Measles cases are in 34 states with North Dakota now the focus
Residents browse offerings at a 2023 festival in downtown Fargo, N.D. Measles outbreaks starting in May have grown to 34 cases in North Dakota, giving the state the highest rate in the country, followed by New Mexico and Texas. (Photo courtesy of Visit Fargo-Moorhead)
As super-contagious measles continues to spread and nears a six-year U.S. record, cases in its original epicenter of West Texas may be subsiding as hesitant residents become more concerned and willing to vaccinate, while North Dakota is a new focus with the highest rate of any state.
The reality of measles may be overcoming vaccine misinformation in some areas, despite the purge of experts from decision-making roles in the Trump administration under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The nation's top vaccine expert resigned under pressure in March.
And on June 11, Kennedy appointed eight new members of an immunization advisory panel — some of whom are vaccine critics — after sacking all 17 members of the group two days earlier. Kennedy called his actions 'a major step towards restoring public trust in vaccines.'
The University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, however, called the committee's mass replacement 'one of the darkest days in modern public health history.' The Infectious Diseases Society of America called the move 'reckless, shortsighted and severely harmful,' saying Kennedy's criticism of the original 17 committee members is 'completely unfounded.'
Now they've seen measles in their community so now they're thinking, 'OK, now I'm going to get vaccinated.'
– Katherine Wells, director of public health in Lubbock, Texas
In West Texas, where outbreaks are concentrated, the city of Lubbock hasn't seen a new case in 20 days, said Katherine Wells, public health director for the city. The area is east of the largest Texas outbreaks, which were centered on a Mennonite community with religious objections to vaccination.
Wells attributed the recent success to a combination of more vaccinations, public awareness campaigns and willingness to stay home when sick to avoid transmission.
'I talked to some people who, because there's so much information about the risk of vaccines and the bad side effects, I can see from a parent's perspective, 'Why would I give my child that?'' Wells said. 'Now they've seen measles in their community, so now they're thinking, 'OK, now I'm going to get vaccinated.''
In North Dakota, however, the state's 34 cases give it the highest rate in the nation, followed by New Mexico and Texas, according to the North Dakota Public Health Association, a nonprofit health advocacy group that published an analysis of individual states' data on Facebook. The state's first case since 2011 was reported May 2.
'This is not a result of local public health failure,' the organization posted. 'This is a result of persons in the community choosing not to have their children vaccinated and resisting local public health recommendations and urgent efforts to increase vaccination uptake.'
Dr. Stephen McDonough, a pediatrician and former state health officer in North Dakota, said he hasn't seen signs of improvement in the state. He doubts recent federal moves will do anything but make the situation worse.
'The outbreak in North Dakota is real, has not peaked yet and is expanding,' McDonough said in an interview. 'It was just a matter of time before North Dakota experienced a measles outbreak due to our low immunization rate.'
Middle school band students in Minot, North Dakota, had to cancel trips to a regional band festival and parade in May because of the outbreak. Some 150 unvaccinated children were asked to quarantine for 21 days to avoid further spread.
North Dakota had a 90% vaccination rate among kindergarteners for the 2024-2025 school year, a number that has declined from about 95% in the 2019-2020 school year, according to state records. Vaccination coverage at 95% or above is needed to halt measles transmission.
North Dakota's small population makes its measles rate misleading, said Jenny Galbraith, an immunization manager for the North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services.
However, the state has suffered from low vaccination rates in recent years as more parents have claimed exemptions based on personal philosophy, religion or other reasons as allowed by state law. With about 7% of children exempted, it's almost impossible to reach the goal of 95% vaccination, she said.
One hopeful sign is that North Dakota hasn't seen a new measles case since May 28, Galbraith said. 'It's hard to say it's getting better because we're not out of the woods yet,' she said.
As measles outbreaks grow, Trump cuts hinder vaccination efforts
It's not always possible to overcome vaccine misinformation in the rural areas where it has taken root, said Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.
Increases in vaccination are generally in 'areas where people are already comfortable getting vaccinated,' she said, rather than areas such as parts of North Dakota and Oklahoma 'that are more leery of vaccines and harder to penetrate because of misinformation.' Texas County in Oklahoma has 16 confirmed cases, almost all among unvaccinated people.
