#84 - Social Media Misinformation and Parenting

Tik-Schlock Parenting; They/Them/Their; Everything Will be Fine

Hello, my friends,

I mentioned that I was tired last week, well whatever it was really took hold this week. On Monday evening I completely lost my voice and struggled to talk above a whisper all day Tuesday. Thankfully, I didn’t have any events to host or meetings to attend. I even talked to myself in a whisper which made it feel like I was filming an ASMR video all day long! I did make it through the entire day on Tuesday (and was productive to boot), but when I woke up on Wednesday, I was so tired that I called out from work. My voice was half-and-half that day, and returned to trustworthy production on Thursday.

This is fortunate because I am signed up for an open mic on Friday afternoon with friend of HMF and future poet laureate of somewhere nice, Joe, who will be reading his work and I did not want to miss out on his poetry and conversation before he left for Japan. A big thank you goes out to Kim, another friend of HMF, who was in town and met up with me on Monday evening before my voice went kaput. Kim let me do my set for her as we sat next to each other near the Helm’s Bakery building in Culver City. I don’t know if you’ve ever been directly assaulted by comedy one-on-one, but Kim took it with courage and even laughed at my jokes, which was nice of her. I created an Instagram account for my stage name, dell pickles. I probably won’t update it very much (or at all), other than the AI-generated profile pic that I enjoyed creating, but you can follow the account if you want.

Last week, I wrote a library essay that was part of a “seed pod” on SmallStack. I ended up reading a lot of other people’s library posts. A bunch were fairly low-effort, tbh, but a few were really good! I subscribed to Vera Monstera because of the library piece, but urge you to read Jenny Parrott’s latest post if you want to know what it’s like to be inside a bear mascot! Another is Escape to the Bookshop, which is about an adventurous Californian who is opening a bookshop in an Italian village. And if you just want one thing to read, try “Sho Me the Money: Why Star Baseball Players Are Earners, But Not Always Winners” which was featured on SmallStack this week. It’s a fascinating read even if you aren’t a sports fan.

“Game, fish, pickles (Still Life with pheasant)” (1915-16) by Ilya Mashkov

Tik-Schlock Parenting

I am not a big fan of Tik Tok and if that makes me a curmudgeon I’m fine with that. Really, the platform is fine and some of the videos are highly amusing and interesting, but, to me, the downsides of this kinetic app overshadow the positives. Seeing these short videos on Facebook and YouTube, I am overwhelmed by how addictive they are and regularly have to pull myself away from them by force. An entire app of just this is not a nutritious way to spend time, especially since Tik Tok is so very addictive. Another downside of Tik Tok is that, in my opinion, a lot of the popular videos and constant copycat trends are boring and kind-of stupid. They’re not for me — I’m obviously not their target audience. The biggest downside to Tik Tok, though, is the overabundance of absolutely awful information delivered with debilitating self-assurance.

One example of this is exemplified in the The Pudding essay “Is Sleep Training Harmful?” that considers how this question is debated on social media, especially Tik Tok. Spoiler alert: “If we look at all 75 clinical trials across the aforementioned literature reviews, over 30,000 babies participated between 1980 and 2022. The clinical consensus isn’t divided: to date, no published research points to sleep training causing harm, and the majority of published pediatric sleep researchers advocate sleep training.” (my emphasis)

Yet, despite the overwhelming (actually apparently unanimous) scientific consensus that sleep training is not harmful, people all over social media have very strong stances on it claiming all sorts of absolutely insane stuff.

Note: My opinion is that the main options for the majority of “big” parenting decisions (breastfeeding vs. formula, how long to breastfeed, childcare or homecare, co-sleeping, sleep training, when to potty train, method of potty training, etc.) are not harmful to kids. The ones that are are pretty obvious. For instance, if parents wait to potty train until their child is six, there are social challenges for the child and it becomes much more difficult to do it from a purely physiologically perspective. But whether parents want to do it by using cloth diapers and prompting very early or at 2.5, 3, 3.5, isn’t going to harm the child no matter what the social media screamers say.

This mess of information is also true for diet, exercise, and political topics. Way too much of what people who claim to be experts (or talk with the confidence of experts) put out on Tik Tok is actively harmful to a lot of people, especially the (younger) folks who may not have the breadth of world experience or critical thinking skills to see something and determine its truth value.

When it comes to parenting, a highly-charged subject for many participants, it’s not just the faulty information that matters, but also the emotionally-laden nature of the social media messaging that can be harmful. Parents do not need to be yelled at by strangers about making totally normal, non-harmful, decisions for their kids. This is a net loss for society. Boo, Tik Tok, booooooooo!

“Baby Bill in Cap and Shift” (1889-90) by Mary Cassatt

They/Them/Their

I lead the Pride Committee at my work and was recently in a meeting where a guest speaker mentioned that since they did not know a person’s preferred pronouns they would default to referring to that person as “they”. I found this to be an eminently respectful way to proceed when a person’s pronouns are unknown or unclear.

There are many reasons why someone would use “they/them/their” as their pronouns that range from a identifying as genderfluid and using these pronouns as a conscientious way to eschew others asking for their preferred pronouns on any given day to someone who is in a period of transitioning, and many, many more. In my view, compared to the polar natures of he/him/his and she/her/hers, they/them/theirs can serve as a positive neutral — neither adding nor taking away from a person’s gender identity.

For me, this feels like an island that is worthwhile to live on, so for what it’s worth, my pronouns are he/him/his and also they/them/theirs. I am in favor of a linguistic shift in which, as our guest speaker used it, they/them/theirs keeps moving towards becoming a respectful neutral (without removing all of the other meanings), kind of like usted in Spanish and вы in Russian, but with the sense of recognition and respect instead of the distance of formality.

Overall, my favorite pronouns are we/us/ours because we live and work together, simple courtesy is important between us, and through that community can be ours.

“Utan titel (from Fest i potatislandet)” by Elsa Beskow

Everything Will be Fine

One of my favorite ways to shock people when I’m doing library outreach is to tell them that we no longer have fines. It’s been just over three years since we stopped charging overdue fines and it’s still tickles me to say, “Hold on there! You won’t have to worry about bringing your stuff back late. Bring it when you can and we’ll be all good.”

Being fine-free is a relevant fact in outreach interactions because many people, especially those with little kids, are wont to get a library card because they don’t want to dig themselves into a hole borrowing books and forgetting to bring them back. “It’s okay,” I assure them, “we don’t want your money. We want you to use the library!” Why? Because people already pay for the library with their tax dollars.

Most library items are not in high demand so if a person keeps them for another week or two, so what? And even if an item is a big deal, we likely have additional copies. A public library is not supposed to be a system of punishment or a revenue generator for municipalities, which is what overdue fines signify. Many libraries that have gone fine-free (and there are quite a few) partially as a way to affirm that most library patrons are good — they follow the rules and use the library as it’s intended. As for the bad actors? Overdue fines won’t stop them from stealing and library staff aren’t going to chase them down.

There are lots of things I like to tell people when I do library outreach but my favorite thing to do is to ask them what their dreams are. I don’t get to do it that often because it can get busy and not everyone is in for such a deep conversation at an outreach booth. The subtext is always there, though, how can the library help you achieve your goals and dreams? If you don’t know, I can help you find a way.

Time Machine

Here’s what I wrote in HMF a year ago (in issue #31):

• Camp Something: A debrief of a camping trip I took with my brother to the North Shore Campground near Lake Arrowhead.

• Work Music: A list of albums I like to listen to at work.

• If You Write a Poem in the Forest: Expressing disappointment at the paltry audience for poetry.