parenting

You Don’t Need ChatGPT to Raise a Child. You Need a Mom and Dad.

Sam Altman, an investor, entrepreneur and CEO of OpenAI, a research and development company, says he can’t imagine raising a child without the availability and accessibility of artificial intelligence.

Appearing on Jimmy Fallon earlier this week, the Tonight Show host asked the tech executive if he uses ChatGPT when raising his son. Altman is “married” to Oliver Mulherin, a software engineer. They contracted to purchase a baby via surrogacy. The boy was born this past February.

“I feel kind of bad about it, because we have this genius level at everything, intelligence, sitting there, waiting to unravel the mysteries of humanity,” replied Altman. “And I’m like, ‘Why does my kid [keep] dropping his pizza on the floor and laughing?’ And so I feel like I’m not asking a good enough question, but it is.”

Altman described having concerns about the baby not yet crawling – and asking ChatGPT if that was normal. The software assured him there was nothing to worry about.

“I cannot imagine having gone through it, figuring out how to raise a newborn without Chat GPT,” he told Fallon. “Clearly, people did it for a long time, no problem.”

After the clip was shared on X, Katy Faust, founder and president of “Them Before Us,” an organization committed to defending every child’s right to both a mother and a father, offered some pointed perspective.

“You know what helps a lot when it comes to intuiting what a baby needs?” she asked. “His mother.”

In the early days of same-sex “marriage,” activists favoring the redefinition of the God-gifted institution repeatedly and routinely stressed the fact that a homosexual union had no impact or bearing on anyone else but the two people entering into it. This wasn’t true. Same-sex marriage has upended all kinds of norms and impacted all kinds of people – but especially the children the relationship produces whether through donor eggs or sperm or surrogacy.

Children in a same-sex “marriage” are intentionally and unapologetically deprived of either a mother or a father. Moms and dads are not interchangeable. They complement each other. They’re distinct and unique. Mothers can’t be fathers, and fathers can’t be mothers. God deliberately designed children to enjoy the many unique features and contributions of both.

Even setting aside the issue of same-sex parenting, the rising use of ChatGPT or any artificial intelligence assets may not be inherently problematic when it comes to helping us with a wide range of issues, including providing parental advice. But it cannot take the place of the invaluable perspective that a mother and father bring to childrearing.

Mothers and fathers who rely on artificial intelligence for advice should be aware that the software pulling from various sources isn’t always very discerning. Not all the advice is good – and some of it can be downright dangerous.

Dr. Michael Glazier, chief medical officer of Bluebird Kids Health in Broward County, Florida, told USA Today that any moms or dads using AI software should maintain a “critical eye.”

“It’s a tool and it’s incredible and it’s getting more pervasive,” he said. “But don’t let it take the place of critical thinking … There’s a lot of benefit for us as parents to think things through and consult experts versus just plugging it into a computer.”  

Children are also at risk and vulnerable to the emerging technology. Horror stories and lawsuits are coming out now suggesting some AI platforms have served as “suicide coaches” for kids.

Of course, Katy Faust’s warning goes beyond the mere use of AI and instead strikes at the selfishness of same-sex couples who are depriving children of either a mother or a father. Moms and dads serve far more than a utilitarian purpose. With their unique blend of personalities and perspective, they provide something that artificial intelligence will never replace.

Many Parents Still Fail to Monitor Their Kids’ Online Activity, Survey Shows

Most Americans support restricting kids’ access to social media and pornography, this year’s American Family Survey shows. But many parents remain hesitant to monitor their children’s online activity.

Brigham Young University’s annual American Family Survey asks a representative group of 3,000 American adults about economic, cultural and social concerns affecting the family. This year, participants identified “social media, video games [and] other electronic resources” as one of the top five issues families must confront.

Respondents expressed the most concern about porn and social media’s effects on young people. American adults overwhelmingly support government regulations limiting minors’ access to these products.

Per the survey:

  • More than 75% of participants support requiring pornography websites to verify the ages of their consumers.
  • Nearly 80% support requiring social media companies to obtain parents’ consent before allowing a minor to create a social media account.
  • Three in four support holding social media companies legally liable for harm caused by content marketed to minors.

