Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to Okay f Daily with
Speaker 1: Me your Girl, Danielle Moody recording from the Home Bunker, Folks,
Speaker 1: Today I get into a conversation with our friend, doctor
Speaker 1: Jonathan Metzel about the mental and emotional well being of
Speaker 1: the nation's children. As a former educator and just somebody
Speaker 1: who gives a shit about the future of this country,
Speaker 1: I am really concerned with the stress, anxiety, and fear
Speaker 1: that our young people are dealing with. Not only have
Speaker 1: we created an environment where it is now the norm
Speaker 1: for children in schools to do active shooter drills as
Speaker 1: opposed to just the fire drills that most of us
Speaker 1: grew up with. Not only is it the norm for
Speaker 1: as a part of putting together back to school supplies,
Speaker 1: for parents to be googling bulletproof backpacks. Now we have
Speaker 1: young people who are living in Red States who are
Speaker 1: having books banned, books that represent them, their lives, their families.
Speaker 1: The message that is being sent purposefully to those young
Speaker 1: people who are queer, who are black and brown, who
Speaker 1: come from queer families is that we do not see you.
Speaker 1: Not only do we not see you, we don't want
Speaker 1: to see you. Your existence, your experience. Your life doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: and not only should it not matter, it should be banned,
Speaker 1: It should be illegal for you to exist. We are
Speaker 1: in this country weaponizing our children. Jonathan and I will
Speaker 1: get into a discussion on what the future looks like
Speaker 1: when we are not tending to the needs of young
Speaker 1: people but instead using them as a political football. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, when I say we, I mean all of America,
Speaker 1: but it is really the Republican regime that does not
Speaker 1: give a damn about your kids and your children's well being,
Speaker 1: because if they did, they wouldn't be continuing on their
Speaker 1: march to defunding public education. They wouldn't be offering up
Speaker 1: policies that have people with zero experience quote unquote teaching
Speaker 1: your young people. If we cared about kids, we would
Speaker 1: care about teachers, and we would pay them a wage
Speaker 1: that is worth the work that they are doing to
Speaker 1: shape the minds of future leaders, innovators, and workers in
Speaker 1: this country. We don't. Every time there is a shooting,
Speaker 1: we send in mental health professionals for what a month,
Speaker 1: two months, and then we assume what that Kids shrug
Speaker 1: this off and just continue about their days. What Jonathan
Speaker 1: will talk about is the fact that what these young
Speaker 1: people are dealing with is not something that can be
Speaker 1: fixed with a pill. This isn't about a lack of
Speaker 1: serotonin level or a mental health disorder. It is about
Speaker 1: society structural injustice. And so, what does America look like
Speaker 1: ten years, twenty years, thirty years, fifty years down the road.
Speaker 1: If this is what we are doing to our young
Speaker 1: people now, does it look like Putin's Russia? This man
Speaker 1: wants to be a world power, wants to be the
Speaker 1: force of yesteryear, but he doesn't have the workforce, the innovation,
Speaker 1: the creativity, or anything to actually bring that country forward,
Speaker 1: because how does that work when you have an oppressive regime.
Speaker 1: Jonathan will talk about what we know to be true
Speaker 1: through research with regard to diverse work environments with people
Speaker 1: from varied cultural, ethnic, and racial backgrounds. In those environments,
Speaker 1: you're able to work with and deal with and create
Speaker 1: and design creative systems to deal with the issues of
Speaker 1: today because you're coming with so many different vantage points.
