recognize that many of the fears surrounding new technologies are part of a historical pattern rather than unique crises.
- Empowering Parents: By understanding the historical context of moral panics, parents can approach modern fears with perspective, fostering healthier conversations about technology use.
References to Studies and Articles
- The episode mentions various studies and articles, including:
- Research on social media's influence on political views
- Historical analyses of moral panics (e.g., effects of novel reading, comic books)
Conclusion The episode provides both historical context and modern insights into parenting fears about technology. It emphasizes that while vigilance is necessary in parenting, historical patterns suggest that not all change is detrimental. Parents are encouraged to set boundaries while navigating their children's engagement with new media.
--- For further exploration, visit [What Fresh Hell Podcast](https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com) for more parenting insights and community support.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOMailbag Feedback
0:46 to 1:52
A listener shares how the podcast helped improve her relationship.
“A podcast that solves today's parenting dilemmas so you don't have to.”
Socrates on Writing
1:52 to 3:11
Explore Socrates' ancient concerns about the impact of writing.
“This is a little bit of a surprise for me, guys.”
Understanding Moral Panics
3:11 to 4:25
Discuss the concept of moral panics and societal reactions to change.
“And the idea that writing was negative, especially for young people, is something we're going to talk about our topic today, Amy.”
Parenting Panic Patterns
4:25 to 6:00
Learn about the recurring patterns of parenting panics throughout history.
“I mean, when a new means of mass communication enters the society, the reaction to that is generally fear and pushback.”
Victorian Reading Concerns
6:00 to 7:10
Discuss the Victorian era's fears about women reading newspapers.
“It's going to lead to degeneracy and also the catastrophe is like this kind of brain rotty, brains falling out your ears.”
The Threat of Women's Knowledge
7:10 to 8:20
Examine historical anxieties about women's education and empowerment.
“And when there is a generalized feeling in the country that things are shaky, that these ramp up.”
Historical Reading Panics
8:20 to 10:00
Delve into historical fears surrounding women's reading habits.
“So there was no reason for them to have an opinion about what was happening in the world.”
The Penny Dreadful Phenomenon
10:00 to 11:30
Discover what penny dreadfuls were and their impact on society.
“And again, not totally wrong in terms of like, people talk about this all the time, the education being the key to women's empowerment.”
The Dark Side of Fairy Tales
18:11 to 21:32
Examine the historical darkness in classic fairy tales and their psychological impact.
“Like the original Grimm's fairy tale, the Cinderella sisters cut their feet off to fit their feet in the shoes.”
Moral Panics Throughout History
21:32 to 23:36
Discuss the recurring theme of moral panics and their societal implications.
“So like maybe our society shouldn't be broken down into like high class people and people who work for them and then people have been cast out of society.”
Show all 17 chapters
Comic Books and Juvenile Delinquency
23:36 to 26:19
Delve into the historical fears surrounding comic books and their impact on youth.
“And I think that a lot of these stories are like, you are powerless as an individual against these forces of media.”
Adoption of New Media by Youth
26:19 to 28:00
Explore how youth adopt new media and the subsequent adult fears of moral decay.
“And for the kind of superhero story, you know, arc stuff and what's happening with Superman and you could follow the story over like decades.”
Moral Panics and Media Evolution
28:00 to 31:10
Explore how different media have historically caused moral panics, particularly among parents.
“that your kid would spend four hours reading upstairs in their room, but not in the 1950s.”
Aging and Nostalgia in Today's Society
32:23 to 34:46
Discuss the humorous generational phrases that suggest how society views aging and nostalgia.
“Okay, it is not spring yet and my feet always get cold way before the rest of me.”
The Evolution of Screen Media and Concerns
34:46 to 42:00
Analyze the transition from radio to television and the resulting societal fears and criticisms.
“So we upped the game from audio, radio to television.”
Understanding Parenting Panics Through History
42:05 to 46:04
Explore how societal fears about technology and change have evolved over the decades.
“I think the idea is like we as humans, when scary things happen, we tell stories to make those things make sense.”
The Balance Between Screen Time and Parenting Anxiety
46:04 to 48:39
Discuss the implications of screen time and the balance parents must find.
“I don't think there's nothing to fear from TV.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:01Amy Wilson:At DSW, we ask the important questions like what shoes are you going to wear? Whether you're prepping for wedding season, festival season, or just planning the ultimate vacay, the right shoes can make or break an RSVP. So own the moment. You've got big plans and we've got just the shoes at the perfect price, of course. Get ready to get ready with Designer Shoe Warehouse. Head to your DSW store or DSW.com today and let us surprise you. My children listen to music that would have peeled the paint off my grandmother's car. What fresh hell. Laughing in the face of motherhood. That seems like a bad idea if women can read.
0:43Amy Wilson:With Margaret Aples and Amy Wilson.
0:45Heidi Hayes:Did I sneak off every night and watch Three's Company? I did. A podcast that solves today's parenting dilemmas so you don't have to. It would be like the most long-form entertainment anybody in the New York City area consumed this year.
1:01Amy Wilson:Hello, everyone, and welcome to What Fresh Hell? Laughing in the face of motherhood. This is Margaret. And this is Amy. This week, we're going to go straight into mailbag. I mean, a feat never accomplished before on this podcast. Let's do it.
