On growing out of 'edgy' entertainment



I don’t really care about “really dark” TV shows or “screwed up” movies anymore.

They're supposed to rattle me or provoke me, but they don’t. They just bore me. I’m completely uninterested.

It’s almost as if these stories are created by people who have never really reflected on the deeper nature of life and tragedy.

In my 20s, I went through the typical phase of thinking shows and movies that “pushed the limit” were interesting, or at least might be worth watching. I don’t remember when exactly I grew out of that phase, but I can say confidently I am completely out of it at this point. I really just do not care about dark, screwed up, edgy, boundary-pushing television or movies anymore.

Method to the madness?

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t one of these people who are decidedly into shows or movies that push it as far as one can take it. But I wasn’t against it, either.

I thought there may be a reason why shows need to push you, shock you, or disgust you. That something more interesting was going on. That by brutalizing your eyes and sensibilities, they were preparing you for some kind of deeper truth or revelation that can only be understood in that kind of presentation.

Even if it seems confusing at first, there is a logic to the thing. Just wait. The story can only be told in this form, and you cannot extract the meaning without the brutalization. I was open to that theory of it all.

I’ve been trying to figure out why exactly I stopped being interested in this kind of thing. I can’t really pinpoint a year it happened. I can’t really figure out an exact reason, either.

Aging out

For a while, I thought it was because I became a parent. It would make sense. You are thinking about your kids all the time, so you end up transposing stories and all of that onto your thoughts about them, and it forces your tastes to change. You don’t really want to watch this garbage anymore.

I thought that could be it, but upon further reflection, I don’t think it is.

I think it happened as I aged.

Aging doesn’t happen in a linear fashion. Yes, our official age according to the United States government and every other legal entity on earth changes according to a universally recognized system of days, weeks, months, and years. And yes, it is all linear. But that’s not the kind of aging I am talking about.

I am talking about growing older, becoming more mature. It’s more than just a number. We go years without aging very much, and then, suddenly, we age a bunch over a few months. Something happens — sometimes something good, but more often than not it’s something bad — we are pulled through the ringer, and when we come out on the other side, it feels like we are different people in a bunch of ways we can’t really put our finger on. We aged.

After aging just a little, experiencing some things that weren’t exactly great, getting beat up a little bit here and there, and coming to realize that life is more fragile than I previously thought, I kind of stopped being so enthralled with the pointlessly vulgar and masochistically depressing television shows that seem to be everywhere.

Taste trumps trickery

My disinterest in this style of media isn’t just due to sentimentalism — though it would be just fine if it were — it’s about taste.

As I mentioned earlier, I originally thought there was a method to the madness and that the brutalization was necessary for the message, or question, of the art to be communicated. But the truth is, most of it’s not really art. It’s not really that thoughtful, either.

But it appears to be thoughtful mostly because it’s really easy to mass produce an endless stream of brooding and unsettling video imagery today. It’s a trick, basically.

Low brightness, strong contrast, minimal dialogue, strings scraping long chords every few minutes. Everything in Aeolian mode. Nihilistic characters who are disturbed, selfish, psychopathic, and generally unlikable. Pointlessly shocking details that convey a “really dark” sensibility with no resolution. You can crank that out over and over again and people eat it up.

It’s all so obvious and heavy-handed. It’s so predictable and boring. The drive toward crudity isn’t a necessary part of uncovering richer insights into the human experience. It’s just a pointless, desensitized form of slop that rots one’s brain and taste.

Blunt and obvious

It’s almost as if these stories are created by people who have never really reflected on the deeper nature of life and tragedy. Or maybe they haven’t ever developed any kind of nuanced emotional sensibility, so the only way they have to portray “feeling” is in the most blunt and obvious way imaginable.

I think that gets to the bottom of it. Having aged just a little bit has shown me some things about myself and life that are more sensitive and too delicate to portray, or exist in concert with, such grotesque storytelling.

Encountering such blunt, needlessly provocative eye-poking just grates on me at this point. It doesn’t shock me. It doesn’t provoke me. It doesn’t do anything they want it to do.

It just irritates me. Bores me. It feels like listening to a crappy garage band after hearing a string quartet play Mozart.

Happy scam: Why the 'hell' of parenthood actually sets you free



Do parents live in hell?

On a recent episode of the "Call Her Daddy" podcast, pop singer Chappell Roan explained whether she will ever become a mother.

