Let Kids Roam, Not Scroll: Overprotective Parenting & Facebook Addiction

Ultimize. Across the country, a growing debate is underway over how much independence parents should give their children. Some parents have faced child neglect investigations after allowing children to walk to stores, ride bicycles, or play outside without adult supervision. In one recent Atlanta case, child welfare officials investigated a family after their young son was allowed to go out alone. Horrors. Supporters of greater childhood independence argue that ordinary activities like walking, biking, and playing without constant adult supervision help children develop confidence and resilience. 13 states have now changed their child neglect laws to give parents greater discretion, and bipartisan legislation addressing childhood independence has also been introduced in Congress. I saw this story in the New York Times this week, and I just— my head almost exploded. A woman who allowed her kids to go out and play all of a sudden had child safety services knocking on the door because a busybody neighbor called her in for abuse. I'll tell you what's abuse: parents who give their children cell phones and iPads before they're 16. That's abuse. But if we called in all of those people, our jails would be pretty full. They'd be stocked. They would be way, way too full. So here's what's really going on, folks. Now, yeah, I'm a baby boomer, and you're going to hear me say, well, back in my day, we left home at the crack of dawn and we came home at midnight, and nobody ever asked any questions. Yeah, a little bit of that is true. But the counterargument that I always hear is, well, you know, TJ, in the '70s and '80s and even '90s, those were different times. Things are so much more dangerous now. Well, it turns out that that's a bald-faced lie. Times are not more dangerous now. In fact, it's never been safer to be in America as a kid. Let's look at some of the actual Facts here when it comes to violent crime. Violent crime in 1980, 596 per 100,000. It peaked at 758 in 1991. So things were more dangerous there. And most recent data, less than 400. So crime is almost half of what it was. 35 years ago. It's way lower than when I was a kid. And yet people act like, oh my God, your kid walked a block out of the house. Uh, aren't you afraid they're gonna die? Aren't they gonna be kidnapped? Here's the thing nobody wants to tell you. Nobody wants your kid. Look, I think my kid is wonderful, and you think your kid is wonderful. Everyone thinks their kid is so wonderful. The problem is when you actually scratch the data, there was mass hysteria about kidnapping. Now, according to some reports, there was a time back in the 1980s where legitimate, so-called legitimate news organizations said there was 50,000 kidnappings a year. Oh my gosh, 50,000! Lock up little Billy, lock up little Sally. Put them in the rec room in the basement and double-lock the doors would appear to be a logical reaction to 50,000 kids being kidnapped. But turns out, never happened. According to actual statistics from crime-fighting bureaus, the number of stranger kidnappings is about 100 a year. 100 a year. Let me remind you, 1.2 million people a year across the world die in car crashes, and 100 kids a year. Now, if you're one of the 100, hey, I'm sorry, it's awful. But that's like saying you should never, ever, ever go outside because you might be struck by lightning. I better be careful. Someone might take me up on that. Hey kids, never go outside again. That's sort of the logical conclusion. So here's what really has happened is there's much better data when a kid is taken for a couple of hours in a custody fight. One parent gets full custody, the other one doesn't. Uh, or partial custody. They don't return the kid quickly enough, and that gets in the crime stats. And grandparents do it sometimes, but that's not what people fear. That's not what makes the beginning of a Tom Cruise movie. It's always the stranger grabbing you, slicing up body parts, demanding $10 million in ransom. Guess what? It essentially doesn't happen. There are millions and millions of streets, neighborhoods, towns in America where that has not happened in the last 50 years. And people act like, well, that is, uh, as common as getting sunburned, and it's just as commonplace in the sky. Well, no, it's not. It really isn't. Let me tell you what's really happening. Folks, when you tell your kid, you can never go outside, you can never talk to your kindly neighbor next door, you can't walk 2 blocks to the local 7-Eleven to get a Slurpee without someone 30 years old or older hanging over you, what you're telling kids is you're not reliant, you're not capable. You have no independence to you, and then you're shocked while little Jimmy is 32 years old and still living in your basement because he never learned how to talk to someone to get a job, never learned how to actually communicate in a job interview because he's never had to talk to a human being before. Might be too scary to go out to the playground across the street. That's the real problem. Look, I love my daughter. I sure— I'm sure everyone loves their kids. But we've been sold a bill of goods in the United States, at least this idea that it's somehow more dangerous to be outside than to be in the home. Home is what