Parents with children under 18 years old living at home also support making technology restrictions part of parenting norms. More than 60% of respondents in this demographic wish other families would implement rules about technology, and half said it would make setting and enforcing their own restrictions easier.  

But the survey also shows many parents don’t limit their children’s access to technology at all — let alone discuss strategies with other parents.

Surveyors asked participants with children under 18 years old in the home whether they implement any of five common technological boundaries: limiting their children’s screen time, restricting the kinds of content they consume, requiring them to keep their online accounts private, restricting who they contact and limiting who they exchange private messages with.

One in five respondents (20%) implement none of these restrictions. Two in five respondents (40%) don’t limit their kids’ screen time. Another 40% don’t police the content their children consume.

Though most participants in this demographic claimed other parents’ rules about technology would help them create and enforce their own rules, only 17% said another parent had influenced them to change a screen time restriction.

One third of respondents said they never talk about managing kids and technology with another parent. Only 13% claim to discuss it frequently.

Ubiquitous technology and internet access make parenting harder. Enforcing technological boundaries can be confusing, thankless and overwhelming — particularly when tech companies frequently undermine parental controls with few consequences.

But these obstacles do not change parents’ duty to protect their children from harmful content and technologies.

Parents, you do not have to allow your children access to smartphones or the internet. If you choose to do so, you must be prepared to:

  • Police your child’s online activity.
  • Educate yourself about parental controls and implement them to the best of your ability.
  • Warn your child about online predation and other pitfalls.
  • Model healthy relationships with technology.

Joining forces with other parents to limit children’s access to social media and smartphones can help families create and maintain healthy boundaries with technology. Take it upon yourself to initiate these partnerships. Odds are, you will not be rebuffed.

For more tips and tricks, check out Plugged In’s Parent’s Guide to Today’s Technology. For more information about technology restrictions — or ditching smartphones altogether — read the articles below.

Additional Articles and Resources

Counseling Consultation & Referrals

More than Twenty States Limit Smartphone Use in Schools

Parent-Run Groups Help Stop Childhood Smartphone Use

‘The Tech Exit’ Helps Families Ditch Addictive Tech — For Good

Four Ways to Protect Your Kids from Bad Tech, from Social Psychologist Jonathan Haidt

Social Psychologist Finds Smartphones and Social Media Harm Kids in These Four Ways

‘Big Tech’ Device Designs Dangerous for Kids, Research Finds

Survey Finds Teens Use Social Media More Than Four Hours Per Day — Here’s What Parents Can Do

Video: Seven-Year-Old’s Confidence Soars After Ordering Chick-Fil-A By Himself

5 Most Important Things OpenAI Lawsuits Reveal About ChatGPT-4o

Louisiana Sues Roblox for Exposing Children to Predators, Explicit Content

Proposed ‘App Store Accountability’ Act Would Force Apps and App Stores to Uphold Basic Child Safety Protections

Teen Boys Fall Prey to Financial Sextortion — Here’s What Parents Can Do

Proposed SCREEN Act Could Protect Kids from Porn

Louisiana Sues Roblox for Exposing Children to Predators, Explicit Content

Warning: The following contains descriptions of child abuse. Please guard your hearts and read with caution.

Louisiana is suing the children’s gaming platform Roblox for ““knowingly and/or recklessly” failing to protect children from online predators.

“Roblox is overrun with harmful content and child predators because it prioritizes user growth, revenue and profits over child safety,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill wrote in a press release.

“Every parent should be aware of the clear and present danger poised to their children by Roblox so they can prevent the unthinkable from ever happening in their own home.”

Roblox hosts hundreds of online games on one interactive website. With a couple of clicks, users can create their own avatar, explore hundreds of games, or “experiences,” and chat with other users.

More than 80 million users visit Roblox every day. An estimated 40% are under 13 years old.

Louisiana’s lawsuit accuses Roblox of breaking state laws protecting consumers from unfair and deceptive business practices. The case rests on four key assertions.

  • Roblox’s platform is rife with child predators.
  • Roblox refuses to adopt meaningful safeguards to oust child predators.
  • Roblox deceptively markets its product to children and families.
  • Roblox has financial incentive to sacrifice child safety on its platform.