1:15Heidi Hayes:Mailbag. This week's mailbag is from Jennifer on Facebook. She says, I just want to give a huge thank you to Margaret and Amy for helping me strengthen my relationship with my husband. I remember Margaret saying how she would always greet her kids lovingly when they came home, but did not extend that same greeting to her husband. I was doing the same thing, said Jennifer. And I made a conscious effort to change that. And as a result, I feel my husband and I are closer now than we have been in a while. And that I, overall, am much more happy. We love that feedback. Yeah. Thanks, Jennifer. That's great.
1:51Heidi Hayes:And I can't wait for this week. This is a little bit of a surprise for me, guys. I'm coming in cold.
1:54Amy Wilson:Amy, I'm going to jump in. I'm going to read you a statement and you're going to tell me what you think this statement is talking about. Are you ready? This technology is going to ruin young people's minds, destroy their ability to concentrate, and they will cease to use their brains and will instead rely on this technology for all their needs and their brains will rot. Chat GPT. This is Socrates speaking on writing, according to Plato. I'm going to read you the actual quote. I paraphrased it a little bit for our purposes. If men learned writing, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they will rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by external marks.
2:45Amy Wilson:So the idea is like writing will rob people of their memories. Of the ability to remember. The ability to write things down will make it so that people no longer need to use their brains and their brains will atrophy.
2:59Heidi Hayes:I mean, your brains don't atrophy. You're like, people are always shocked that how did Shakespeare actors learn a whole play in a week? It's like you couldn't write it down. So your memory was just that capacious. But it didn't lead to the ruin of civilization. There was still Shakespeare. Yeah.
3:13Amy Wilson:And the idea that writing was negative, especially for young people, is something we're going to talk about our topic today, Amy. Moral panics, also known as social panics.
3:28Heidi Hayes:Okay.
3:28Amy Wilson:I don't know why I'm saying panics. Also known as social panics. The plural of panics is panics. Panics. Like panem. Isn't that the bad town from Hunger Games? So a moral or social panic is a widespread feeling of fear that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests or well-being of a community or society. It is the process of arousing social concern over an issue usually elicited by sensational mass media coverage and sometimes exacerbated by politicians and lawmakers.
4:03Heidi Hayes:And is the thing, I guess it's like the thing is a Johnny come lately, right? Whatever it is, is the new thing in town, which was in Socrates day was people learning to write besides Socrates. Correct. That the media and sometimes politicians, yes, it sounds familiar, creates a panic around.
4:19Amy Wilson:That's right. And the idea that when new technology, writing technically is a technology. I mean, when a new means of mass communication enters the society, the reaction to that is generally fear and pushback. We're saying moral panics, which sometimes makes people think about like women showing their ankles is going to be the end of society, which there certainly has been. Yeah. But I think we should think about these a little bit more as societal panics because these are technologies and how societies react to them. The idea is to give us a calming sense of pattern. We certainly have talked a lot on this show about screens and technology and how they're affecting our kids.
5:08Amy Wilson:not to say all of that stuff is invalid because listen this conversation has been repeating itself a million times through the years but to just get some perspective and see if some of this
5:19Heidi Hayes:might sound a little bit familiar it seems to me that as parents we're a little bit on the front lines right because it's like sure we're target number one right this is a way to do things the youngsters are being offered this new way to do things and that's unfamiliar to us and it must speak terrible and it's going to ruin the youngsters. So do something, parents, moms.
5:37Amy Wilson:Let me walk you through, Amy, the pattern of panics.
5:41Heidi Hayes:Okay.
5:42Amy Wilson:The recurring structure of parenting panics tends to be a new medium appears, such as writing. Youth adopt it quickly. Adults feel excluded or unsettled. See also Snapchat. Moral or psychological catastrophe is predicted. I think both in a lot of these cases. It's going to lead to degeneracy and also the catastrophe is like this kind of brain rotty, brains falling out your ears. Society eventually adapts and panic fades. And so let us talk about some of these moral panics. And they tend to be tied often to to an overall feeling that recurs again and again, that in our case, the United States is in some state of moral decline.
6:33Amy Wilson:There is this undercurrent of fear about that that resonates throughout our history.
6:39Heidi Hayes:Is that in some sense, not only it's unavoidable, like the fall of Rome, like I always think of America being compared to the fall of Rome. And it's like, yeah, all things fall eventually, like we're all one day closer to the grave every day and this is just bringing it to our attention.
6:54Amy Wilson:Yeah, I think that's right. But I also think there is this enduring sense that the kids aren't all right, that whatever is being introduced into our children that is unfamiliar to us must therefore be bad and eventually leading to their downfall. And when there is a generalized feeling in the country that things are shaky, that these ramp up. I think the less secure people feel in general, the higher the incidence of moral panic. Okay. That's or perhaps the faster things are changing, too. It just when there is a feeling of unsettlement, which I think for most parents is vaguely baseline, right?
7:36Amy Wilson:Like I'm kind of worried about how it's all going to turn out for my kids. These things tend to seep in through the groundwater.
7:43Heidi Hayes:Right. They ramify in this specific way. So I'm really worried about everything, but what I'm actually worried about is drinking straws or something.
7:49Amy Wilson:Right. The next thing is really going to be the bad thing that ruins it all. So the next panic we will discuss is reading by women, Amy, a Victorian era panic. In Victorian times, it was believed that women shouldn't read the newspaper because it was too intense for them. They were too delicate to handle it. So the husband would read the newspaper and share what he believed to be appropriate. Not to say that women did not read it all, but it was discouraged.
8:19Heidi Hayes:Well, they couldn't vote. So there was no reason for them to have an opinion about what was happening in the world.