Speaker 1: America isn't just a backsliding democracy. It will have a
Speaker 1: backsliding economy. It will cease to be a world leader
Speaker 1: because you can't do that with the restrictions and oppression
Speaker 1: that Republicans are putting in place. So what does the
Speaker 1: future of America look like? It's sure as hell doesn't
Speaker 1: look bright. Coming up next, my conversation with our friend
Speaker 1: and our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel. The Damage
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Speaker 1: Tune in every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts. Folks,
Speaker 1: you know that when I have the opportunity to welcome
Speaker 1: our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel to wok F,
Speaker 1: I am always thrilled. And Jonathan, you know this month,
Speaker 1: September is back to school, you know, for the nation's children,
Speaker 1: and I have, you know, as a former educator. My
Speaker 1: sister is currently teaching in an independent school in New
Speaker 1: York and we've been having conversations about the emotional and
Speaker 1: mental health and well being of young people and I
Speaker 1: can't imagine honestly what it is like to go back
Speaker 1: to school in the climate that we are in, and
Speaker 1: just the fact that over the last. I don't even
Speaker 1: know how many years it's been since Columbine. I guess
Speaker 1: it's been over twenty. That school shootings are the norm,
Speaker 1: and preparing for that is part of preparing your kids
Speaker 1: to go back to school. I wanted to get your
Speaker 1: thoughts on what many have been talking about as like
Speaker 1: this kind of you know, impending emotional national emotional breakdown
Speaker 1: of our children and it and it doesn't necessarily these
Speaker 1: feelings don't necessarily vary with age. The intensity just varies.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to get your your initial thoughts on
Speaker 1: the mental and emotional well being of our nation's children. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, our our response is going to go. Our
Speaker 1: response is going to reverberate. Our shitty response honestly, is
Speaker 1: going to reverberate for generations. I really have been worried
Speaker 1: about this for some time. I mean, think about the
Speaker 1: perfect storm of what happened. We had fault lines already
Speaker 1: in education, we'd under invested in education before the pandemic.
Speaker 1: For all this, there were dramatic inequities in the education system,
Speaker 1: and then and also in the mental health system, right
Speaker 1: and then the pandemic hits and all of these things
Speaker 1: play out. People are either at home or there. No
Speaker 1: matter where they were getting schooling, they were missing socialization.
Speaker 1: But also there was just an overwhelming sense that no
Speaker 1: matter what side of the political divide you were on
Speaker 1: the world as we knew it was kind of collapsing.
Speaker 1: The grown ups could not get along. And so all
Speaker 1: these things were happening at one time, and it led
Speaker 1: to as we saw a dramatic, just overall mental health
Speaker 1: crisis in young in young people at the same time
Speaker 1: that the mental health system was falling apart. There wasn't
Speaker 1: enough treatment, and just to be honest, mental health treatment
Speaker 1: didn't have a response to what was happening. Right. Mental
Speaker 1: health treatment like talked to a psychiatrist on zoom or
Speaker 1: take some Zoloft was not a right answer. The answer
Speaker 1: was fixed the structure. And so in general there was
Speaker 1: a crisis of the education system and the mental health
Speaker 1: system for young people at the same time. And then
Speaker 1: in response to that, what we've done is we politicized school.
Speaker 1: So in the face of all of this crisis, the
Speaker 1: best answer would have been, we are taking care of you,
Speaker 1: young people. We want to just make sure we're all
Speaker 1: getting along, even if we can't agree as grown ups.
Speaker 1: We can get along and figure out what to do
Speaker 1: so that you guys can lead us to the future.
Speaker 1: And instead, what we did is we had all these
Speaker 1: fights about critical race theory and sexuality studies and banning
Speaker 1: books in libraries and what viewpoint and all these kind
Speaker 1: of things, and so in a way, we basically brought
Speaker 1: the culture wars that we're leading to mental health crisis
Speaker 1: in the first place into the lives of young people.
Speaker 1: And so I just can't imagine. And I know because
Speaker 1: I teach college kids and I hear about this every day,
Speaker 1: but I just can't imagine what that must feel like,
Speaker 1: because what young people now we're looking for is a
Speaker 1: kind of certainty that everything's going to be okay, And instead,
Speaker 1: what they're getting is that the ship show, honestly that
Speaker 1: education and mental health art right now. You know. One
Speaker 1: of the things that my sister and I had been
Speaker 1: talking about was the fact that parents, being out of
Speaker 1: their depth right at this time, are turning to their pediatricians,
Speaker 1: right their general pediatricians to seek advice, counsel, medication for
Speaker 1: their children, and that what is coming up is that
Speaker 1: the pediatricians themselves are saying that they are not equipped
Speaker 1: for this they're not mental health professionals. They deal with
Speaker 1: right the body and not the mind. So can you
Speaker 1: speak to you know, for parents or caregivers who are
Speaker 1: looking to seek aid, their first line of defense is
Speaker 1: to go to their pediatrition, but that their pediatrician may
Speaker 1: in fact not be you know, not have the right
Speaker 1: tools in their own toolbox to be able to provide
Speaker 1: your child with the type of care that they need.
Speaker 1: But not every parent has a therapist on speed dial.