"All of my friends who have kids are in hell," Roan said. "I actually don’t know anyone who is happy and has children at this age. Like, a 1-year-old, like 3-year old — 4 and under, 5 and under. I literally have not met anyone who is happy, anyone who has light in their eyes, anyone who has slept."

Predictably, Roan's comments lit a fire of controversy online. It's easy, after all, for an unmarried, childless, famous multimillionaire to criticize one of life's most difficult vocations: parenthood.

But here's the thing: I'm actually thankful she said it.

Not because I agree with her on principle, but because it gave me, a 29-year-old father of an 8-month-old son, the opportunity to reflect on parenthood. And she's right: By the world's standards, parents aren't "happy" — but that says more about the standards than about parenthood.

What is happiness, actually?

Roan's feelings about parenthood reveal a deep assumption about the purpose of life.

On some level, she believes the goal of life is happiness, and she's not alone. It's a value that our "me-first" culture holds tight.

But what does it mean to be "happy"?

The "me-first" culture believes that true happiness is freedom. To be truly "happy" means you are free from outside constraints on your desires. Free from obligations. Free from discomfort. Free from anyone else's needs. The happiness our culture celebrates is the temporary feeling you get when you are free to "live your best life" right now. And, of course, it happens on your own terms. No interruptions. No compromises. Good vibes only.

It's a selfish life focused inward on número uno.

Parenthood is hard. Demanding. Exhausting. Inconvenient. Discomforting. But that's the point.

Parenthood not only runs afoul of these rules for a "happy life" — it's the exact opposite.

Parenthood demands sacrifice. It costs time, money, comfort, and sleep. It requires you to look beyond yourself and to put the needs of others before your own. As a parent, I don't get to do whatever I want, whenever I want. On the contrary, I serve my family, and that requires me to consider their needs, wants, and desires before my own.

So yes, by Roan's definition of happiness, I am not "happy."

But I am deeply fulfilled, joyful, and content. Anchored to something truly good.

There is nothing better than seeing my son light up with laughter. The joy of watching him grow is a joy I did not know before he was born.

I am not a parent for myself. I am not doing this for a return on investment. I know that I may never "get back" everything that I am pouring out and will pour out for my family. But that is the point: I am building a future — for my wife, my children, and my children's children — not for me.

This is what Roan doesn't understand. She thinks parenthood is "hell" because it doesn't serve her.

But parenthood isn't about me — it's about them.

The 'hell' is the point

Parenthood is hard. Demanding. Exhausting. Inconvenient. Discomforting.

But that's the point.

The "hell" that Roan speaks of is actually a forge in which your selfish desires and constant need for freedom are burned away. When you embrace the fire, you come out transformed — refined, seasoned, and mature. The final product is infinitely better.

Parenthood teaches you discipline. You learn the value of sacrifice. You learn how to be others-first, putting their burdens before your own needs — not out of begrudging obligation — but out of love. Parenthood teaches you that true love endures.

The rewards of parenthood cannot be found in sex, money, fame, or attention. They're not found on Instagram, on TikTok, or in the next dopamine rush.

Roan calls this "hell." On some level, I agree with her. Parenthood is a severe mercy that demands suffering. But it's beautiful. It gives you purpose and meaning. It deeply transforms you out of selfishness and into maturity. And in the end, it gives you a legacy.

Just ask the patriarch or matriarch surrounded by the multigenerational legacy they sacrificed time, money, and comfort for. That's not hell. That's heaven breaking through.

Sorry in the end

I'm not mad or offended by Roan's comments. I feel sad for her.

Right now, she gets to enjoy the freedom of fame, money, and a child-free life. She can do whatever she wants. If parenthood is "hell," then Roan is seizing life to craft heaven as it is good in her own eyes.

But eventually, the tables will turn.

If Roan chooses never to accept life's greatest vocation and step into parenthood, she will end up sad, empty, full of regret, and on her deathbed, alone. Not only do studies show that married parents are happiest, but we all know someone who avoided commitment, choosing not to get married or have kids.

Their lives are sad and hollow. They bought the lie that the good life is about maximizing pleasure and minimizing responsibility. Tragically, they learn it's a scam when it's too late.

Life rewards the labor of parenting with cherished memories, deep and meaningful relationships, and generational impact. Life also rewards the labor of selfishness: In the end, there is nothing. All of that "freedom" locks you into the confinement of solitude.

That's the real hell.