8:25Amy Wilson:Yeah. And I mean, believe me, there are people making this argument today that it should be one vote per household. The woman should defer to the head of the household, the man, and that every household should get one vote instead of each person getting one vote.
8:38Heidi Hayes:This is what I'm realizing, though, thinking about this. Like, it's dangerous, say the people in charge, for women to read because then they'll get crazy ideas in their head like they should vote. And of course, that's exactly what happens. You know, women get more aware and then they demand the right to vote and they get the right. Like change is coming. You're
8:52Amy Wilson:afraid of the change. They had a point, right? Ever since Adam and Eve, as a book by my Aunt Terry was once titled, the idea that knowledge in the hands of the wrong people is frightening has been thematic throughout human existence. But what's wrong is that women are the wrong people, right? Well, women are the wrong people. Lots of people are the wrong people. And I also think there has been a continuing idea that young people are very corrupted. Women and the young will be corrupted by this new knowledge. Also written in an article from October 6, 1796, A novel reading panic, Amy. Women of every age, of every condition, contract and retain a taste for novels.
9:41Amy Wilson:This depravity is universal. My sight is everywhere offended by these foolish yet dangerous books.
9:49Heidi Hayes:So the women shouldn't be reading novels. And then once that was lost, well, they shouldn't be reading newspapers.
9:55Amy Wilson:Basically, the idea of the ladies reading makes people very nervous. Right. Makes men very nervous. Right. Yes, it makes men very nervous. And again, not totally wrong in terms of like, people talk about this all the time, the education being the key to women's empowerment. Yes, the more educated you are, the less likely you probably are to put up with crazy nonsense.
10:17Heidi Hayes:Right. But it's not dangerous. It's dangerous to the current order for women to learn to read. It isn't morally...
10:23Amy Wilson:No, to be clear, I'm pro women reading. I'm all in for it. And I think that you're correctly layering on historical relevance to this idea. But I don't think that the author of this piece saying that women shouldn't read is secretly being like, because they will take over. It's just more of an overall feeling that women can't handle reading. You know what I mean? Like they're not operating the patriarchy lever completely consciously.
10:58Heidi Hayes:No, but they're anxious.
10:59Amy Wilson:Like that seems like a bad idea if women can read ladies and books. It seems scary. And I think that as we go through these different panics of the ages, what we're trying to do is reflect for ourselves, what are the things that we are finding scary and why are they scaring us and are those scary things correct or not? And I think that that is definitely worth considering.
11:28Heidi Hayes:Change is scary, but it doesn't mean change is bad, right? We can look back on this like, yeah, it was probably good for women to be able to read, but it was a big change at the time. Do you know what a penny dreadful is, Amy? I do because that's what Sweeney Todd. Sweeney Todd was a penny dreadful. Yeah, It's a Penny Dreadful, which is, I think, it's a book that was released chapter by chapter, and each chapter was a penny, and it was really suspenseful.
11:53Amy Wilson:Scary. They were scary stories, originally written as novels, and then you're correct. Like, as they grew in popularity, they were released as serials. So you would get, you were talking about Dracula a day, right? There's something you could sign up for and get a chapter of Dracula every day. Yeah. This was that version. Really kind of gruesome and scary stories. If you don't know, I mean, go get the soundtrack. Sweeney Todd is about a barber. If you're listening with kids, put some headphones on because I'm going to say something scary. It's about a barber who slits people's throat and then chops them up and makes them into meat pies, which his lady friend then sells to the people of London to eat.
12:34I mean, it's not like, well, he's a barber and every once in a while he kills a guy.
12:40Amy Wilson:These are very, very disturbing and scary stories. And they were very frightening. And in 1798, evangelical writer Hannah Moore warned the many pernicious books which are continually issuing from the press poison the minds of young women.
Read the full transcript
13:03Heidi Hayes:And then the minds of the young. And then they took it out to be also the minds of the young that they were going to be horribly affected by reading these vile books. Yeah. I mean, I'm looking at this one like, oh, who cares? And now we have a Tony winning musical called Sweeney Todd. But it is pretty dark. And I guess they were worried that if you read something evil that you would be. It's like playing a first person shooter video game.
13:24Amy Wilson:I mean, not to skip ahead, but right. That the idea that introducing evil images into the minds of children is bad for them. I wouldn't totally disagree. Sweeney Todd just ran on Broadway last year. You saw it, right? Yeah, it was amazing. Amazing show. Like one of the greatest Broadway productions. I loved it. I love that musical. I was considering taking my daughter, who was maybe 12, 11, whatever. And I ended up deciding it was too scary for her. And I do think it would have been scary. but it's not that they're totally wrong that these imageries are maybe a lot for kids. But on the flip side, I have a story about Babar, which I will tell you after the break, Amy.
14:10Amy Wilson:You know, every parent can relate to being out of some crucial item and facing the horrible prospect of getting all the kids into the car to the grocery store to pick up more. and it's like, how badly, Amy, do I actually really need or want that milk?
14:31Heidi Hayes:That's when it's time to think DoorDash, which I've always thought of as just for takeout, which takeout is also the savior of many a night for parents. But DoorDash can also save you when your kid has a school project due tomorrow that they haven't started yet and you're out of glue sticks.
14:45Amy Wilson:Ah, a familiar scenario, to say the least. Or here's another one. Toddler's got a cough and you realize you're out of Motrin. Or maybe you had a diaper blowout. Uh-oh, used the last one this morning. I mean, I'm not saying it's happened to me, Amy, but DoorDash.