Speaker 1: And also, so many of these problems aren't medical or
Speaker 1: psychiatric problems. There are social problems. They're structural problems. And
Speaker 1: so in a way, I don't think that many mental
Speaker 1: health professionals or health professionals have a toolkit for you know,
Speaker 1: imagine being a trans kid right now and having books
Speaker 1: about you banned from your own school library. Like it's
Speaker 1: not like there's a prescription that's going to cure that
Speaker 1: in a way. And so I just feel like that
Speaker 1: what we're seeing as kind of the mental help the facts.
Speaker 1: I mean, there is real months of illness, and I
Speaker 1: do think we need a national move to just take
Speaker 1: care of people. But instead what we're seeing is I
Speaker 1: just feel like kids are being weaponized right now, education
Speaker 1: is being weaponized and it's kind of like, how much
Speaker 1: can we instill our own agenda by brainwashing kids so
Speaker 1: that thirty years from now they'll be the foot soldiers.
Speaker 1: So that that's part of it. And then the other
Speaker 1: part is we talked about last week and the week before,
Speaker 1: is also it's not just about and I don't mean
Speaker 1: to get away from your britietrition, Quesian, but I'm saying like,
Speaker 1: when you're having like very untrained, unqualified soldiers and their
Speaker 1: spouses teaching kids who have no qualification whatsoever to teach,
Speaker 1: then the other the message you're telling people is also
Speaker 1: your education as a kind of critical thinker who's going
Speaker 1: to contribute to society and have you know, successful life
Speaker 1: is less important than our own agenda, which is going
Speaker 1: to undertrain you so that you only become like a
Speaker 1: menial labor or something like that. So in a way,
Speaker 1: just all these messages are being heaped onto kids right now,
Speaker 1: and it's just it's honestly horrific. And so partially I
Speaker 1: agree mental health. I mean, even trained psychiatrists don't have
Speaker 1: an answer for this. What do they have? They can
Speaker 1: do zoom therapy, they can do individual therapy. They can
Speaker 1: do medications, but they can't fix these bigger structural problems,
Speaker 1: which is like, man, it's a moment for some social capital,
Speaker 1: some social cohesion, Like let's kind of get together and
Speaker 1: take care of kids and not use them as ponds,
Speaker 1: which is what's happening right now. You know, It's what
Speaker 1: I find. So, you know, troubling about what you're saying
Speaker 1: is that it isn't as if this is a psychiatric issue,
Speaker 1: right that we're we're talking about your serotonin levels, or
Speaker 1: we're talking about you know, any type of disorder, right,
Speaker 1: mental disorder. We are talking about the fact that if
Speaker 1: you are a queer child, right, or the child of
Speaker 1: queer parents, and you're living in any red state in
Speaker 1: this country right now, which is you know, a majority
Speaker 1: of them, your life right is being banned, is being shunned,
Speaker 1: is being told that it is not even just a sin,
Speaker 1: but it is not worthy of discussion of you know,
Speaker 1: of of of of of literature, of anything that you
Speaker 1: you should not By banning these books that allow children
Speaker 1: to be able to understand themselves more and the world
Speaker 1: around them, we are essentially blacking them out right, And
Speaker 1: I just I want to talk about this for a moment,
Speaker 1: because it isn't This isn't a pill solution, right, Like,
Speaker 1: because we can't say like, oh, well, they're depressed because
Speaker 1: they are suffering from depression. They are depressed or are
Speaker 1: being weighed down with anxiety because the fears that they
Speaker 1: have are real, and so how do we manage this?
Speaker 1: Because it isn't enough, like, and this is the thing
Speaker 1: that is troubling me is that, Jonathan, in the early
Speaker 1: two thousands, if you remember, which I'm sure you do,
Speaker 1: there was a rash of suicides of LGBTQ children. Was
Speaker 1: like the it was like Obama had I think it
Speaker 1: was like that election time, maybe he had been entering
Speaker 1: the White House, and it was like one headline after
Speaker 1: the other were elementary school and middle school children that
Speaker 1: were committing suicide because of bullying that they were experiencing
Speaker 1: because they were the perception was that they were queer,
Speaker 1: they were different, they were other. The Trevor Project and
Speaker 1: other LGBTQ organizations got together and created the it Gets
Speaker 1: Better campaign to try and have older LGBTQ people express
Speaker 1: in video form that you will get to the other side.