But local officials can keep stressing the benefits of vaccination and also the need to stay home when measles symptoms appear, advice that those unwilling to vaccinate may be more likely to heed, Freeman said.
'In this day and age, it's an embarrassment that we've lost three people to measles,' she said, referring to the three deaths reported this year.
According to a federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention update June 6, there are 1,168 confirmed cases affecting 33 states. Texas reported two more cases June 10, and Navajo County, Arizona, reported the state's first four cases this week.
Some measles response plans crash to a halt after Trump cuts
There have been 17 measles outbreaks, defined as clusters of three or more related cases, this year compared with 16 in all of last year, according to the CDC. Cases are now more than four times higher than they were all of last year. And with less than half the year over, case numbers are closing in on 2019's high of 1,274.
That's still a small number compared with almost 28,000 cases in 1990, when an outbreak centered in California hit low-income areas with low vaccination rates.
While the total case count grows, the number of weekly new infections is dropping since a peak of 116 in late March.
In Texas, outbreaks have slowed as unvaccinated people have either gotten vaccinated or become infected and gained immunity, said Lara Anton, spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services.
'The number of new cases in West Texas has slowed down and we are cautiously optimistic that this trend will continue,' Anton said.
The current list of states affected by confirmed measles cases this year: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.
Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.
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Atlantic
2 hours ago
- Atlantic
The Senator Who Failed America on Vaccines
It's easy to forget that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s assault on vaccines—including, most recently, his gutting of the expert committee that guides American vaccine policy—might have been avoided. Four months ago, his nomination for health secretary was in serious jeopardy. The deciding vote seemed to be in the hands of one Republican senator: Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. A physician who gained prominence by vaccinating low-income kids in his home state, Cassidy was wary of the longtime vaccine conspiracist. 'I have been struggling with your nomination,' he told Kennedy during his confirmation hearings in January. Then Cassidy caved. In the speech he gave on the Senate floor explaining his decision, Cassidy said that he'd vote to confirm Kennedy only because he had extracted a number of concessions from the nominee—chief among them that he would preserve, 'without changes,' the very CDC committee Kennedy overhauled this week. Since then, Cassidy has continued to give Kennedy the benefit of the doubt. On Monday, after Kennedy dismissed all 17 members of the vaccine advisory committee, Cassidy posted on X that he was working with Kennedy to prevent the open roles from being filled with 'people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion.' The senator has failed, undeniably and spectacularly. One new appointee, Robert Malone, has repeatedly spread misinformation (or what he prefers to call 'scientific dissent') about vaccines. Another appointee, Vicky Pebsworth, is on the board of an anti-vax nonprofit, the National Vaccine Information Center. Cassidy may keep insisting that he is doing all he can to stand up for vaccines. But he already had his big chance to do so, and he blew it. Now, with the rest of America, he's watching the nation's vaccine future take a nosedive. So far, the senator hasn't appeared interested in any kind of mea culpa for his faith in Kennedy's promises. On Thursday, I caught Cassidy as he hurried out of a congressional hearing room. He was still reviewing the appointees, he told me and several other reporters who gathered around him. When I chased after him down the hallway to ask more questions, he told me, 'I'll be putting out statements, and I'll let those statements stand for themselves.' A member of his staff dismissed me with a curt 'Thank you, sir.' Cassidy's staff has declined repeated requests for an interview with the senator since the confirmation vote in January. With the exception of Mitch McConnell, every GOP senator voted to confirm Kennedy. They all have to own the health secretary's actions. But Cassidy seemed to be the Republican most concerned about Kennedy's nomination, and there was a good reason to think that the doctor would vote his conscience. In 2021, Cassidy was one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict Donald Trump on an impeachment charge after the insurrection at the Capitol. But this time, the senator—who is up for reelection next year, facing a more MAGA-friendly challenger—ultimately fell in line. Cassidy tried to have it both ways: elevating Kennedy to his job while also vowing to constrain him. In casting his confirmation vote, Cassidy implied that the two would be in close communication, and that Kennedy had asked for his input on hiring decisions. The two reportedly had breakfast in March to discuss the health secretary's plan to dramatically reshape the department. 