15:02Heidi Hayes:Or maybe everybody's rushing off to their after-school activities and there's no point in making a nice sit-down dinner, so DoorDash, order a pizza, take meal prep stress out of the equation.
15:11Amy Wilson:Whatever fresh hell parenting happens to be throwing your way today, friends, DoorDash can make it just a little less hellish. And that's all we can really ask for, right?
15:22Heidi Hayes:Right. Real life needs real relief. That's why DoorDash is there for whatever you need, whenever you need it.
15:28Amy Wilson:Order now. Hellions, if you're like me, you have a phone that is full of some adorable pictures of your family, but also pictures of recipe that past you thought they were going to make someday, and pictures of your parking spot so you can find your car. You want just your good photos, but who has the time to organize that?
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16:05Amy Wilson:I just made my first Journey print book, and I cannot tell you how easy it is. I did a look back at 2025 pictures, just grabbed all of the good ones, threw them in the app, and as Amy would say, bada bing bada boom, I had a beautiful retrospective of my year in book form. The Journey Print app made it so easy. I have a fantastic looking book and I sent a copy to both grandparents winning.
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18:00Amy Wilson:Use code FRESH at Monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50 % off at monarch.com, code FRESH. So famously, old fairy tales and children's stories have always been very dark and disturbing. Like the original Grimm's fairy tale, the Cinderella sisters cut their feet off to fit their feet in the shoes. They're like putting their bloody stumps in shoes. And crows are pecking people's eyes out. The fairy tales are very frightening and they don't have happy endings. The original Little Mermaid, she turns into foam, seafoam, and she's just dead. She just finds a way to seafoam state. Babar, Bambi, those stories begin with the mother being killed, right?
18:49Amy Wilson:There is a recognized role for letting children confront scary things in stories as a developmentally correct thing.
18:58Heidi Hayes:Or also as a substitute for the thing. During Victorian times, there are these penny dreadfuls. They're going to warp the young's minds. They're going to become evil and violent crime will increase. Violent crime actually decreased throughout the 19th century, despite everybody reading these penny dreadfuls. I'm going to say it's good, but I'm not going to say it's bad either because the crime went down. The thing that was feared to happen did not happen.
19:25Amy Wilson:The idea, I think, that reading or being exposed to scary or violent stories makes people scary and violent, I think has been fairly roundly disproven. Now, should you read Sweeney Todd as the bedtime story to your child tonight? I'm going to say no. It's a no. So like when your particular kid is ready to start confronting scary things, who's to say? But I think this recurring argument that we see throughout history that like the real problem today is kids are playing too many scary video games. We've done this before, guys. We did it with Penny Dreadfuls. It wasn't true then. It's not true there.
20:04Amy Wilson:It's not going to ruin society that they're playing a violent video game. And it doesn't tend to play out statistically that the introduction of this kind of material does not tend to correlate to increased crime in a society. Right. So if you're actually worried about that, the panic is not true. But it doesn't mean people aren't genuinely panicked about it. Are you ready for the next thing that will cause the downfall of our society? And believe me, I'm skipping a lot of them. I'm just playing the hits here, guys. I'm just going decade by decade. You dropped ladies ankles in the row. We're just going to leave it there.
20:38Amy Wilson:We didn't do ladies' ankles, which was probably related to all that novel reading they were doing. Radio was considered, I'm quoting an article in ballbearing.com magazine, which is called The Downfall of Society and goes through a lot of these panics through the years. Radio was considered to be the death of morality in the 1920s. Radio content was different than any other content people had been introduced to before. The programs discussed contemporary progressive ideas and political notions. People who listened to the radio did begin to think differently, but the idea that it would lead to this automatic overthrow of society.
21:20Amy Wilson:And this is where I think some of these themes are about progressive has a different meaning in 2026. Progressive ideas, ideas that are different than the norm. So like maybe our society shouldn't be broken down into like high class people and people who work for them and then people have been cast out of society. reading and the progressive ideas that start to come along in mass media do eventually change those things, but not by poisoning individual people's minds as these panickers sometimes believe.
21:55Heidi Hayes:Or maybe doesn't lead to the downfall of society, at least. Like there's a study that just came out this week on X.com that if you're on X, I don't have the details of the study, but we'll link to it from the show notes. But if you spend about two months on X consuming its content regularly, your views will shift distinctly to the right of the political spectrum. So spending time on X will make you more right in your thinking. Spending time on radio 100 years ago would make you maybe more progressive in the sense of that term 100 years ago. So it does have the power to change people's thinking.
22:27Heidi Hayes:But like we're not seeing buildings tumbling to the sea and it's not Planet of the Apes.
22:31Amy Wilson:And I think we're also not seeing people listening to the radio, No, like our normal, well-developed 12-year-old who otherwise has had, you know, a great childhood picking up a penny dreadful or hearing something on the radio and going out and starting to commit crimes randomly, which is sort of the way that this plays out in media. Right. Certainly mass media, as we've all seen, and we're soaking in it right now, can really divide people. And I do think the scope and scale of our media right now is such that certainly things that happen online have created civil wars in countries and stuff. I mean, it doesn't, I'm not here to say this is all made up.
23:14Amy Wilson:And the Enlightenment could not have happened without people being able to spread their ideas through the written word. These things did change things, but the panics about the individual reaction to these things was not on point. And they didn't end society, none of these things. They didn't end society. And I think that a lot of these stories are like, you are powerless as an individual against these forces of media. And that is the difference between a panic and technology changing a society. Right. It's not both things are true. Actually, only one of those things is true. Like the technology, obviously, the written word changed human history.