you should worry about. Why? Because these things— cell phones, iPads, TVs— you know where pedophiles lurk these days? They're not wearing the trench coat. hanging out at the local park, at the slide, in the jungle gym. That's not where they're hanging out. They're hanging out online so they can talk to your kids, whether it's in Minecraft, whether it's in some chat room, whether it's on some social media site. That's where the pedophiles are. So if you actually cared one iota about your child, what you would do is Take away their cell phone. Don't even give them one. Don't even give them an iPad until they are about 16 years old. That's what the leading expert in the entire world, Jonathan Haidt, suggests. I highly recommend you read his book, The Anxious Generation. I've recommended it to dozens, if not hundreds, of parents here in South Florida. Guess what? Nobody read it. I mean, I live in South Florida where reading is considered a bizarre activity, kind of like polar bear hunting. But there are people in the world reading this book. It's been on the bestseller list for years now. But yet, people still persist in this idea that, oh my gosh, my kid's not 35 years old. They couldn't possibly walk 5 blocks to a local grocery store or convenience store, or little Sally, the friend from school, for a playdate at her house. And God forbid we actually let kids play rather than schedule out a playdate and have a parent walk over 2 blocks to— or 2 houses over to safely deposit their precious cargo to the neighbor's backyard. Or forget the backyard, that's too dangerous. To the supervised playroom inside the house. Folks, I see the stats every single day. You do as well, that all these young college grads can't get a job. Here's where the reporting is always lousy. They take the word of the young graduates. Oh, I applied to 500 jobs and didn't hear. What do you mean by applying? I can tell you exactly what's happening. These kids are sitting at home in their bedroom that they've been in since they were an infant or their basement, and they're sitting in front of their iPad and they've got their little mouse there and they're going to job boards and they're clicking send resume, send resume, send resume. Guess what? That's always been a virtually waste of time for job hunting. Not how I ever got any job. It's not the real world. It's a pretend world. If you want a job, you gotta go out and talk to people. You have to network. You have to call people, meet them for coffee, meet them for a drink, go to a social event, go to a networking event, talk to actual human beings. Get used to looking people in the eyes rather than staring down at your phone because, oh, Mommy says there's scary people out here. I better not talk to anyone. That's how you get a job. And just once, I would love to see one of these reporters who's profiling a young person who claims they've sent out 500 resumes and can't get a job. Just once, I'd like to ask them, okay, How many times did you call up everyone in your network that you went to high school and college with and say, hey, can we get together for a cup of coffee? Did you do that 500 times? I don't think so. Did you go through LinkedIn and make insightful comments on 500 people who work for companies you want to work for and do that for a month and then ask them If you could pick their brain for 5 minutes for coffee, if you buy them a coffee, have you done that? I guarantee you they haven't done that. The answer is no, no, no. I'm not comfortable doing that. That's outside of my comfort zone. Well, why are little Timmy and little Sally so uncomfortable? It's essentially not their fault. It's because of parents like you, if you're watching that. Who conditioned your children to be afraid of the outside world, to be afraid of strangers. Never talk to strangers. You know who's got the power to hire you for the best job that could launch your career and create wealth for you? A stranger. You don't know the CEO of any major company right now. You don't know the head of HR, the head of hiring right now. Guess what that makes them? It makes them strangers. And yet, somehow, we bought into this idea that, oh, we should teach our kids not to talk to strangers. Now, in this book that Jonathan Haidt wrote, and he's written a number of great books, he talks about how around 1969, 1970, there was actually a list posted in a major community in America saying your child is not ready to go to first grade unless you can send them on an errand 10 blocks away to buy something from a store and come home. Yes, that was considered a requirement. Your, your student, your kid is actually not really ready to go to first grade. May I remind you, You're typically 5, 6 years old when you're going to first grade. These days, if you recommended to someone, if you saw a 6-year-old 10 blocks away from house, forget calling child services, the SWAT team would be sent out to that kid's parents' house. It would be considered such an outrage. Oh my God, they went to buy milk 10 blocks away. This is the real problem. So many commentators waste their time talking about, oh, isn't it awful these days the kids get participation trophies? We should be so lucky. That would mean a kid actually went out of his house or out of her house and played T-ball or something like that, had to talk