Let’s break it down.

‘X-Rated Pedophile Hellscape’

Louisiana sued Roblox one month after police executed a search warrant against a local man suspected of possessing child sexual abuse material. Officers reportedly found the suspect playing Roblox with a voice-altering microphone making him sound like a little girl.  

Louisiana’s lawsuit connects this disturbing incident to “systematic patterns of exploitation and abuse” on Roblox in which predators pretend to be children and befriend real kids using the platform’s chat features.

Roblox claims abuse primarily occurs when predators lure kids off Roblox and onto other platforms. But Louisiana’s complaint cites several examples of grievous exploitation occurring on Roblox itself.

In 2024, for instance, investigators at Hindenburg Research, a well-respected forensic financial research firm, “easily found” 38 Roblox groups with hundreds of thousands of members “openly trading child pornography and soliciting sexual acts from minors.”

The exhaustive report concluded:

Our in-game research into [Roblox] revealed an X-rated pedophile hellscape, exposing children to grooming, pornography, violent content and extremely abusive speech.

Since 2017, there have been at least ten documented cases of children between eight- and 14 years old being kidnapped or otherwise physically harmed by adults they met on Roblox.

In April, a ten-year-old from California was kidnapped by a man she met on the platform. Last month,  a Florida mom sued Roblox for facilitating the exploitation and eventual rape of her 11-year-old daughter.

Shallow Safety Features

Roblox introduced a suite of new child safety features in November 2024 mounting criticism about the platform’s safety. The roll-out changed the default settings on accounts for children under 13 to automatically:

  • Filter out age-inappropriate games.
  • Prevent adults from chatting with or friending kids.

But Louisiana’s lawsuit calls these updates “window dressing — too little, too late and woefully inadequate.”

The new default settings might prevent adults from messaging children outside of games, for instance, but adults can still message, friend and even voice-chat kids inside games.

Roblox’s so-called safety upgrades also assume:  

  • Games are rated accurately.
  • Players honestly report their ages.

But the platform doesn’t enforce either of these pre-requisites.

But Roblox doesn’t enforce either of these prerequisites. It does not verify the ages of players; children can easily bypass more stringent default account settings by signing up with a fake birthday.

Roblox also allows game developers to rate their own games. That’s why Louisiana notes the “vast majority” of “experiences” are rated “suitable for everyone,” including:

  • “Condo games”: “Predatory digital environments, including [digital] houses, where users can remove their avatars’ virtual clothing … and engage in disturbing simulated sexual activities with other Roblox users.”
  • Simulated strip clubs.
  • Hundreds of games like “Escape to Epstein Island,” which references the infamous Caribbean Island indicted child predator Jeffery Epstein allegedly abused children on.
Poor Policing

Louisiana’s complaint also cites evidence suggesting Roblox isn’t interested in policing its website.

Though Roblox professes to monitor explicit or threatening speech, its chat filters are easily fooled by basic ploys like replacing the letter “e” with the number “3.”

Roblox also allows users to adopt transparently pedophilic usernames, like @Igruum_minors and @RavpeTinyK1dsJE. The platform reportedly allowed Hindenburg investigators to sign up under the username @EarlBrianBradley — a reference to one of the most prolific pedophiles of all time.

Deceptive Marketing

Roblox’s claims about its “stringent safety systems and policies” don’t reflect reality, Louisiana argues.

The state’s case notes the following inflated claims from Roblox’s website:

  • Roblox “won’t allow language that is used to harass, discriminate, incite violence, threaten others, or used in a sexual context.”
  • Roblox employes an “expertly trained team with thousands of members dedicated to protecting our users and monitoring for inappropriate content.”
  • Roblox conducts a “safety review of every uploaded image, audio and video file, using a combination of review by a large team of human moderators and machine detection before they become available on the platform.”
  • Chat filters for inappropriate content are “even stricter” for children under 13 and screen for any “potentially identifiable personal information, slang, etc.”

Louisiana is not the only state to question the veracity of Roblox’s marketing. In April, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier subpoenaed documents from Roblox regarding its marketing and safety practices.