'Senator Cassidy speaks regularly with secretary Kennedy and believes those conversations are much more productive when they're held in private, not through press headlines,' a spokesperson for Cassidy wrote in an email. (A spokesperson for HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) At times, it has appeared as though Cassidy's approach has had some effect on the health secretary. Amid the measles outbreak in Texas earlier this year, Kennedy baselessly questioned the safety of the MMR vaccine. In April, after two unvaccinated children died, Cassidy posted on X: 'Everyone should be vaccinated! There is no treatment for measles. No benefit to getting measles. Top health officials should say so unequivocally b/4 another child dies.' Cassidy didn't call out Kennedy by name, but the health secretary appeared to get the message. Later that day, Kennedy posted that the measles vaccine was the most effective way to stave off illness. ('Completely agree,' Cassidy responded.) All things considered, that's a small victory. Despite Kennedy's claims that he is not an anti-vaxxer, he has enacted a plainly anti-vaccine agenda. Since being confirmed, he has pushed out the FDA's top vaccine regulator, hired a fellow vaccine skeptic to investigate the purported link between autism and shots, and questioned the safety of childhood vaccinations currently recommended by the CDC. As my colleague Katherine J. Wu wrote this week, 'Whether he will admit to it or not, he is serving the most core goal of the anti-vaccine movement—eroding access to, and trust in, immunization.' The reality is that back channels can be only so effective. Cassidy's main power is to call Kennedy before the Senate health committee, which he chairs, and demand an explanation for Kennedy's new appointees to the CDC's vaccine-advisory committee. Cassidy might very well do that. In February, he said that Kennedy would 'come before the committee on a quarterly basis, if requested.' Kennedy did appear before Cassidy's committee last month to answer questions about his efforts to institute mass layoffs at his agency. Some Republicans (and many Democrats) pressed the secretary on those efforts, while others praised them. Cassidy, for his part, expressed concerns about Kennedy's indiscriminate cutting of research programs, but still, he was largely deferential. 'I agree with Secretary Kennedy that HHS needs reform,' Cassidy said. Even if he had disagreed, an angry exchange between a health secretary and a Senate committee doesn't guarantee any policy changes. Lawmakers may try to act like government bureaucrats report to them, but they have limited power once a nominee is already in their job. Technically, lawmakers can impeach Cabinet members, but in American history, a sitting Cabinet member has never been impeached and subsequently removed from office. The long and arduous confirmation process is supposed to be the bulwark against potentially dangerous nominees being put in positions of power. Cassidy and most of his Republican colleagues have already decided not to stop Kennedy from overseeing the largest department in the federal government by budget. Now Kennedy is free to do whatever he wants—senators be damned.
Politico
4 hours ago
- Politico
‘A Total Sham': Michelle Obama's Nutrition Adviser Lets Loose on MAHA
Before there was MAHA, there was Michelle. Anyone following the rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again movement can't help but recall former First Lady Michelle Obama's efforts to improve Americans' diets — and the vitriol she faced in response. Now, many of the same Republicans who skewered Michelle Obama as a 'nanny state' warrior have embraced the MAHA movement. To explore this head-spinning turn, I called up Sam Kass, the former White House chef under President Barack Obama and a food policy adviser who led the first lady's 'Let's Move' initiative. Kass said he was happy to find common ground with Kennedy and his MAHA brigade where possible. But he argued Kennedy's HHS has done little to actually improve the health of the public so far, and was instead mostly taking steps that would do real damage, including by undermining the use of vaccines. Kass also warned potentially MAHA-curious food advocates against legitimizing the Trump administration by offering support for Kennedy. 'Those who are lending their voice for the things that they support are going to ultimately help enable outcomes that are going to be quite devastating for this country and for our kids,' he said in an interview with POLITICO Magazine. At the same time, Kass is not surprised with MAHA's growing popularity. In the 10-plus years since Kass left the White House, the issues of diet-related chronic disease haven't abated and Americans are more anxious about their health than ever. Wellness is a trillion-dollar industry, and MAHA influencers have filled the gap left by Democrats. 'The Democratic Party has absolutely blundered this issue,' he said. 