to a, a fellow member, a teammate. We should be so lucky. The problem these days is kids aren't even leaving their home because they are too busy, in some cases, talking to pedophiles, because that's where they're communicating. So my message to parents is encourage your kids to go play outside. Are they going to get a scraped knee occasionally? Yeah, there's risk in everything, but you're underestimating how risky it is Being sedentary, never getting any vitamin D from the sun, sitting home alone, letting your skills of talking with people, negotiating with, playing with people, all of that rots. Because when you're sitting in front of one of these, a phone or an iPad, hey, the whole world revolves around you. It's not just AI telling you you're great and wonderful. You can just keep scrolling until you find exactly what you want. You can always play the game you want. You don't You don't have to negotiate. You don't have to take turns. Everything is the way you want. And then you wonder why your kid is 32 years old living in your basement, unemployed, not dating. The chances of you becoming a grandparent, unless you want to buy somebody's eggs and farm that out to a third party, it ain't happening. So, I applaud the efforts of some, and this isn't a— this is not your typical right-left political issue. This is something very different, and I applaud people in various states trying to push things back and getting rid of these ridiculous, absurd rules that somehow involve child safety and child services being called because a kid is outside. Now, I'm not in favor of putting flock cameras inside people's homes. But if we really wanted to protect the, the wellness of children, we would have some kind of monitor on any device given to a child. And then it automatically shuts off after about 90 minutes a day. If you're under 16, or for that matter, under 18. And any parent who lets their kid have more than about 90 minutes of access to a screen, those are the ones that should have child services knocking at their door. Would you like to be the sort of successful person who is dominating news, at least in your industry? Well, if so, it's time to up your skills. At ultimize.com, I've created online courses to help you do that. Now, here's the thing. No obligation. You can get a free course on communication skills, a free course on how to build better habits. All you have to do is go to ultimize.com. That's ultimize.com. No obligation. Go there now. Let's shift to other matters I've been thinking about. Facebook. I hate Facebook. Now, I realize saying that in 2026 doesn't exactly make me a profile in courage. That's not really some sharp, shrewd hot take no one's ever heard before. I understand that. But hear me out. Now, I've hated Facebook for a long time. Well, that's for old people. And then I realized, oh no, I'm 63. I am old. I am part of their target demographic. But Facebook is getting worse and worse and worse and worse. If you haven't read Cory Doctorow's book Enshittification, I urge you to do so because he chronicles exactly what's wrong with Facebook and pretty much every social media platform. But the problem with Facebook is it is so completely morphed into a thousand different ways Against what they initially were all about. I loved Facebook in the beginning. It really did help me stay connected with family and friends and reconnect with old friends that I'd been great friends with, sometimes high school, college, and just lost track of. It was great. Well, guess what? I haven't seen any update from a friend since the Obama administration. It's nonstop bilge pushed out to me, pushed out to me constantly. And I'll be honest with you, for years, I thought, oh, I'm above this. I'm too good. I'm not going to fall. I was pretty disciplined for a long time. I only spent about 5 minutes a day on Facebook. And I patted myself on the back. I'm not all like all these other rubes just making Mark Zuckerberg richer and richer, wasting their lives, scrolling at things that have no impact on their life, getting jealous about people who have stuff. They don't have. I felt superior to them for a long time, but that smirk has been wiped off my face now, sadly. Here's why. And at some point, you have to give a level of respect for Mark Zuckerberg. He is— he may be evil, but he's an evil genius. And a part of that is genius. Because for years, I had a system. Okay, I'm going to go on Facebook, do my business, Get out. 5 minutes a day. And Mark Zuckerberg saw that, and he got one of his henchmen in the room and said, you got to get the minutes up for TJ. We're not making enough money off of him. They said, but, but sir, you're already a multi-billionaire. You already own almost, almost a trillion dollars. You control the minds of 4 billion people around the globe. And Zuckerberg said, I don't care. I want every last one. I want TJ. Keep testing him. Keep experimenting. Keep putting stuff in front of him. I don't care what it takes. They said, oh, well, okay, boss. I don't know why you care about this guy, but we'll do it. Says, it's not that I care about this guy. I care about every single human eyeball on the planet. I'm not going to rest until I get everyone. So they kept on testing. They kept on testing. Now, I grew up watching a lot of junk TV, Gilligan's Island, and they would