“There are concerning reports that this gaming platform, which is popular among children, is exposing them to harmful content and bad actors,” Uthmeier wrote in a statement.

“We are issuing a subpoena to Roblox to uncover how this platform is marketing to children and see what policies they are implementing — if any — to avoid interactions with predators.”

Profit Motive

Louisiana’s case endeavors to prove Roblox intentionally jettisons child safeguards to increase its profits.

The suit cites Hindenburg’s interview with a former Roblox senior product designer.

“You’re supposed to make sure that your users are safe, but then the downside is that, if you’re limiting users’ engagement, it’s hurting your metrics,” the former employee told investigators.

“It’s hurting the [daily] active users, the time spent on the platform, and in a lot of cases, leadership doesn’t want that.”

The same source claimed employees had proposed verifying users’ ages. Roblox leadership allegedly killed the initiative before it left the “experiment” phase.

Louisiana also highlights the predatory exchange of Roblox’s digital currency, Robux.

Players purchase Robux with real money and use it to buy items and extras in Roblox’s digital world. The more users join Roblox, the more Robux are exchanged.

The states’ filing argues Roblox directly benefits from the improper use of Robux to coerce children:

[Roblox] knowingly and/or recklessly permits predators to offer children Robux, often in exchange for explicit photos, or demand Robux to avoid releasing previously provided photos, directly tying [the company’s] profits to the sexual exploitation of children and child abuse material.
Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Shortly before Louisiana filed suit, Roblox banned predator hunter Michael Schelp from the platform.

Schelp grew a sizeable YouTube following by posting videos of himself ferreting out predators on Roblox. He, himself, was groomed and abused by a predator on Roblox between the ages of 12 and 15 — a years-long abusive relationship which eventually drove him to attempt suicide.

Now, he works to protect kids from the same fate. According to the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, his work has led to the arrest of six offenders — all of whom physically met up with Schelp after meeting his character on Roblox.

Apparently, Roblox isn’t interested in Schelp’s services. The company didn’t just ban him — it updated its Terms of Service to remove all “vigilantes” from the platform and threatened the YouTuber with legal action under the Computer Fraud Act, ostensibly for pretending to be a child while engaging with predators.

The move has generated mainstream media coverage and social media outrage.

The question on everyone’s mind: If Roblox really wanted to rid its platform of predators, why would it go after a person famous for catching them?

Why It Matters

The Daily Citizen applauds Louisiana for holding online corporations like Roblox to the same consumer protection standards as every other business.

Legal accountability is a critical part of enabling parents to keep their kids safe online and ensuring corporations don’t profit off pedophilia.  

Additional Articles and Resources:

National Center on Sexual Exploitation Targets Law Allowing Tech Companies to Profit from Online Sex Abuse

Danger in Their Pockets

Teen Boys Fall Prey to Financial Sextortion — Here’s What Parents Can Do

Proposed SCREEN Act Could Protect Kids from Porn

Proposed ‘App Store Accountability’ Act Would Force Apps and App Stores to Uphold Basic Child Safety Protections

‘The Tech Exit’ Helps Families Ditch Addictive Tech — For Good

Supreme Court Upholds Age-Verification Law

‘The Dirty Dozen List’ — Corporations Enable and Profit from Sexual Exploitation

Premier Research Documents Long-Term Divorce Harms for Adult Children

A sophisticated new research report published by the National Bureau of Economic Research charts new findings in how divorce is not a temporary bump in the road for children. It has long-term, deleterious effects far into adulthood. This is not a new finding overall. It has long been an established finding in leading academic investigations into the impacts of divorce on children throughout their lives.

However, this important new study does chart some important new ground. Conducted by scholars at the University of Texas at Austin, University of Maryland and the U.S. Census Bureau, these authors examined data on “over 5 million children to examine how divorce affects family arrangements and children’s long-term outcomes.” These children were born between 1988 and 1993.

Because of their sophisticated research methodology, these scholars were able to document the causation of divorce’s harmful impacts on children well into adulthood. This is an important contribution to the literature and this research team did this by looking at children within families to see how the younger children fared after their parents’ divorce, in contrast to their older siblings who spent more of their growing-up years being raised by intact married parents. These scholars explain,

[W]e estimate the effect of divorce on child outcomes including adult earnings, teen birth, mortality, college residency, and incarceration. Our event studies show that divorce represents a significant turning point in children’s outcomes, and our sibling comparisons show that longer exposure to divorce has a lasting impact into adulthood.