Don't buy into the happy scam. Embrace the "hell" of parenthood. Joy, purpose, and fulfillment are waiting for you on the other side.

Chappell Roan’s Belief That Raising Children Is ‘Hell’ Is Out Of Touch (And Out Of Line)

[rebelmouse-proxy-image https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-31-at-7.17.44 AM-e1743429660875-1200x675.png crop_info="%7B%22image%22%3A%20%22https%3A//thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-31-at-7.17.44%5Cu202fAM-e1743429660875-1200x675.png%22%7D" expand=1]Chappell Roan’s misconceptions about parenthood have G-O-T-T-O-G-O.

You are a child until you have a child



You are a child until you have a child.

Right up until the moment you hold that baby in your arms, you are a child yourself. You see the world from that perspective. You are on that side of things, and it colors everything you feel.

My dad always used to joke about how he would never go see us in our room when we were sleeping because we always looked too sweet. That’s parental humor. The good stuff.

You might be an old child, one who graduated college a decade ago, but you are still a child.

And then it all changes. Or at least the seeds of the change are planted, and you are thrown onto the other side, forever.

The great divide

The world is divided between those with children and those without. It's parents vs. the childless in our society, and the battle is just getting started. It will only intensify as we move into the future, and greater numbers of childless people grow older without becoming parents.

But I'm not here to stoke this conflict. I'm not here to attack those who, for whatever reason, don't have kids. I merely want to state a fact of life. We are not the same.

It’s hard to nail down what it is that really separates the children from those with children. It’s not politics. It’s not money. It’s not education. It’s not culture. There are those with children and those without on all sides.

Nor is it being a good person. There are bad people who are bad parents. Great people who are not parents.

It’s not necessarily responsibility either, even though kids do demand that. It’s deeper than all these things. It’s some kind of essence or knowledge. Or maybe it’s some kind of acceptance of a constellation of truths that you only perceive once you have kids.

Falling short

There’s something about imperfection. That’s one of those truths in the constellation. It’s not just the surface imperfection of the scratched up tables, the walls that always end up covered in scribbles, or the realization that you are not going to have “nice things” for a long time.

(And that’s OK, by the way. Nice things are overrated.)

But it’s more than all that. Something stranger. It’s about the imperfection of life itself. Having kids forces us to give up trying to think of ourselves as perfect. When we are parents, we try to be better than we were, because we want to be good role models. So we aspire to be greater (or more perfect) in this sense.

But at the same time, our children can't help but reveal how far we fall short. Their innocence reveals our corrupt nature in more poignant terms. Life isn’t perfect; neither are we.

You’re beat, sick of work, sick of corralling the kids in the car, sick of ushering them along the sidewalk, sick of cleaning up rice from the floor after dinner, tired as hell, and counting down the minutes until you can finally get a break once the kids are in bed. And then, once they are finally asleep, about 15 minutes later, you feel bad for wanting to get them in bed as soon as possible.

“Damn it.”

The good stuff

There’s a certain way you say that word as a dad. Under your breath, by yourself, in the morning, late at night, in the car, out back behind the house, just sitting there by the window, looking at a photo of your kids from a few years back.

The way you say it, that’s the tragic part. The resigned part.

It’s the feeling that no childless person understands. My dad always used to joke about how he would never go see us in our room when we were sleeping because we always looked too sweet. That’s parental humor. The good stuff. Sardonic and deeply sensitive at the same time, if you get it. It’s the stuff that you can’t relate to if you are childless.

You are spinning plates when you have kids. Your arms reach wider, and you are pulled 100 ways at once.

Benevolent dictator

You take on more roles than ever before. You are like a dictator who controls the education system, religious system, medical system, housing, and everything else you could possibly imagine all at the same time, 24/7, for decades.

Your stress tolerance increases, and you just naturally start to think about yourself less than you did before. You fade in a sense, and you are no longer the center of your own world.

You are a leader and need to manage your people like a ruler manages his, and it demands a stronger stomach. You have to lie all the time because you don’t ever tell your kids the whole truth. Answers for a 5-year-old aren’t fully honest answers. There are things they shouldn’t know yet.

You also teach your kids never to lie in the next breath. Yes, it’s complicated.

In truth, for parents the concerns of the childless are hard to take so seriously. They seem more and more petty the deeper into parenthood you get. They feel like the concerns of children.

