Here’s What Parents Are Doing To Protect Their Boys From Red Pilling
“Y’all don’t know it, but y’all have really weird people living in your homes.”
If you’re a parent of a boy, especially a tween or teen boy, then you’re probably at least vaguely worried about incel culture. And if you weren’t before watching Adolescence then you definitely are after watching it. But TikTok creator Jasmine Chelbi wants to know what, exactly, we’re all doing about it. In a recent video, she asked...
“I mean this very genuinely: what are parents doing to combat incel culture? How are y’all protecting y’all kids from being a f*cking nuisance? Your sons are quite literally falling victim to far-right pipelines. They are on the internet: racist, sexist, homophobic, misogynistic, all the things. Y’all don’t know it, but y’all have really weird people living in your homes. What are y’all doing to combat that as parents? Because I don’t know if y’all truly realize you are losing your kids to the worst men on Earth who have a podcast.”
Honestly, the idea of these bad actors living in our houses really resonates. Because a whole lot of kids are spending a whole lot of time with some of these influencers, listening to them uncritically and taking their weird, misogynistic, toxic world-view as fact. But how do you counter an alluring narrative during a time when parents begin to lose influence with their kids?
The comments, more than 350 as of press time, were full of anecdotes and different perspectives on how to handle this issue, but largely fell into two main ideas
- Keep boys offline as much as possible
- Be a part of their online journey
I doubt there’s one right way to do anything, and certainly each situation is going to be a lot more nuanced than “This one simple trick will keep your kid from getting red-pilled.” But each of these arguments had points to make and these are some that stood out to us...
Keep the boys offline
There’s no doubt that these ideas are getting to our kids via the internet. Phones, computers, online games, tablets: so it seems pretty straight forward that if you limit the internet you go far in limiting the extent of the issue.
“No YouTube allowed,” says one parent. “[We have] constant talks about kindness and empathy, [and] family movie nights featuring wholesome movies about accepting everyone!”
“Keeping them offline as long as possible,” says another. “Social media will not be a thing for them until they can prove they can handle the responsibilities that go with it.”
“No access to video games,” agreed another, but they went further in working to counteract troubling misogyny that can so often be found online. “Acknowledge the accomplishments of their female friends. Taking them to see professional women's sports, it's more affordable and it reinforces to them that women are just as good at sports.”
Some parents aren’t eschewing online lives all together, but they’re not letting them go in alone...
“No unsupervised screen time,” shared one mom. “Take the tablets and you choose the media they watch on TV. Also - I’m putting on all the media that radicalized me as a child. Very little of the new stuff because most of it is garbage.”
But while some prefer a media crash diet, others are trying their hand at contextualizing what their kids see...
Go online with the boys
“I am always in his business. Like literally,” said one mom. “The key is to be active and present. We watch TV together, play games together, share podcasts, etc. His algorithm can’t get too messed up if I feed it too!”
(Honestly, this has been my take and I’ve seen some really positive results by staying on top of it. Do I have to pretend to be interested in all the dumb memes my kid sends me? Yes. But encourages him to keep sharing what he sees with me and it’s worth it to have a back-stage pass to his online world and encourage him to trust that he can talk about these things with me.)
“We watch Charlie Kirk content regularly and debunk it together for my teen,” says another. I LOVE this idea, even if it means suffering through Charlie Kirk. In my experience, respecting a kid’s intelligence gives them the confidence they need to not feel like they have to listen to the Kirks and Tates of the world.
“I converse with him about topics like this regularly and challenge his thinking patterns,” says a third. “I challenge him to justify his opinions and counter with researched facts when necessary. It's work, but it’s worth it.”
“People want to blame the new technology but it’s always been there,” laments another commenter. “Always. You just have to be actively involved with your kids and to be honest most people are not.”
Look, I don’t know what’s the better strategy here. Ask me in a few years when my son is an adult. But I think the instincts here — monitoring/censoring online activity and engaging in active discussions with your kid — seems like a good combination and a great start.