Family scholar Patrick T. Brown, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, explains the value of this unique research approach: “By comparing siblings from the same family who were different ages when their parents divorced, they can control for a lot (though not all) of the factors that might create concerns about comparing apples to oranges.” It does this by examining 1 million sibling groups whose parents divorced.

Grant Bailey at the Institute for Family Studies adds, “By comparing siblings, the authors can see how divorce affects, say, a 10-year-old versus an 18-year-old within the same family.”

This mitigates selection bias where it could be charged that children of divorce show greater negative outcomes, not because of divorce per se, but because they came from an unhealthy family to start, with parents who had a contentious relationship. This approach shows how outcomes changed at the point of divorce for various siblings within the same family setting. Thus, these scholars assert, “we estimate the causal effects of divorce on children’s adult outcomes.”

So, what did these scholars find?

As economists and not psychologists, they look at three very objective consequences of divorce and their impact on child well-being: changes in financial resources, decline in neighborhood quality due to establishing new housing locations and distance from non-resident parent.

They noted that 95% of children live with their mother after divorce splits their home. Half of parents remarry after 5 years, introducing stepparents and often stepsiblings into kids’ lives, creating greater complications and divided loyalties.

First, income drops considerably for children living in divorced homes. These authors explain,

“When parents divorce, household income drops by half as families divide into separate households. This decline moves the average divorced household from the 57th percentile of the income distribution to the 36th. Households recover about half of their initial income loss over the next decade.”

This means children lose important resources that diminish their housing quality, nutrition, health care and education. They also live further from one of their parents, almost always their father, and this lessens their essential contact with the non-resident father.

“In the year of divorce, the distance between children and their non-resident parent increases to 5 miles at the median and over 100 miles at the mean, and this distance grows significantly over time after the divorce.”

What is most concerning are the measurable impacts they discovered that divorce has on children as they enter their teens and young adult years. They explain, “We find that teen births and child mortality increase following divorce and remain elevated throughout the observation window, suggesting that divorce represents a turning point in the trajectory of children’s outcomes.”

Specifically, children of divorce face the following serious challenges in their teen and early adult years:

  • Teen births increase by 60%. Of course, rates of teen pregnancy will be higher.
  • Child mortality (early death) increases from 35 to 55 percent.
  • 40 to 45% increase in incarceration rates.
  • They earn substantially less (9 to 13%) in adulthood, equal to obtaining one less year of education.
  • Decreased chance of attending college.

Kids who do not experience parental divorce do not suffer these significant setbacks. These scholars found that up to 60 percent of the negative divorce effects on adult children are due to three leading factors: substantial declines in household income, lowered neighborhood quality after divorce due to multiple moves, and obvious distance and disaffection from at least one parent.

To be sure, these scholars only looked at a relatively small set of outcomes from divorce. They did not examine broader psychological outcomes on children experiencing the death of their mother and father’s marriage. Others have examined such things and the outcomes are equally negative.

Data like these further document why it is so important that churches, para-ministries like Focus on the Family, clinicians and extended families do all they can do to help married couples in crisis gain access to marriage-saving insights and resources so that everyone can avoid the measurable damage divorce brings to the lives of children, their parents and society at large.

Focus on the Family’s Hope Restored crisis marriage ministry provides a lifeline to couples who are struggling. Struggling individuals and couples can call 1-855-771-HELP (4357) weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. (Mountain Time), or complete our Counseling Consultation Request Form to be connected with one of our licensed or pastoral counselor.

Related Articles and Resources

Reclaiming the Truth About Marriage

Four Things to Enhance Marital Happiness Among Wives

Research Update: The Compelling Health Benefits of Marriage

Important New Research on How Married Parents Improve Child Well-Being

How Marriage Fights Against Deaths of Despair

New Research: Marriage Still Provides Major Happiness Premium

Family Scholars Explain the Current Marriage Paradox in America

New Research Shows Married Families Matter More Than Ever

Cohabitation Still Harmful – Even as Stigma Disappears

Don’t Believe the Modern Myth. Marriage Remains Good for Women

Don’t Believe the Modern Myth. Marriage Remains Good for Men.

