I saw an article a couple days ago about parents who are struggling with counteracting the toxic influence of the “manosphere” on their sons.

Over the past year or so I have seen many such articles.

Often the ages of the children in question are between around 6 and 12. Prime age range for being influenced by nefarious forces.

These articles irritate the hell out of me. And that’s because the most impactful piece of advice is always absent.

Let me explain…                                                                                               

The articles always start out with the parents talking about how concerned they are that their sons are starting to exhibit signs that they are being adversely affected by the negative content they are consuming online.

The boys might start using misogynistic language. Or demonstrate aggressive or bullying behavior. Maybe they become sullen or withdrawn.

Then the article will turn to well-meaning mental health professionals who recommend a litany of interventions such as “asking open-ended questions” and “monitoring your child’s online activity” and “demonstrating healthy masculinity in the home”.

Ok, fine. None of that is bad. But all of that misses that main thing you need to do to save your sons from the manosphere, which is…

GET THEM OFF THE G*DDAMN INTERNET!

The ages of the children in the most recent article I read were 6 and 9. And the parents were like “Hmm… how do I mitigate the negative impact this content has on them?”

Duh! Take away their phones! Why do they even HAVE phones at those ages?! If you feel they absolutely need a phone so you can contact them, get them one that isn’t connected to the internet and can only make calls and send texts. Remove their laptops from their bedrooms, put them in the dining room, and designate them only for schoolwork!

Actually BE a parent and set some boundaries.

The parents in the articles always talk about how it’s impossible to 100% censor all the content the children see, since they might get shown things by their friends.

Faie enough. But if you take away ALL their access to the internet outside of those one-off instances, you will reduce the time they spend consuming that problematic manosphere crap by HOURS a day.

Even the best parents in the world can’t effectively counteract the draw of the internet and social media on a young, developing brain if the kid is looking at that little addictive device for hours a day.

But want to know what kills me? The reason why “Just get them off the internet” isn’t included in those articles is because THE ADULTS IN THE ARTICLES ARE ALSO ADDICTED TO THEIR PHONES/SOCIAL MEDIA!

If you have 2 parents who spend a combined 10 hours a day staring into their little plastic toys, and think it’s totally normal, then there is no shot they will be able to enforce an internet ban on their kids. Enforcing an internet ban won’t even enter their minds because, to them, scrolling social media is as natural as breathing.

They (the parents) can’t fathom living a single second without their sweet, precious phones so there is no way they can envision their children doing it. And it’s the same with the mental-health professionals featured in the article. They also probably spend most of their off-time mindlessly futzing on the internet. Just because they’re doctors doesn’t mean they’re immune to the addictive effects of technology.

It’s like back in the day when all doctors smoked. It was just what you did.

Those parents can’t imagine anyone not LOVING their phones/social media/internet the way they do. They view it as an absolutely essential piece of their own lives.

So, their kids are screwed. I mean, some of these kids have had social media accounts before they could even talk, set up for them by their parents.

“But kids are going to see that content anyway, so taking away their internet access is pointless.”

It’s true that children will be exposed in some capacity to that content no matter how much we try to shield them from it. But if you take away their phones and ban them from using the internet in your house outside of school work, they won’t be marinating in that cesspool for hours upon hours a day. All of a sudden YOUR influence on your kids will become the majority of “content” they consume.

“But I don’t want my kid to be the ‘weird’ one without access to the internet! He needs social media to be in-the-know, culturally, so he doesn’t get bullied.”

I hate to break it to you, but your kid is going to get bullied either way. If he’s not on social media and doesn’t get all the TikTok jokes and references, then, yes, he might get made fun of. But if he IS on social media, he is STILL going to get bullied for something else… but also pile on the heightened possibilities of eating disorders, body dysmorphia, misogyny, abuse, cyberbullying… I could go on.