Speaker 1: But Jonathan, this is the other side, right, And it's
Speaker 1: a mixed bag. We have a gay Secretary of Transportation,
Speaker 1: a transgender cabinet member in the Biden administration. Right, we
Speaker 1: have more representation of queer people and difference in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: you know, in Disney, on the small screen, on the
Speaker 1: big screen, and yet we have this And so I guess,
Speaker 1: how do we formulate to these kids that it gets better,
Speaker 1: but that it's a eventually, life is a mixed bag.
Speaker 1: I mean again, I think, let me just be clear.
Speaker 1: I think anybody who needs help should seek help. So
Speaker 1: I'm not at all saying that we shouldn't enlist mental
Speaker 1: health support when we can. And I mean, there are
Speaker 1: life saving interventions for therapy and medication and all those factors.
Speaker 1: So I'm not making an argument against treatment. But I
Speaker 1: would say that countries that use their kids to prove
Speaker 1: ideological points really suffer for decades and centuries. And that's
Speaker 1: what we're seeing now. And so I mean, I understand
Speaker 1: because I read a lot of conservative media, you know,
Speaker 1: all this critique of like woke indoctrination and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, and I just feel like there's just
Speaker 1: so many kids caught in the middle of all this
Speaker 1: stuff and so on one hand, I agree if you're
Speaker 1: a gay or fans kid and you're just seeing it's
Speaker 1: not just the books being banned in the library, but
Speaker 1: it's of course tied to a bigger political agenda and
Speaker 1: ideology that is banning actual medical treatment and it's banning
Speaker 1: there's a bill that is not being supported to support
Speaker 1: gay marriage and all these things, and so it's tied
Speaker 1: to a bigger ideology. But I would say on the
Speaker 1: other side, just because I'm in Tennessee, I do often
Speaker 1: wonder and it's kind of countertuitive point, like what we
Speaker 1: just assume that conservative kids have the same ideology as
Speaker 1: their parents. But how many conservative kids who could go
Speaker 1: on to be like creative geniuses or mathematicians or world
Speaker 1: leaders or something like that, are being like homeschooled, are,
Speaker 1: you know? Or they're not being exposed to complex problems
Speaker 1: or diverse things. And so in a way we're kind
Speaker 1: of screwing over conservative kids also because we just kind
Speaker 1: of automatically assume, well, they're the ones who just have
Speaker 1: the same ideology as their parents. And I think all
Speaker 1: the data on education shows that people who are exposed
Speaker 1: early on to like the greatest array of different kinds
Speaker 1: of people and complex problems and different ways of approaching things.
Speaker 1: They're the ones who go on to be like the
Speaker 1: leaders of tomorrow. And so I think that in a way,
Speaker 1: we're also screwing. We're screwing over all kinds of kids
Speaker 1: in different ways right now. And I think that that's
Speaker 1: kind of the issue that kind of gets lost sometimes,
Speaker 1: is like defunding education across the board screws over many
Speaker 1: different kinds of kids because we just assume, you know,
Speaker 1: right wing kids are at home spouting off election propaganda
Speaker 1: or something, and that's not the case, you know, And
Speaker 1: so let's talk about those ripple effects, right because again,
Speaker 1: what I find about and I don't even like to
Speaker 1: refer to it as conservatism at this point, because it
Speaker 1: is just authoritarian, fascist propaganda, right that we are seeing
Speaker 1: at at at every turn, at every level, at every
Speaker 1: level of government and society. I want to talk about
Speaker 1: the ripple effects of this because I believe that the
Speaker 1: Republican regime is one that is incredibly shortsighted, one that
Speaker 1: is very much even though they have had plans for
Speaker 1: the last forty years to overturn rob Wait that they
Speaker 1: have plans you know, for fifty years since the Civil
Speaker 1: Rights Act to suppress the black and brown votes. That
Speaker 1: they have these long term plans of oppression, but the
Speaker 1: immediacy of what they're doing. They are not looking at
Speaker 1: the long term effects of how defunding education, how putting
Speaker 1: a soldier in their spouse in front of the classroom
Speaker 1: is going to inhibit the United States in being a
Speaker 1: global power, in being competitive. So can you speak to
Speaker 1: this this how white supremacy right, how white supremacy, how
Speaker 1: this how this mindset is really like it's going to
Speaker 1: be counterproductive. I don't know what else to say. Counterproductive.