23:59Amy Wilson:But the panic of the written word will make people's brains leak out of their ears because they won't need their memories anymore did not turn out to be a correct panic. And that kind of thematic panic is what we're focusing on. Are you ready to move on to comic books being the one and only cause of juvenile delinquency? Comic books came out in the 1950s. They were a brand new form. Like post-World War II, I guess. Yeah, they were. If you haven't, what's that book? Adventures of Cavalier and Clay. An amazing book about early comic books. I can't believe they've never made like a series or a movie about that.
24:38Amy Wilson:It's such a great book. It's an opera. It's an opera, right? Seriously, right now at Lincoln Center. The Adventures of Cavalier and Clay. Interesting. It's an amazing book and it captures this all really, really well. Psychiatrist Frederick Wertham published Seduction of the Innocent in 1954, claiming comics caused crime and moral decay. He argued comic books are the death of reading. So the idea that now nobody's going to read anymore. They're just they're going to need these picture books and it's going to lower their minds so they can only understand stories if there are pictures attached.
25:14Heidi Hayes:I mean, I did have boys who grew up only reading Super Toilet Dog and Mr. Professor Poopypants and all that stuff.
25:21Amy Wilson:Oh, my gosh. Captain Underpants. So my kids could recite those books backwards and forwards. I sat through the film. Yeah. Not bad. It was kind of artistic. But I think that this is something that we've actually learned a lot about. And the teachers in my kids' grammar school were certainly of the mind that any reading is reading. Well, especially these days. That's right. If they want to read the cereal box, if they want to read comic books, if they want to read graphic novels, anime, reading is reading. and that letting kids read whatever they want to read is a better way to do it than like don't read stupid Captain Underpants.
25:57Amy Wilson:I mean, my kids, probably all three of them, those were the books they read for three years, Dav Pilkey's books.
26:04Heidi Hayes:Yes, exactly. He's probably saving reading as opposed to ruining reading single-handedly for the youth of today.
26:11Amy Wilson:Exactly. But it's funny now that, I mean, I think comic books are seen as, I have one kid who's still into comic books And for the kind of superhero story, you know, arc stuff and what's happening with Superman and you could follow the story over like decades. It's kind of cool. But there's no part of me that's like, is this warping his mind? But if I had been a mother in the 1950s, I would have spent a lot of time worrying that it was warping his mind.
26:41Heidi Hayes:You would have been subject to it. They actually created a Comics Code Authority and had Senate hearings in the 50s. Right. because of comic books.
26:50Amy Wilson:History repeats, right? I mean, it's like comic books come out, people start panicking that they are the end of civilization. No one's going to read anymore. Kids are going to get crazy ideas from these crazy books that they're so into. And so what do we do? We take it to the government and we hold Senate hearings. This is a whole fascinating topic that I could do another hour on, but the Comics Code Authority of the U.S. Senate. I mean, fascinating.
27:20Heidi Hayes:Let's do a screenplay. I never really knew about this until the notes for this episode.
27:25Amy Wilson:I know. I was trying to remember, because I read Cavalier and Clay so long ago, whether this plays into the plot. And I bet it must have. But right, the idea that we need someone to protect us from this dangerous technology, the technology being comic books.
27:40Heidi Hayes:And again, the idea was that superheroes and crime comics were going to damage children, and psychologically damage them. There was one idea that they'll be lazy and then they won't read real books, but also these were going to warp the reader in a way that now would be like, oh my God, I'd love my kid to lie on his bed and read a Superman comic book. Oh my God, right?
27:59Amy Wilson:That would be every mom's dream that your kid would spend four hours reading upstairs in their room, but not in the 1950s. So I want to revisit our pattern of moral panics now that we've talked about a couple. A new medium appears. So we've done writing, we've done comic books, we've done radio. Now, youth adopt it quickly, right? Youth, for whatever reason, I didn't research at all, but they are more likely to adapt more easily to new technologies. That just, I think we could all, what do you call it? QED. QED.
28:30Heidi Hayes:What does QED mean again? It means, quote, erat demonstrandum. Like, that's already been proven. So does QED, young people are better at new technologies.
28:39Amy Wilson:Adults feel excluded or unsettled. Like, what are these comic books you're reading? Right. Like, I don't understand that. I didn't have that when I was a kid. There must be something wrong to it. Next, moral or psychological catastrophe is predicted. Right. They're going to fall into this crazy lifestyle where the villains and the Joker and these crazy green faced things that they care about that I don't understand. There must be something bad about them. And then the final stage, society adapts and the panic fades. So we've kind of gotten through that phase with all of these things. There's not many people.
29:17Amy Wilson:Again, if my kid wanted to go up and listen to the radio for four hours, can you imagine on their bed? I would give him like 50 bucks. I'd be like, here you go. You're an amazing child.
29:26Heidi Hayes:It would be like the most long form entertainment anybody in the New York City area consumed this year. If they did that for four hours.
29:32Amy Wilson:And you would be saying to yourself, Look at how they're using their mind to just listen to audio, but picture the story. Like, think of how strong their brain must be getting translating audio into imagery in their mind. But in the 20s, people were like, no, no, no, no, no. It's going to ruin everything. Somehow, like the idea of information going directly into your ears and into your brain, like you can see how that would be scary to people. Like, wait a minute, I don't have control over the information that is suddenly shooting directly into my children's brain through waves. It feels really scary.
