One of the greatest evils of my 90s childhood was the sedation and casual drugging of young boys for acting like boys in a school system built for little girls.
And it’s only now that we’re finally allowed to ask questions. Decades too late.
My father (the last of the old-fashioned family docs) used to say if you want to remain healthy, stay as far away from the hospital as you possibly can.
The same maxim could be said for children: you want healthy kids, keep them far away from grand medical experiments, especially when it relates to their developing minds.
Well-meaning people will try well-intentioned things that only get tossed aside decades later when it’s far too late.
Parents are faced with the “what do we medicalize” question constantly. It starts at birth. Six hours into my son’s life, he was immediately “diagnosed with a tongue-tie,” something I had never heard of but was told is an easy fix that would help all sorts of things. When I asked how many babies get the tongue-tie fix at this research hospital, the answer was “40 percent.” Forty percent of kids have an issue that didn’t exist 25 years ago?
Tongue-ties are a small, meaningless thing. But medicalize the small, you start medicalizing the big.
Moms and Dads must play defense from Day One.
23 Percent of American 17-year-old boys have an ADHD diagnosis.
Stop. Medicalizing. Boyhood.
Full article: nytimes.com/2025/04/13/mag…
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