'We're getting what we deserve here in some ways.' This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. How do you square the earlier conservative criticism of the 'Let's Move' initiative with the rise of MAHA? Are you surprised by the seeming contradiction? I think most of that is because Republicans are fearful of President Trump. And therefore, if he is putting somebody in a position of great power and backing him, there's a huge part of the party that's going to go along with whatever that may be. I don't think this is actually about the Republican Party taking this up. This is actually about a Democrat, traditionally, who had built up a pretty strong following on these issues, and decided to join forces with President Trump. It's not like any of these ideas are coming from the GOP platform. This is an RFK-led effort that they're now supporting. So are they hypocrites for that? Certainly. But I welcome Republican support on trying to genuinely improve the health of the nation. Frankly, if we had had that for the last 20 years, I think that cultural retention would be far better. The reality, though, is what they're actually doing I don't think is going to have any positive impact, or very little. Even what they're saying is problematic on some levels, but what they're doing is a far cry from anything that's going to create the health outcomes this country needs. When you say that, do you mean banning soda from SNAP or the food dyes issue? Are there specific things that come to mind? It's a long list. There's the critique that MAHA brings at the highest level, that chronic disease has exploded in our country. Nobody can refute that, and what we're eating is a big driver of poor health outcomes on many different levels. That is absolutely true. What we grow, how we're growing it, and what's being made out of it is quite literally killing people. That is something that First Lady Michelle Obama said way back when. I've been saying it for a couple of decades. After that, everything falls apart in my mind. We can start with food dyes as the biggest announcement they made thus far. I'm all for getting food dyes out of food. There's just not a basis of evidence that most of the ones that are being used are actually the drivers of many of these health conditions. It was reported that they were banning food dyes. Sadly, what they did was a total sham. It was a farce of an event. There was no policy at all that was announced. There was no guidance, there was no regulatory proposal, there wasn't even a request for information. There was absolutely nothing put forward to revoke the approvals of these dyes. And the reason I believe is that to revoke an approval, you have to show that it's harming the public health. That's what we did for trans fats. Trans fats had been approved for consumption. There was plenty of evidence to show that that food was really driving death and disease in the country, and we banned it through a regulatory mechanism. I could not fathom making an announcement like that without actually having a real policy to put in place. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry about what they did. Also, you see a bunch of the influencers holding up bags of Fruit Loops and saying, 'In Europe or Canada, these have no [synthetic] food dyes and ours do.' But the fact of the matter is Fruit Loops aren't good for you either way. Part of the danger of RFK is he keeps talking about gold standard science and rebooting our public policy and science. The reality is he's doing the exact opposite. He's going to fast food restaurants, touting them on national television as the head of Health and Human Services, [saying that] a cheeseburger and french fries is good for you now because it's cooked in beef fat which is just the most insane thing on literally every single level. It has absolutely no basis in science. We're focusing on issues that are absolutely not going to make an iota of difference in public health. It's absolutely shocking. They have a platform that is fear-based on certain issues, like these food dyes or seed oils, which are absolutely not addressing the core of what we're eating and the core of what's really harming our health. The problem is the fries and the cheeseburger. It's not the oil that it's fried in. It's actually quite scary to me to see what's playing out. Why do you think the politics of food have changed in the years since you were in the White House, and why do you think MAHA ideas have such appeal? I don't exactly know for sure. In the age of social media, the thing that gets the algorithms the most activity is more extreme views. I think people are very vulnerable to very compelling, very scientifically sounding narratives that [MAHA influencers] all have, based on one study here or another study there, that can weave a narrative of fear. It's not like food dyes are good, I'm happy to see them go. But you get people scared of what they're eating to the point where people stop eating vegetables because they're worried about the pesticides, which is just not good for their health. This fear is definitely taking hold. I think it's because the mediums on which this information travels are exacerbating that fear. You already mentioned the food dye announcement and why that was concerning to you. What are some of the other actions that you think aren't necessarily achieving the stated goals? If you step back and start to look at what actions have actually been taken, what you're actually seeing is a full-on assault on science throughout HHS. You're seeing a complete gutting of NIH, which funds much of the research needed to understand what in hyper-processed foods is undermining people's health and how to actually identify those correlations so you can regulate it very aggressively. You're seeing the complete gutting or elimination of departments within CDC and FDA that oversee the safety of our food. Food toxicologists have been fired. There's a department in CDC that's in charge