30:11Heidi Hayes:And when you say people, you mean like the people who are currently in charge, right? Which I guess is getting to be a slowly bigger group of people over time. But the people who like things the way they are don't want things to change.
30:21Amy Wilson:I mean the people who are in charge, but I also mean in the home. I think that the big picture, yes, but maybe more important to us and our listeners, the moms. The moms. This panic is like, oh, my God, my 14-year-old is listening to the radio. Like, what are they shooting in their ears that I'm not in control of? And how is it warping them in ways I don't understand?
30:43Heidi Hayes:But don't you think that that message was being delivered? Like, we get these messages on Instagram now, but you go to church on Sunday and you're told that radio is evil. And like, oh, I guess I better worry about it. We are told to worry about these things.
30:54Amy Wilson:That's right. Everyone's getting the message to worry about it. But the burden of the worry is probably falling most directly on moms.
31:01Heidi Hayes:For sure.
31:02Amy Wilson:Who are believing it because, of course, why wouldn't you? It makes a lot of sense when you think about it this way. Amy, we're coming back with TV after this break. If you want to wake up with skin that looks even better than before you went to bed, reach for Osea Skin Care.
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33:32Amy Wilson:And now, things we say that make us suspect we might be oldie locks. From the Wet Fresh Health podcast. Ugh, I hurt myself turning over too vigorously while I was napping. Oh, that wasn't long ago. It was about like 10 years ago in the late 90s.
33:49Heidi Hayes:I hope they gave you a discount on those jeans with the big holes in them. I can't understand any of the words to this song. Is it from the TikTok? Why is Madonna playing on the oldies station?
34:02Amy Wilson:Honey, don't worry. If I'm going to be late, I'll leave you a message on the answering machine on your cell phone. Hold on. I'll be right there. I just need to get up from the couch. Kids, stop screaming in the car or I can't concentrate to parallel park.
34:15Heidi Hayes:I just need to print out this email so I can read it more carefully.
34:19Amy Wilson:Oh, let me get a picture. You look so cute. Okay, hold on. Somehow it's on video. Oh, no, wait. Now it's me. No, I don't want a picture of my face. How do I flip the camera? Please stay still. You're so cute. I'm going to get it. What is portrait mode? You know, back in my day. This has been Things We Say Now That Make Us Suspect We Are Oldie Luxe. From the What Fresh Health Podcast.
34:46Amy Wilson:So we upped the game from audio, radio to television. Causes an immediate decline in the use of the radio. New concerns emerge. Children, it was believed, would lose all motivation and become lazier than ever. They were going to spend all day staring at the screen being corrupted by television programs. As TV spread into the home, critics warned of cognitive and moral decline. Does that sound familiar?
35:11Heidi Hayes:It does. And I kind of feel like we did spend a lot of time watching TV as kids in the 70s.
35:16Amy Wilson:I mean, we're still here. We're moral people. Imagine what a win it would be today if your kids threw out all their devices and there was one TV in the house that they watch for three hours after dinner. You'd be like, our lives have never been better. And they would sit and watch a whole show without doing anything else.
35:32Heidi Hayes:Right. There was an article in The Atlantic, a college film professor explaining that today's college students are unable, distressed by watching a 90 minute film without looking at their phones. They can't do it. You put the phone in the other room and then they can do it. But it's like, what if I'm missing something that we are losing the ability to do this? So it's funny that we're certainly getting smarter, but our attention is getting perhaps more fractured. It's not a moral panic. I'm not panicking morally.
36:00Amy Wilson:Well, I think screens is a societal panic. It doesn't mean that the panic's not justified, but it is a societal panic. Right, we're panicked. We're panicked. I'm not gonna argue that it's gonna be exactly the same as all of these other moral panics, and it's gonna turn out fine, and we're gonna laugh at ourselves 50 years from now. But I do think it's worth looking at how repetitive these themes are. I totally agree. We talk about like Elvis Presley.
36:27Heidi Hayes:Rock and roll is the next panic in our list. That him shaking his hips was going to burn people's eyes or whatever. And then like, that's the twerking of today. Remember that the Beatles were going to be the moral downfall of the youth, that Elvis Presley was. Like, it's so tame. And it does help you to remember.
36:44Amy Wilson:In 1956, a Florida judge called Elvis Presley, a definite detriment to the security of the United States. I mean, it's pretty crazy, right? Like, it seems funny, but we did just do this with the Super Bowl, too. Absolutely. People were like, those girls shaking their butts to Bad Bunny has ruined children's lives forever. Like, we are still having the same conversations. Famously, if you're our age, Tipper Gore, who was Al Gore's wife, at some point walked by a daughter's room and heard some album that the child was listening to the child probably a high schooler and became the spokesperson for adding warning labels to cds that would say explicit lyrics saying the lyrics of some popular songs glorify suicide sadomasochism and violence but then some of them did it was like i want to drink your blood i want
37:41Heidi Hayes:or whatever. And you listen to them because it was super cool and your mom wouldn't like it. Like that was the point of listening to those albums, wasn't it?
37:47Amy Wilson:It was for sure. And like, we haven't really addressed it. Like there is a rebellion aspect to this of like, I am going to do things you don't want me to do. I don't know what the effect of violent lyrics are on kids, but I come down on the side of gimlet eyed, I would say. I'm not super interested in lyrics and how they affect children. I mean, my children listen to music that would have peeled the paint off my grandmother's car.