Speaker 1: How it's going like how the how they are not
Speaker 1: seeing the forest through the trees of what it is
Speaker 1: that they're doing. Well, I mean, they're creating the world
Speaker 1: that they want, but it's the world. It's a kind
Speaker 1: of Vladimir Putin and his all the all the advisors
Speaker 1: that he hasn't killed, um telling him, oh, the war
Speaker 1: is going great like that, and we're in control. Like
Speaker 1: in a way, that's kind of the model. So it's
Speaker 1: not like they're you know, and the reason I think
Speaker 1: about this, right, So I was at University of Michigan
Speaker 1: when the when the affirmative action cases we're going before
Speaker 1: the courts, and that's coming down the pipe too. All
Speaker 1: that is going to get overturned. But all the data
Speaker 1: on affirmative action, for example, from employers, industry, the military
Speaker 1: on down made the point that being in a diverse
Speaker 1: education setting, actually it just builds your brain in a
Speaker 1: much more complex and nuanced way that lets you much better,
Speaker 1: makes you much better at addressing real world problems because
Speaker 1: you know how to work with different people and you
Speaker 1: respect that different people can bring different skill sets to
Speaker 1: complex problems, and that has been shown. It's not just
Speaker 1: some woke critical race theory point like I read quite
Speaker 1: often the McKenzie Black Economic Forum, a data for example
Speaker 1: that makes this great point about diverse workplaces and how
Speaker 1: diverse workplaces are far better if more people have the
Speaker 1: idea that basically they're going to be able to succeed
Speaker 1: within the structure, if they come from different backgrounds, they're
Speaker 1: going to be much better at answering the kind of
Speaker 1: complex problem that for example, consultants are are are faced with,
Speaker 1: and so anyway, it increases predictivity. And then if you
Speaker 1: think about it from a city level, for example, like
Speaker 1: the more people who are educated, who are have good jobs,
Speaker 1: who are better, who are taxpayers who feel like they're
Speaker 1: part of what's happening. You're going to increase your tax base,
Speaker 1: You're going to have more infrastructure funds, You're going to
Speaker 1: have more vibrancy in terms of everything from economic entertainment, education, roads, bridges,
Speaker 1: bike lanes, all that kind of stuff. And so in
Speaker 1: a way, that world and that maybe sounds a bit
Speaker 1: come by out, but I mean, there's so much data
Speaker 1: on this point. And conversely, if you just have kind
Speaker 1: of the same people with the same ideology around around
Speaker 1: the table and you're squelching other ideologies, you're really you
Speaker 1: get into the kind of blood and recruitent model right
Speaker 1: now is a great example of like, you just hear
Speaker 1: one viewpoint, it's the one that doesn't make you uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: and then you it's just it's not a good way
Speaker 1: to solve problems, right It turns out like there are
Speaker 1: other perspectives and you end up just hearing what you
Speaker 1: want to hear it and it leads to disaster or
Speaker 1: under productivity. And so the data is pretty overwhelming, and
Speaker 1: yet we're doing exactly the wrong thing right now. So Jonathan,
Speaker 1: what happens, what happens to what give us the real
Speaker 1: stark picture of America ten years from now if there
Speaker 1: is no significant disruption in this ideology taking hold in
Speaker 1: every facet of our society and government. I don't. I
Speaker 1: mean it's funny because like we've done it before, right,
Speaker 1: I mean we in the sixties, we did it in
Speaker 1: the I mean it's not perfect by any stretch of
Speaker 1: the imagination, but it's not like we don't know how
Speaker 1: to do this. We've done it in our But you
Speaker 1: bring up the sixties, and the sixties was a violent time, right,
Speaker 1: Like wet we don't look back at the sixties and
Speaker 1: say this is a you know, we know that black
Speaker 1: and brown people and white allies were practicing non violence
Speaker 1: in the face of abhorrent violence by white people in
Speaker 1: order to reflect to the world how horrendous Jim Crow
Speaker 1: into segregation all of these things were. And so if
Speaker 1: you say that we've done that in the sixties, is
Speaker 1: that what you see as one of the avenues? Because
Speaker 1: to me, and this is something that I've said I've
Speaker 1: been saying on WOKF since I started this show during
Speaker 1: the Trump years, which was that things were going to
Speaker 1: get bloody are before they got better? Is that unavoidable?
