Men are lonely, but mothers are losing their minds

STFU, Dave Barry! And other links for your Sunday

The mental health of mothers in America is bad.

This week, JAMA Internal Medicine published a study that surveyed 200,000 mothers and found that in 2016, 1 in 20 mothers reported her mental health was poor or fair. By 2023, that share had shot up to one in 12. By contrast, in 2023, 1 in 22 fathers surveyed reported fair or poor mental health.

This news isn’t surprising to anyone who identifies as a mother in America right now— our reproductive rights are being abolished; our schools (the only other reliable childcare in America) are being gutted and sold for parts; the cost of living is still rising; wages are stagnant; Congress wants to cut SNAP and Medicaid. It keeps getting harder to exist as a woman and a parent in America. Oh, and the Trump administration’s cuts to DEI programs and the mass layoffs of federal workers have all disproportionately affected women and people of color.

This news came out the same week that the NYT published a report about the Democrats were dedicated to going after the lost, lonely, and disaffected young men of America.

David French and Jake Tapper and a whole Greek chorus of American talking heads weighed in to debate and discuss the Problem with Men™️.

But few people are discussing the desperation of American women. Because it is not just mothers. American teen girls are experiencing their own quiet mental health crisis. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s happening as the progress of the #MeToo era has been halted in favor of what

Kate Manne

calls “himpathy.” Or that, beauty standards, which for a while seemed to at least try to be more inclusive, have swung right back around to “thin and white” (Instagram Face edition).

During the 2008 recession, I remember reading news story after news story about how the crisis was impacting men who were laid off and hopeless. Years later, while researching my book This American Ex-Wife, I learned that the 2008 crisis effectively ended any progress America was making on the wage gap. And during the years of recovery, men bounced back, but women didn’t.

Even now, despite all the news about men “losing,” they still earn more and are overrepresented in the managerial class.

I’m not pointing this out to play a game of misery Olympics. Or to belittle the struggles anyone is facing. There is no point in telling someone, “I know you’re sad, but statistically you earn more than me!” (Also, 46 percent of men don’t believe in the pay gap.)

But it’s also not helpful to spend too much time wailing about men. The American crisis is not just among men; it’s everyone. As Gavin Newsom tries to be the Joe Rogan of “left” and Democrats spend $20 million to appeal to men, we are all breaking down; we are all falling apart.

And while there is a clear effort to benefit men, women are actively and intentionally being pushed out of the labor force.

Dave Barry is doing fine, so why are you whining?

I recently read Dave Barry’s latest book. It’s not worth reading. It’s a rehash of some of his older columns disguised as a memoir that offers “insight” so out of touch it might as well be in a straitjacket. But he wrote one thing that sent me through the roof.