38:16Heidi Hayes:Right.
38:16Amy Wilson:And I don't know.
38:18Heidi Hayes:I don't know. And well, it was also back in the 80s. It was these lyrics were so dangerous and what they were doing was so subversive that it was backwards in the song. And so if you listen to the record backwards, which was easy to do when you had record players, you could just push it around the other way and listen to it backwards.
38:35Amy Wilson:And it would be like, Satan loves you, whatever. There's a million podcasts you can listen to about how in the 80s, we all believe how much time did you spend with a finger spinning records backwards to try to find satanic messages?
38:50Heidi Hayes:Trying to hear like the walrus was Paul, I killed them all or whatever. Every single.
38:55Amy Wilson:And also it's reflecting. I'm not even going to go down the rabbit hole of the satanic panic of the 1980s because again there's a million amazing podcasts about it listen to them it's a fascinating time it's like ha ha ha until people start getting arrested for running satanic daycares people really did go crazy about satanism the idea was that music was secretly programmed to make children harm themselves or others was a prevailing belief.
39:28Heidi Hayes:Yes. And then there was the Dungeons and Dragons panic, which was sort of like an attaché to this. Do you remember Tom Hanks in one of his very first film roles? It was like an after-school special. Played a teen who played so much Dungeons and Dragons that he got like lost in the world. He became a Satanist? He didn't become a Satanist, but he lost his mind. He couldn't come back from the caves of Dungeons and Dragons that his mind was living in, and he had to be saved.
39:55Amy Wilson:I do think it's fascinating, this idea that knowledge is dangerous, is so deep in our genetic code. 60 Minutes did a program in 1985 suggesting that Dungeons and Dragons might cause psychological harm, that it promoted demonology, witchcraft and violence, and that fantasy roleplay blurred the reality between reality and the occult. See also Harry Potter. Harry Potter. That's about what I was about to say.
40:24Heidi Hayes:Right.
40:24Amy Wilson:And I mean, I've heard people who are somewhat intellectual discuss the idea that there is some like universal darkness or some universal dark force that you shouldn't get too close to, kind of like that. there is an idea among religious communities, I think in general, that there is like a devil figure and that that figure is kind of out there and that you can take actions to draw the devil to you. And as I say it out loud, it sounds crazy, but it's something that I feel like we believe as a society.
41:00Heidi Hayes:It's like touching the boat and fighting Nemo. Like you want to do it, even though they were told not to do it and you shouldn't do it. But you want to listen to the heavy metal that talks about Satan or you want to...
41:10Amy Wilson:Yeah, I mean, there's a reason that Adam and Eve is our origin story for like a lot of Western civilization. Knowledge is dangerous. And spooky knowledge is a little bit extra exciting. Right, like spooky knowledge somehow wakes the occult. There's also a ton of interesting writing about how these panics correlate to progressive things happening. So like women leaving the house in the 70s leads to the satanic daycare panic of the 80s. That it is a reaction to societal forces, right?
41:49Heidi Hayes:You can't work because if you put your kid in a daycare, the devil will get them, literally.
41:53Amy Wilson:I mean, the old story in the book, other than Anna and Eve, like Plato's the cave. The idea that people are watching images in a cave and they think it's reality, but there's really a second reality. I think the idea is like we as humans, when scary things happen, we tell stories to make those things make sense. And so we feel a tremendous amount of fear about the role of women changing so profoundly in the 70s. And so in the 80s, it becomes people in daycare are eating children, which is not a logical step, but it is a step that you can parse out. Like you can see the path that got us there.
42:36Heidi Hayes:You literally make up a spooky story that explains the unsettled way that you're feeling.
42:42Amy Wilson:Yes. My brother, who's an attorney, and this was, you know, I have a phrase of the year, but my brother said in a conversation, as a lawyer, anything you don't tell the jury, they will fill in for themselves. And it's a tricky balance because you don't want to bother them by being like, Amy has brown hair. Amy is wearing white earbuds. Amy has eight books behind her. But if you don't give people a story about everything they're seeing, they will fill in this story.
43:11Heidi Hayes:They'll be like, why are those books behind her?
43:12Amy Wilson:They'll be like, why does she have those books? What is she reading about? I think one of them looks like it might be about mice. She has mice in the apartment. That might be why. Like, the ability for people to want a story that wraps around everything is just profound. In the 90s and 2000s, our panic was?
43:32Heidi Hayes:Video games.
43:33Amy Wilson:Right. We were all there for it. Well, some of you probably were, but this went into the 2000s. The story is school shootings, right? And so we start to attach games like Mortal Kombat, Grand Theft Auto to violent video games. And Senator Joe Lieberman in 1993 says, They are teaching a whole new generation of kids to enjoy inflicting torture. That's what video games are doing to kids' minds.
44:00Heidi Hayes:The interactive violence would translate to real violence, which, as you said, our kids certainly live in an age with school shootings and they didn't used to be school shootings. But statistically, it has not borne out. You're right, because we've talked about this and looked into this on the show. One to one, playing a violent video game does not make you more likely to be violent in the real world or to grow up to become someone who would be.
44:22Amy Wilson:That's right. And I think I have come to the understanding or the idea that generally these things that we're afraid of are symptoms of a problem, not causes of a problem. So I think a kid who is in their room eight hours every day playing violent video games by themselves is having a problem. I do not think the violent video game is a cause of that problem. I think it's a symptom of that problem. It's an expression of frustration or anger. I don't even know if it's a healthy or a bad expression of those things, but I don't believe that violent video games. Now, that being said, I didn't let my kids play first person shooter games until they were teenagers.
