WASHINGTON—Leading women in the parental rights movement spoke out in defense of the family from cultural extremism at the Road to Majority Policy Conference on Friday.
Alleigh Marré, executive director of the American Parents Coalition, and Michele Exner, senior adviser of Parents Defending Education, emphasized the importance of parents having conversations with their children about advocating for themselves.
“These should be dinner table conversations,” Marré said. “We need to make sure our kids are equipped with the language, and to know that what they feel is right, to be able to push back.”
Exner said there is an increasing trend in schools of not sharing information with parents.
“Right now, we’re up to 1,100 school districts, which includes about 10,000 schools and about 18 million students, that have policies in place that are essentially meant to keep information from parents,” Exner said.
Exner and Marré spoke to a packed room at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s annual event. Daily Signal senior reporter Mary Margaret Olohan, author of “Detrans: True Stories of Escaping the Gender Ideology Cult,” interviewed the two parents.
When it comes to social media use, Marré said a Gallup poll found that kids under 18 years old spend an average of five hours a day on social media and nine hours per day in front of a screen.
“Of all that, 41% of American kids spend two hours a day on TikTok,” Marré said. “That’s more face time than we get with our kids when they’re in school for a full day.”
Within two to eight minutes of kids using TikTok, they are exposed to content about eating disorders and suicide, Marré added.
“It is incredibly important for parents to be having those conversations with their kids about setting [social media] boundaries,” she added.
Both women said there was a parental awakening in the United States during the mass COVID-19 shutdown in 2020 and 2021.
“It took us off auto pilot,” Marré said. “All of these institutions were slowly moving a certain way.”
With the curtains pulled back, she said, parents see it all in totality today.
Marré and Exner said they are hopeful about the future. Exner said the effect COVID shutdowns had on parents will “continue to give parents the power to speak up and advocate on behalf of their family and their children,” something that was uncommon a few years ago.
Olivia Pero is a journalism intern at The Daily Signal.
Reprinted with Permission from The Daily Signal – By Olivia Pero
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
Definitely the parents have to empower their children by educating them about what the Obiden Regime has done to the children of America. They tried with the nep pandemic to keep us under their control with their lockdowns and vaccine mandates. Instead it showed their real plan for America. In 4 years they have brought poverty and drug addiction, sex changes to America which has steeped us into anarchy. They don’t follow the laws on the books. They make up laws to fit the situation. You obey or you get a visit from the weaponized FBI. Be wary people of this demented puppet in the White House. He is more dangerous than any dictator from the past.
The fact that there needs to be such a coalition speaks volumes about the long arms and the wide grab of the state omnipresent omnipotent
I seem to remember when too much TV was bad, video games were bad, hanging out in the mall was bad… but I agree with COVID measures being wrong + wrong-headed. Especially when playground equipment was “off limits” (our local school had swings tied up + crime scene caution tape around slides, merry-go-rounds, and jungle gyms) And NOW these “experts say kids should be outside?
If you recall how the Nazis and communists go after the children, you may decide this is not a fight to fight on the intellectual level.
If by some strange fluke, Trump doesn’t WIN his Election… I think the next day (or however long it TAKES to get ‘the result’) every parent across America should REMOVE their children from Public Ed. and KEEP them OUT of ‘school’. Because in that event, IT’S GOING TO GET CRAZY FAST!!! and we won’t know what just hit us! A Tsunami of Lunacy! But HE WILL WIN! And when he does, WE WILL ALL WIN!!!
This is erroneous, and parents need to be active in their children’s lives and stop engaging in conversations that will empower their elementary, middle, and high schoolers. These indoctrinated tools are intended to stray these young minds into all sorts of degradations. These individuals are encouraging pedophiles, and other groups wanting to exploit and damage the core relationship between parents and children.
the faith and freedom coalition spreads lies
alleigh marre and michele exner promote hatred and violence against anybody who is not a maga extremist