Speaker 1: Do you think? Well? I mean the issue for the
Speaker 1: sixties is not to like idealize what was happening. I
Speaker 1: mean it certainly. I think you're exactly right. Was a
Speaker 1: profoundly a profoundly violent time with a lot of people.
Speaker 1: But the legislation that came out of it, the infrastructure
Speaker 1: that we built, the community, mental health movement, voting rights,
Speaker 1: educational factors, things like that, investment in higher education and education.
Speaker 1: I don't think that it was perfect by any stretch
Speaker 1: of the imagination, but I do think that it was
Speaker 1: kind of a move in the right direction in a way.
Speaker 1: That was because it was basically like building structures. We
Speaker 1: also of course had them, you know, Gun Control Act
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty eight, and so like the kind of
Speaker 1: things that people would basically there was a center that
Speaker 1: could come together and agree. And of course the answer
Speaker 1: to that was like fifty years of resentment leading to
Speaker 1: where we are right now, so that that was not
Speaker 1: going to be allowed to And but I would say
Speaker 1: that this idea of kind of a very broad and honestly,
Speaker 1: when you need legislation paths like that, it was like
Speaker 1: a broad centrist coalition that built structures that again we're
Speaker 1: in no way, in no way perfect, but at least
Speaker 1: it was a framework that led to things like affirmative action,
Speaker 1: for example, which led to betterment for a good number
Speaker 1: of people. And so in a way, it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of like, I just feel like, among other things, we've
Speaker 1: evacuated the center right now, and so just the idea
Speaker 1: of that kind of cooperation is just conceptually impossible, and
Speaker 1: and so I don't know. And I guess my other
Speaker 1: concern right now having kind of to do with this
Speaker 1: is I'm, of course worried about the midterms and what happens.
Speaker 1: You know, this stuff's going to potentially get worse before
Speaker 1: it gets better. And I feel like a lot of
Speaker 1: Democrats are feeling complacent about a bunch of random opinion
Speaker 1: polls it came out two months ago, rather than really
Speaker 1: mobilizing people to really, really really see about how much
Speaker 1: of this can be saved. Right now. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that if I'm looking at the next ten
Speaker 1: years in America, I think are going to make the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties seem like a innocent time. I think that America,
Speaker 1: by virtue of the point that you made about the
Speaker 1: center being evacuated, about gun laws just being overturned, and
Speaker 1: the temperature in this country just at a height because
Speaker 1: of white people being not being held accountable, right, and
Speaker 1: so it just continues to build and old up. I
Speaker 1: don't think that the next ten years in America are
Speaker 1: going to be good, and I become increasingly concerned, even
Speaker 1: with what we have seen the Biden administration be able
Speaker 1: to do this past summer, the legislation that they've been
Speaker 1: able to push, I think that everything is just going
Speaker 1: to come to a head, and that the beginning of
Speaker 1: that head is midterms. It'll go into the president's the
Speaker 1: presidential election in twenty twenty four, and then the next
Speaker 1: you know, several years following that are going to be
Speaker 1: really something. I mean, it's such shit, right, because like
Speaker 1: there is such potential and creative energy. I mean, just yep,
Speaker 1: there's so much potential, and it's just infuriating that we
Speaker 1: are indoctrinating our way out of our potential. That's really
Speaker 1: what it is. So just tying it back to the
Speaker 1: question of youth, like I don't know, we should be
Speaker 1: we should be encouraging that potential, not weaponizing it. Weaponizing
Speaker 1: education in ways that screws over our kids' futures. As always,
Speaker 1: doctor Jonathan Metzel, appreciate this conversation. It's one that I
Speaker 1: would like us to, you know, continue, because I think
Speaker 1: that we neglect where the mental and emotional well being
Speaker 1: of our young people are to our detriment. And if
Speaker 1: they are in fact our future, and we're not paying
Speaker 1: attention and being responsible for the caregiving of our children
Speaker 1: and instead weaponizing them, then our future doesn't look bright
Speaker 1: at all. As a matter of fact, it looks quite
Speaker 1: dismal and terrifying. Yeah, no, I agree completely, So yeah,
Speaker 1: let's please keep talking. I mean, I think it's a
Speaker 1: cause I think we should all be fighting for. Appreciate you, Jonathan.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today, Dear friends on woke
Speaker 1: f as always, Power to the people and to all
Speaker 1: the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.