Tuesday on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” Steve Inskeep interviewed U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy about his advisory paper entitled, “Protecting Youth Mental Health.” The paper was inspired by statistics showing that young people have not been weathering the COVID-19 pandemic well — or more precisely, what adults have done because of the pandemic. Murthy told Inskeep:
Before the pandemic, one in three high school students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness. That’s a 40% increase from 2009 to 2019. In a similar time frame, suicide rates went up 57% among youth 10 to 24. And we’ve also seen that during the pandemic that rates of anxiety and depression have gone up. So this was a challenge before. The challenge has gotten worse. And I believe that this is a critical issue that we have to do something about now. We can’t wait until after the pandemic is over.
Michelle Goldberg, a columnist for the New York Times and MSNBC contributor was listening and almost had an epiphany:
Can't count the number of times I was told not to worry about what we've done to kids because they're resilient https://t.co/xEGHNBVL1N
— Michelle Goldberg (@michelleinbklyn) December 7, 2021
https://twitter.com/CompanyHooch/status/1468329229670662152
She’s almost there.
Wow. Based Michelle
— Dr. 2 Hearts 1 Brane (@Disputationist) December 7, 2021
"Kids are resilient," is a platitude we tell ourselves when we are asking kids to eat shit.
— kramleznir (@kramleznir) December 7, 2021
Yeah, and like resilience doesn't wear down.
— Davis Lane (@davislaneSLD) December 7, 2021
Yup. And how many times those of us who pushed back on the “kids are resilient!” mantra – often looking at our own kids’ struggles – were called alarmist and entitled.
— Natalia Mehlman Petrzela (@nataliapetrzela) December 7, 2021
We remember the push to reopen schools being attributed to white supremacy.
I think kids probably are more resilient than adults. That does not take away from the fact that public school students in urban areas + Blue states lost 1 1/2 years of education–and, with a few exceptions, the liberal media appeared not to give a shit.
— Lucinda Rosenfeld (@lucindaros) December 7, 2021
They called Ron DeSantis a murderer for reopening schools.
He was right. The teachers unions were wrong. https://t.co/n611K9mN5P
— Max (@MaxNordau) December 7, 2021
I don’t want to oversell the fragility of children. But I’ve always heard “kids are resilient” as “We can offload the costs onto kids because they are too powerless and ignorant to protest.” https://t.co/3Mdx86CheW
— Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd) December 7, 2021
They are resilient, that’s exactly why the government needs to break them. Make them comply without question at an early age.
— BAJ (@ChecktheCheck) December 7, 2021
Incredible how little daylight there is between Michelle and me on this issue. https://t.co/GHqrYIc7Sm
— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) December 7, 2021
https://twitter.com/TheEliKlein/status/1468319249701744653
He lists climate change as a reason kids are struggling. Nothing about masks. 🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
— CS (@gopg8r) December 7, 2021
Kids aren't resilient. In fact, they are usually terrible at processing trauma because they don't have the tools that adults do.
For the past two years, we have hidden harm in children because they don't vote or make political donations.
— MechFrog (@MechFrog12) December 7, 2021
It's vile.
— NH (@TwoQuoque) December 7, 2021
Lock them up for a year, take away their friends and fun, scare them to death of a virus that is mostly a cold for them and slap a mask on anytime they are in public. Who the heck saw mental health issues in their future?
— Jen (@JenStroup) December 7, 2021
Well … I think you and the rest of the media 🤡 were huge supporters of closing the schools. What do you have to say for yourself?
— NCTigerLand (@NCTigerLand) December 7, 2021
https://twitter.com/rak3re/status/1468301016328282114
We’ll be feeling these effects for years… https://t.co/Mzd0YxMccn
— Red Rover (@NoNameNoPr0blem) December 7, 2021
Remember in the spring of 2020 when Bethany Mandel tweeted this and there was a pile-on of blue-checks calling her a “grandma killer”?
You can call me a Grandma killer. I’m not sacrificing my home, food on the table, all of our docs and dentists, every form of pleasure (museums, zoos, restaurants), all my kids’ teachers in order to make other people comfortable. If you want to stay locked down, do. I’m not.
— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) May 6, 2020
Related:
Schools ask parents to send rain gear with children as they’re required to eat lunch outside due to COVID https://t.co/HciFk9QgQm
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) October 19, 2021
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