Yes, Married Mothers Really Are Happier Than Unmarried and Childless Women

Married Fatherhood Makes Men Better

Marriage and the Public Good: A New Manifesto of Policy Proposals

Image from Shutterstock.

Five Myths About Stay-at-Home Moms

At the risk of stating the obvious, I’m not a stay-at-home mother, but I’ve been married to one for nearly two decades.

A recent survey from Motherly found that 24% of mothers today identify as a stay-at-home mom (SAHM), a 9% bump in a single year. The jump is largely attributed to more flexible work schedules and remote job opportunities.

Not surprisingly, however much of an increase, it pales in comparison to the norms of the 1950s and 1960s when upwards of 80% to 85% of mothers were not employed outside the home.

Gallup recently reported that another 22% of mothers would prefer to stay at home if they could financially swing it, and another 38% would prefer a part-time job instead of the full-time one they currently manage.

Stereotypes have long existed about moms who devote their full-time energies to children and the home. From watching soap operas to drinking cocktails to kibitzing over the back fence, fictional movies and television have perpetuated many of these silly myths.

In reality, your typical stay-at-home mother works harder and longer than most high-powered women anywhere else. In fact, here are five common myths about these moms:

1. They’re rich: It’s true that making the ends meet on a single salary is a lot easier when that one salary is high, but most homes with a single breadwinner and a mom who stays at home actually have less income – and for obvious reasons. On average, even one high salary is usually less than two medium salaries combined.

Families with stay-at-home moms often make a conscious decision to get by on less. They cut the cable, go camping instead of going to Disney, pack lunches, cut coupons, and shop at thrift stores.

    2. They don’t have stress: Juggling childcare when both mom and dad work can be difficult and can fray the nerves. But managing a household of active children all-day long isn’t for the faint of heart either. Stress comes in many shapes and sizes. Some can be productive and invigorating while other strains can be draining and debilitating.

    It was the English novelist Elizabeth Stone who once poignantly likened motherhood to “forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” Regardless of whether you work outside the home, caring for and loving our children requires a major emotional investment with high risk and high reward the rest of our lives.

    3. They love every minute of it: Social media has been a helpful tool to keep in touch with friends and loved ones who live far away, but it’s also helped create unrealistic expectations when it comes to parenthood and family.

    You might see a SAHM capturing and posting an idyllic midday moment with their child on Facebook. What they didn’t post was junior throwing up in the car on the way to do the grocery shopping at Walmart.

    4. They’re home and not working: As previously noted, caring for little people will stretch you in ways that a typical office role never will. In a single morning you may need to be a cook, teacher, disciplinarian, medic, counselor, philosopher, property manager, maid, chauffeur and engineer. After lunch, depending on the day, you’re a psychologist, party planner, dental hygienist, accountant, general contractor, movie reviewer, referee, and cheerleader.

    It’s no wonder that some studies have found that were mothers to be financially compensated for everything they do they’d be making in excess of $200,000.

    Stay-at-home moms are often not home because they’re off on an adventure – and they’re always working because even when children sleep, parents are on the clock.

    5. They’re eager for the children to grow up: Many women choose to stay at home with the children because they rightly understand nobody can love their children like they can. They realize the old adage is true: “The days are long but the years are short.”

    Sure, SAHMs may have a difficult day and grumble about the mud on the carpet, a sink full of dishes, colic and general crankiness, but they really don’t want to wish these days away. The “golden years” phrase has become synonymous with retirement, but it should be referring to those years with young children in the home.

    Women who choose to work outside the home out of necessity or by choice are to be commended for the love and devotion that motivates and frames their parenting. Like SAHMs, they’re carrying equally challenging burdens, sacrifice mightily for their children, and bring unique gifts and strengths to their indispensable role as their children’s mom. 

    Call it what you will – a blessed messiness or controlled chaos – it’s a privilege to raise children and a special honor to spend as much time with them as possible before the world and the calling God places on their lives takes them away from us.

    Image from Shutterstock.