Look at it this way… if your kid was constantly watching horror movies and they were giving him nightmares which were affecting his mood… would you say “Hm.. maybe I should have an honest dialogue with him about how that Final Girl probably felt as she was being chased through the woods by the maniac with the chainsaw so he knows that chasing people with chainsaws can be problematic”?

NO!

You’d just remove the f-ing movies from the house so he didn’t have access to them.

A lot of you out there are probably scoffing at me right now.

“Wait until you have to deal with this! You’ll be whistling a different tune then!”

Well, my kids are exactly the ages of the children in the article I referenced earlier: 6 and 9.

And my kids are NOT on the internet. They don’t have phones. They don’t have social media accounts. There is no way for them to access the internet when I (or my wife) am not around.

There is literally NO unsupervised internet usage by my sons. On long road trips, they can only access the kids accounts on Netflix and Prime to watch cartoons on their tablets. That’s it.

They also never play video games that are hooked up to the internet.

So, I get it. I understand how to limit my kids’ access to the internet because I actually do it.

But guess what? My kids don’t even know what social media is. They haven’t seen social media before, so they don’t ask for it.

Are their friends online? Maybe. But when they come over to play, the kids actually play. Like… out in the yard with sticks and footballs and stuff. They don’t hide in the basement secretly watching videos. And yes, I know because I check on them.

This all boils down to “how do I shield my kids from negative influences?”

And that’s a valid question! It’s what we’re all trying to do.

But we need to stop making this more difficult than it needs to be!

Phones and social media are designed to be addictive. They are especially damaging to young, developing brains. There is NO WAY your boring ass is going to be more exciting and engaging than TikTok or Instagram videos. The only way to keep your kids from being exposed to and negatively affected by those manosphere jokers is to keep them away from it as much as you can.

And the only way to do that is to get them off the internet completely.

If you’re unwilling to do that, it means you’re lazy. I know that’s upsetting to hear, but it’s the truth.

You don’t want to deal with the tantrums. You don’t want to deal with the constant fights. You don’t want to deal with the questions.

At this point, your kids might be so entrenched in the internet, like having social media accounts or gaming accounts, that getting them offline would be like digging out a problematic weed by its roots.

But you have to do it.

There is NO benefit for a child having access to the internet. None.

And don’t give me the “It’s a powerful learning tool!” nonsense.

Rubbish. Want to know what’s an even more powerful learning tool? Their own brains. And want to know how they develop their brains? By reading books! And playing with friends! And playing sports or chess or an instrument.

But in order for it to stick, YOU need to get off your phone. YOU need to get off the internet. I’ve written before about how phone addiction is the new smoking. It shaves hours off your life, day by day.

As menswear gents, you know that the online world is not the real world. There are fashions and styles that we see over and over again online that we NEVER see in the real world. But we have this notion that creeps into our minds that the online world and the real world are the same.

They aren’t.

Do you remember all the things you saw today while you were scrolling social media? Do you remember even half of it? I bet you’d be hard-pressed to even remember 2 things. But I bet you spent at least a few hours on your phone today.

Was it worth it? Those hours you’ll never get back traded away for a couple fleeting memories of videos of something someone else did?

As an adult, I hope you are mindful enough to not get swept up in problematic content. But imagine being a kid and seeing that stuff. Kids don’t have the experience, or the brainpower, to intellectually push back when they see content that conflicts with their values.

Watched over and over again, their values will shift. If you try to stop that from happening simply by “being a positive role model and encouraging open communication” you’re bringing a marshmallow to a gunfight.

Cut out the internet and remove the constant, ever-present hollering that will infect your children’s minds. Replace the manosphere with your own “family-sphere” where your kids interact mostly with you, your wife, and their siblings when they are home, instead of with some yahoo on YouTube who calls women “females” and says things like “I’m just asking questions” and “what about men’s rights?!”.

It will be hard, no doubt. But being a dad is hard. These are the difficult moments that make you a dad, instead of just the oldest male who lives in the same house.