But you know they don’t feel like it to them because you remember how you felt before you had kids, when you were a child, too. It’s not their fault for feeling like that, and it’s not ours for feeling like we do. None of it is anyone’s fault. It’s OK, we all have our own role in this life. But we aren’t the same.

You’re a child until you have a child, and you can never go back.

LeBron’s toughest opponent yet? Fatherhood



The public feud between Stephen A. Smith and LeBron James shows no signs of dying down after the ESPN personality recently went on a popular basketball podcast to talk about his confrontation with the NBA superstar.

Smith claims LeBron confronted him during a Lakers home game over criticism directed at his son Bronny. Smith maintained, however, that his criticism has always been about LeBron’s role in getting his son into the league.

Bronny needs what every man in a highly competitive field desires: respect.

It is easy to understand why LeBron was upset. He has been the face of the NBA for the better part of 20 years. He is a four-time champion, and many believe he is the greatest basketball player of all time. He has never been in trouble with the law and has maintained a public image as a solid family man throughout his career. Playing on the same team as his son was clearly an important career goal, especially considering he grew up without his father.

One of life’s most valuable lessons is that experiencing scarcity in childhood often drives indulgence in adulthood. For example, people who become successful after growing up poor often give their kids all the toys, clothes, and gifts they didn’t receive. Most people understand this impulse, but that doesn’t change the reality that children who get everything they want can quickly become spoiled and entitled. Parents sometimes make well-intentioned decisions that stunt the development of their children.

Bronny’s challenge

LeBron’s place in NBA history is cemented, but the same cannot be said for his son.

Bronny needs what every man in a highly competitive field desires: respect. It is the one thing his father’s wealth cannot buy. It also cannot be secured through social pressure, coercion, or intimidation. Not even “King James” can bequeath the legacy he’s built in the NBA to his oldest son.

Respect must be earned through a person’s hard work and accomplishment. Without it, Bronny will spend his entire career fighting the perception he’s a privileged kid who took someone’s roster spot. His opponents will use that narrative to get under his skin and try their hardest to embarrass him on the court.

No one is rooting against Bronny, but his path to the league and Lakers leaves sports journalists no choice but to talk about his game and the role his father played in securing him a spot on the roster. It’s hard enough to make the transition to the NBA after one year of college for once-in-a-generation players with physical gifts like Zion Williamson. It’s even harder to make the case that a freshman who averaged five points a game at USC is ready for the professional game.

Parental instincts

But this issue is bigger than basketball. Talking about the confrontation between LeBron James and Stephen A. Smith makes for entertaining content, but this entire situation is really about the relationship between fathers and sons.

Sons begin emulating their fathers at a young age. They wear their clothes and mimic their mannerisms. As they get older, some boys go even further by attempting to walk in their father’s professional footsteps. It’s difficult enough for the average kid to do this successfully. The challenge is amplified exponentially when your father is a global icon who has been at the top of his profession for decades.

LeBron and Bronny should’ve sat down with Denzel Washington and his son John David to discuss the challenges of being a son in a superstar father’s shadow. Professional sports and acting are not the same, but Denzel probably would have been criticized if he had pulled his son out of a small community theater where he struggled to memorize his lines and demanded that he receive a role on Broadway.

The elder Washington knows his name and reputation carry a lot of weight. He also likely knows that publicly pulling strings to help his son when it’s clear he is not ready for the big stage would do more harm than good. That’s because men must learn how to stand on their own two feet, which means the parental instinct to protect a child — even when he’s an adult — must be balanced with age-appropriate encouragement toward independence. Children learn this at a young age, which is why they'll eventually turn to their parents and say, “I’ve got this, Mom,” or, “I can do it, Dad.”

The pursuit of independence is the unofficial rite of passage into manhood. Anyone or anything — regardless of how well-intentioned — that interrupts that pursuit does a young man a disservice. No father wants to see his son struggle needlessly, but part of raising children is understanding the role obstacles play in building character.

LeBron James has reigned over the NBA for 20 years, but Bronny will never feel like a king as long as he is treated like a privileged prince in constant need of protection.

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Bluey's dad isn't so bad — and moms can be overly nurturing too



Does "Bluey" really "turn fathers into mothers"?

That's the claim Jeremy Pryor makes in a recent article for Align, arguing that that the mega-popular cartoon attacks the traditional family, especially in its depiction of fatherhood.

Any parent — father or mother — who fits Pryor’s description of 'Bluey’s' Bandit is in fact an active detriment to his or her children.