put these posts up, see what's happened to the last remaining cast member of Gilligan's Island. And I wanted to click, but I didn't. I held back. They would give me so many irresistible videos. They would show beautiful, sexy women. What do you think this person is trying to communicate? I didn't click. I was a paragon of discipline, but Facebook finally broke me. And here's the thing about Facebook, they don't care what you say. They don't read your interest. I can put my interest solving global warming, helping create world peace, electing more progressive candidates. I can say all that. Facebook realizes we don't care what people say. I can think I want to improve my— I think of myself as someone who wants to improve his health, improve his mental capacities, his intellectual prowess. Facebook says, we don't care what TJ thinks he wants. We're going to keep searching until we find exactly what he really wants, and we're going to give it to him. We're going to serve it up again and again and again and again. And they kept experimenting. And you know what? I didn't look at Facebook much for about 10 years, but then about 3 months ago, I did decide I wanted to really learn about stand-up comedy. Started doing open mics here in my community, and lo and behold, Facebook read my mind. So now, every single day, the world's greatest stand-up comedians Ever right at my feet. Oh, I go into Facebook. I'm only going to spend five minutes today at most. See if there's any important messages. Check into my community groups that I manage for my business. Only five minutes today. Oh, there's a Jerry Seinfeld clip. Just for research purposes, I'll watch two minutes gone. I'm about to leave, and oh. Here's Jim Gaffigan. He's hysterical. How could I not watch Hot Pockets one more time? That's not wasting time, TJ. That's, uh, research for comedy. Okay, I'm about to leave. I said, that's it, no more time. And then there's Anthony Jeselnik right there in my Facebook feed. How did Facebook know I love him? I find him hysterical. I want to get on with my business of the day. I want to get on with making more courses and podcasts and audiobooks and all of that stuff. But there's Anthony Jeselnik. Well, that's not wasting time, that's just continuing education. So more and more. Now I'm gonna leave, but there's a clip from 1990 from Paula Poundstone. She's hysterical. That's basically an unpaid internship to help me with my comedic goals. So he got me. Somewhere in Zuckerberg's office is my scalp on the walls. Like, we got him. We're now getting this sucker to spend half an hour, hour a day. We're delivering so many video ads because there's the real money. That's what Facebook figured out. Forget these posts of, I'm well because I'm surviving a hurricane or earthquake. Nobody cares about that. It's really, how can we get people to watch video? Because we can make more money selling these video ads. I mean, here's the sad reality. I mean, when I look at my extended family in the last 10 years, a third of them could have died, a third of them got— gotten divorced, a third of them could have had kids. I wouldn't know because I don't see any of their stuff anymore. All I see was— is pop culture dross, which is, you know, the stuff about Gilligan's Island surviving members. But now I have to give it to them. They're giving me what I want. That's the big problem. And that's why Mark Zuckerberg is almost a trillionaire and I'm not and you're not. He figured out you keep at it, you keep giving them stuff, and eventually you're going to find what clicks and you become addicted. I'm sad to say I very well may be addicted. Are you? That's my take on Facebook. What's yours? I mean, and I didn't even get to the point where, you know, probably their greatest evil is how they hook children. They're getting them addicted. Oh, we would never serve anything. We would never let anyone have an account who's underage. Yeah, how, how How stringently is that really age-gated? This idea that you can't force some hardcore restrictions and parental controls and IDs and driver's licenses for accounts like this, nonsense. If any liquor store in the country can do it, so can social media if they wanted to. They don't want to. They want to tease your kids. They want to engage your kids and get them hooked. For lifelong extraction. They want to crawl into your 10-year-old's brain and suck out every brain cell and replace it with sheer stupidity so that that person will giggle and laugh and be titillated and be angered, especially angered by nonsense served up in the feed, not by anyone in their family. Not by any friends. In all likelihood, nobody who even lives in their state. They want you seeing the same anger merchants for the most part, but in some cases entertainers, so that you spend hours and hours a day so they can make money off of your eyeballs. And it relates to the issue discussed earlier today. Parents, if you want to be a real parent, if you want to be a good parent, forget telling your kid to come home off the playground. Forget telling your kid, oh, you can't walk across the street. Take the phone away from your kid. If they've got a Facebook account, why don't you just delete it? I guarantee you that won't be the worst thing that happened in their childhood. I'm TJ Walker. This is Filtered. Ultimize.