Tabloid Parenting

This is either the dumbest parenting idea in the world or it’s a pretty good one. For the last four years, my son (who is now 13) and I have been reading the New York Post together, every morning, seven days a week.

We started reading the Post because he saw me reading the papers every morning and wanted to participate. He was naturally curious about the world, about politics, about people. His having a better understanding of what’s happening around him made sense.

And yet… The Post is a really fun read — it’s fun because it’s salacious, because it features photos of scantily clad attractive people, because Page Six is its flagship asset. It’s not meant for kids.

But inadvertently, it may also be one of the best tools we have as parents. Every single day, someone extremely prominent is featured in the Post for having behaved badly in some egregious way. There are mainstays like Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein. Both of those monsters were great lessons in how not to behave, how not to treat women, how not to treat people in general. There are people who pop up regularly with useful lessons like Alec Baldwin (don’t beat people up over parking spots, don’t skimp on gun safety on a movie set — or better yet, just stay away from guns altogether) and Andrew Cuomo (beyond the obvious reasons, the importance of living a life whose self worth is not 100% dependent on outside victory and validation). But, of course, the most useful example by far has been Donald Trump.

Trump was a fantastic teacher because he did something wrong every single day. Not every Trump scandal was a teachable moment, but the basic way he treated honesty, morality, government and democracy was a fantastic primer on what not to do and how not to be. From January 6 to Stop the Steal, from all of the Russia conspiracies to the way he used Twitter and a million examples in between, there was hard, tangible evidence of how not to behave.

In fact, Trump’s wrongdoing was so prolific, about six weeks after Biden’s inauguration, my son said to me “Is Biden still the president?” “Yeah, of course. Why?” I answered. “You never hear about him,” he replied. That was a good reminder of the silver lining of the previous four years.

But it goes beyond repulsive politicians and celebrities. The Post relentlessly chronicles the way rich people will seemingly do anything to become even more rich. I really like making money, but the fact that money alone won’t make you sustainably happy is a good thing to learn while you’re still young.

The Post relentlessly chronicles crime and violence. We live in the middle of Manhattan, and while I don’t want to scare my son from going outside and experiencing the city, I do want him to be alert. I want him not wearing airpods on the street. He should keep his phone in his pocket, not in his hand, while walking outside. We’re now living in a New York City that requires awareness and street smarts for the first time in probably 25 years. It’s good to understand that. The Post helps.

We generally don’t read the editorials because even though we consider ourselves centrist, pro-business independents, most of the opinions expressed are too right wing and out there for us. We read the business section because it gives him a sense of what the really big stories are, how capitalism works and who the really big players are — without needing a degree in finance. Of course we read the sports section because the Mets are our primary focus in life. I read my horoscope. My son thinks it’s a waste of time.

But the real parenting value — if there is any — comes from the first dozen pages of the paper. It comes from government bribery scandals. It comes from reports about random subway violence. It comes from powerful men abusing their power to force themselves on women. It comes from our elected leaders across the political spectrum violating all norms of morality and decency.

Should other parents start reading the Post with their kids every morning? I don’t know. Maybe I am justifying a practice that’s completely screwed up because it makes my morning easier. But parenting, in my experience, involves finding real life examples to reinforce what you’re saying to your kids. For better or worse, the Post provides that for us every single day.