Bandit (the dad in "Bluey"), Pryor contends, is “constantly nurturing” and “always present.” He is no disciplinarian but “a plaything” in the eyes of his children.

Don't blame Bandit

First, let me be clear: I’m not sure that Pryor’s take is quite fair to Bandit, who seems in my limited exposure to "Bluey" perhaps overly gentle but not pathologically so. This is, after all, a preschoolers’ show.

That said, Pryor’s broader point about our mistaken postmodern paternal ideal is well taken. The idea that dads should always be accommodating and never be intimidating is, like most postmodern ideas, an infantile fantasy. It takes no account of human nature and creates misery wherever it is permitted to fester unchecked.

Pryor may have picked a poor example to make a valid point about what children need from their fathers.

Nevertheless, his critique of our modern investment in parental androgyny raises a question worth addressing: What makes an ideal father different from an ideal mother?

Nurture shock

Pryor contends that the very qualities he says make Bandit a lousy father — constant nurture, constant presence, always pleasant playmate — would make a woman an ideal mother.

Putting aside the question of whether Bandit in fact displays these traits to such excess, is that true? I would submit not.

Per Mary Wollstonecraft, the founding mother of feminism before it all went so terribly wrong: “Weak, enervated women” are “unfit to be mothers.” A woman who responds to her child’s every whim is not raising that child to engage the wider world but delimiting his capacity to engage anyone but her. The archetypal term for this insidious maternal figure is the “devouring mother.”

The devouring mother does have a long and storied history; she is an archetype for a reason. But she cannot be considered “traditional.” After all, women throughout most of history could not focus with such martyred self-abnegation on their children. They simply had too many other things to do.

Getting to good enough

Until industrialization, when middle- and upper-class women could for the first time in history devote themselves solely to the domestic welfare of their own nuclear families, nearly all women labored alongside their husbands and children on farms.

In these circumstances, the best a woman could hope for was to be a “good enough” mother: loving and strict and far too busy to be next to her child every second, like the mom in "Little House on the Prairie" or the one in the “Kirsten” books of the original "American Girl" series.

Fortunately, it turns out that “good enough” is what’s best.

Any parent — father or mother — who fits Pryor’s description of "Bluey’s" Bandit is in fact an active detriment to his or her children. Judging by today’s soaring rates of childhood misbehavior, mental health problems, and fragility, we do indeed have far too many such parents.

So if mothers should not be hovering pushovers any more than fathers should, what makes fathers unique and uniquely valuable?

Dad duty

Personally, I have two answers.

First, fathers provide a different kind of discipline — but only to a point. Yes, “talk to Daddy” is drawn as a leveling up of firmness in my house. Mommy is plenty firm, but Daddy has a different impact because Daddy is a man. But I also have four boys and no girls. If I had four daughters and no sons instead, I truly cannot imagine a scenario in which my husband would be the heavy; in fact, it would almost certainly go the other way.

Second, per Pryor, fathers do tend to offer a unique kind of “territory-expanding” and “training,” particularly to sons but also to daughters.

I am a “he’s fine” kind of mom. In part because it’s not my personality and in part because I know it’s not a good idea, I do not gasp or run over when my kid skins a knee or even a chin. I try to respond to what my kid says he needs (sometimes a hug, sometimes ice, often nothing), not react to what I saw.

But I am a mom, and I have my limits.

Checks and balances

I “let grow” pretty well, but when my kids aren’t back to my side exactly when I expect them to be — say, from the library across the street or from a bike ride around the block — I am always on the precipice of running to find them.

My anxiety is inevitably written all over my face. And my kids would surely see that, were I to follow my impulse and dash off at the first suspicion that they might be trying without immediate success to find their way back to me. Fortunately, my husband’s voice is always in my head, and often in my ear: “This is about you getting reassured, not about them being safe. They are fine. They will be fine. Do not worry them with your worry.”

I am beginning to notice that my sons tend to stay calm even when they are unsettled precisely because they have a dad who models that kind of stoicism consistently. Dads do tend, I think, to keep their sights trained more steadily than moms do on the endgame of raising adults who can manage real life, including when it’s scary.

So part of being a “good enough” mom, I guess, is knowing when to get out of the way and let Dad do his job.

Having Babies Might Cure Depression | Guest: Dr. Catherine Pakaluk | Ep 1079
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Having Babies Might Cure Depression | Guest: Dr. Catherine Pakaluk | Ep 1079

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