45:05Heidi Hayes:Me neither. I mean, it's hard to argue that they're awesome. Right. But this panic grows up around them because we are seeing more violence and we need something to blame. Right.
45:14Amy Wilson:And I'm not actually here with solutions today because I don't know where we are in this story with screens. iPads, AI, the internet. We haven't even gotten to the internet in this story. I do think that the internet has unique dangers, but as I say that, people thought the printing press had unique dangers, you know? I mean, I just think the point of this is to look back and say, I hear echoes of a lot of my own fears in the fears that surrounded every new technology since Adam and Eve, the Apple being number one. And I take some comfort in the idea that all of these predictions of doom around these new technologies have not totally borne out over time.
46:03Amy Wilson:That being said, I don't think a kid sitting and watching TV for 12 hours a day is a good idea. I don't think there's nothing to fear from TV. But I do think there's nothing to fear from the written words. So is it just that we're farther out from it? I don't know. It's a little bit more of a question posing episode, but I just really liked going through this history and being like, okay, I'm still going to put limits on my kids' screen time. I'm still going to limit how much they stare at the phone because I think they should be out and breathing fresh air and doing all those great things. But I'm also going to temper some of my panic with the idea that we've done this dance before.
46:46Heidi Hayes:I learned so much from this episode. And the thing I'm going to take away more than any other is that all of these things did change things. Maybe not violent video games, but the radio, the television, right? The rock and roll. Video games certainly changed our culture vastly. They did change things, but the decay and decline and the crashing of civilization to sand did not happen. And it's the panic part. Like we're worried about things changing. Yeah, things are going to change. That's a constant. And it's okay for us to be afraid of it. And it's also possibly true that change is not all bad.
47:19Amy Wilson:And it's also, you can still put limits around television. My parents did not let me watch Three's Company, Amy. Oh, me either. Inappropriate show about two women living with a man. I was not allowed to watch it. Did I sneak off every night and watch Three's Company? I did. But my parents were like, I don't want your mind corrupted by Jack Ritter and Mrs. Roper. That is morally wrong. And it will poison your mind if you watch that. Meanwhile, I'm reading Flowers in the Attic, which is possibly one of the most deranged books ever written.
47:52Heidi Hayes:Oh, my God. And watching Charlie's Angels, which was like the most retrograde sexist nonsense. That was fine.
47:59Amy Wilson:I think that it gives me just a little bit of like a warm hug of the things you're worried about. You could probably turn the dial down on it a little bit. It doesn't mean like take the seatbelt off, let him drive, let him ride in the back of the pickup truck. Like, no, we've learned some things and those things are useful information. but when you start to feel like my children's lives are ruined because I let them watch an iPad when they were three for an hour while we were out to dinner think to yourself like am I hearing a little panic in that and should I just check myself before I proverbially wreck myself
48:38Heidi Hayes:this was a fascinating topic and we love hearing from our listeners about things you want to hear about on the show, parenting related, kind of parenting related or otherwise or otherwise. Lots of ways you can tell us. You can leave a comment on Spotify on this episode and tell us. You can go to our Facebook page, facebook.com slash whatfreshhealthcast. Go to Instagram, whatfreshhealthcast. Go to our YouTube and leave a comment on the shorts for this episode. Wherever we look at it all, we see it all or info at whatfreshhealthpodcast.com.
49:10Amy Wilson:guys, go find us everywhere out there on the internet. There's nothing to be scared of. There's no demons on the internet. You'll be fine. And with that, we will talk to you next time. Thanks for listening. So long.
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From the publisher
Are screens ruining our kids' childhoods? Is AI going to rot our brains in the next thirty days? Or are these the latest examples of a very human tendency: the catastrophizing of change?
From the dawn of the printing press to the Satanic panic over heavy metal lyrics, we explore the long history of social panics, find familiar patterns, and discuss our findings, including:
Why parents are often thrust onto the front lines of new technology fears
Why each generation believes the newest media will cause moral or cognitive decline
The role of mass media and politics in amplifying fear
How parents can keep perspective while still setting healthy limits on technology
Here are links to some of the resources mentioned in the episode:
Brittany Wong for HuffPost: New Study Shows This Social Platform Can Shift Your Politics To The Right — And It Happens Very Fast
Wikipedia: definition of a moral panic
Jo Ellen Parker for Liberal Arts Online: Socrates on Technology
Christie Stratos: Why Did the Victorians Think It Was Dangerous for Women to Read Novels and Newspapers?
Ana Vogrinčič for Media Research Journal: The Novel-Reading Panic in 18thCentury in England: An Outline of an Early Moral Media Panic
Sarah Durn for Atlas Obscura: How Gruesome Penny Dreadfuls Got Victorian Children Reading
Miller Kern for Ball Bearings Magazine: The Downfall of Society
PS Art Books: The Comic Book Burnings of the 1940s: A Cultural Firestorm
What Fresh Hell is co-hosted by Amy Wilson and Margaret Ables.
We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website:
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What Fresh Hell podcast, mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid’s behavior, teenager, tween, child development, family activities, family fun, parent child relationship, decluttering, kid-friendly, invisible workload, default parent, parenting panics, moral panic parenting, screen time kids, technology and children, parenting fears, media panic history, parenting and technology, video games and kids, screen time debate, parenting anxiety, social media and kids, parenting trends history, generational parenting fears, digital parenting
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