U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy writes that he’s worried about the mental health of America’s young people due to social media use.

His concerns are legitimate, but ignore the obvious, commonsense solutions to many of today’s family problems—MIA parents.

Guardians, moms and dads have abrogated their responsibility of nurturing and protecting their children.  Instead, too many Americans want to blame social media instead of accepting the reality of being poor parents.

The most popular social media such as TikTok and Instagram have evoked waves of criticism for not protecting the wellbeing of young users. 

Several lawmakers in Congress have introduced legislation to ban children under age 13 from accessing social media.

While these discussion and proposals may be well meaning, they don’t acknowledge the most fundamental problem.  Too many American parents spend too little time monitoring their children’s’ behavior. 

Adult supervisors should be buttinskies. Our job is not to be friends with our offspring—as desirable as that is.  Rather, our principal responsibility is to prepare the next generation to be healthy, productive members of society.  And it makes no difference if our children accuse us of interfering in their lives and preventing them from activities in which their friends are engaged.

That is exactly what we should be doing.

Asking government to be a substitute for parents is a bad idea.