of assessing chronic health and environmental exposures to toxins. Those offices have been eliminated. The idea that somehow you're going to be more aggressively regulating based on the best science, while you're absolutely wholesale cutting scientific research and gutting the people who are in charge of overseeing the very industry that you're trying to clamp down on is a joke. Then look at the 'big, beautiful bill' that is being supported by this administration, and it's catastrophic to the public health of the United States of America. Eight million people are going to lose access to health care. Three million plus are going to lose SNAP assistance. Then we can get into USDA and EPA. Everybody's got to remember that the number one threat to the public health of the United States of America is climate change. If we continue on this path of pulling back every regulatory effort that's been made to try to transition our society to a much more sustainable, lower-carbon world, that's also preparing itself to deal with the volatility that's coming from the climate, we're not going to have food to eat. This idea that you're going to have big announcements about food dyes and Fruit Loops, while you completely roll back every effort to prepare our agricultural system and our food system to deal with climate change, you're gaslighting the American public. Have you spoken to the former first lady about MAHA at all? Not in any kind of depth. Have you ever been in touch with Kennedy? Have you ever talked to him about these issues? He's very close to a number of people I'm good friends with, but no, I have not. You noted Kennedy used to be a Democrat. His issues — his opposition to pesticides, his support for healthy nutrition, with all the caveats that we just discussed — these were Democratic issues. Now, this MAHA coalition helped Trump win the White House. Why do you think Democrats have ceded this terrain? The Democratic Party has absolutely blundered this issue. These are kitchen table issues. Our very well-being, our ability to eat food that's not harming ourselves and our kids, is fundamental to life on planet Earth and what it means to have a vibrant society. The fact that Democrats, much to my chagrin, definitely not because of lack of trying, have not taken this issue up with great effort over the last 15 years is shameful. We're getting what we deserve here in some ways. I'm deeply critical of Democrats, with some exceptions. Sen. Cory Booker has been amazing on these issues. [Former Sen.] Jon Tester is also great. But it was never part of the platform, and it absolutely always should have been. If there's some common ground to be found with Republicans, then great. We could get a lot done. But we can't just turn over the keys to this issue to people who are not serious. When you worked in the Obama White House, you pushed better nutrition labeling, active living, bans on unhealthy foods in school meals and trans fat. The recent MAHA report pointed the finger at similar programs for chronic illness. Is that a place where you and MAHA advocates are on the same page, and how do you balance that with the concerns you've raised? There's no clean answer to that. We largely, not entirely, share the same critique when it comes to food. Vaccines are another thing which are important to also talk about. People are trying to pick the issue that they like and can get around and pretend like the rest isn't happening. It would be great if we got food dyes out, but it would pale in comparison to if he continues down the path to undermine vaccines as the foundation of public health and people start dying, like they are, with measles. That is not even close to a trade. For all of my food friends who read this, or everybody in policy who are like, 'Oh yeah, I can work with him on this issue, but I'm going to turn a blind eye to that,' that doesn't work. That's going to lead to devastating outcomes. On the report, I share the general critique of the problem. I spent my life saying those things and working on these issues. That's the easy part. What matters is what you do about it. How do you actually change what people are eating, and what is it going to take to really put the country on a different trajectory when it comes to health? So far, I've seen absolutely no indication that the issues that they're focused on are going to have any meaningful or measurable impact on public health. Frankly, there's many other things that I think are going to be extremely detrimental. We will see. We're only a few months in. I could, depending on what happens, have a different perspective in six months or 12 months. RFK has blamed the food industry for Americans' poor health. He's argued that government institutions are overwrought with corporate influence. Do you think he's right? And what do you think about RFK's approach to trying to curb corporate influence? I'm all for curbing corporate influence. I had some big fights with industry. I won some of them, and sometimes I got my ass kicked. It's the nature of Washington when you're threatening the basic interests of an industry. What's stunning to me is that the food industry so far has been silent. They haven't done anything to fight back, which says to me that they're not feeling threatened yet. I think they're waiting to see what's going to happen. I'm sure they're doing some stuff in the background, but this is nothing like what we were dealing with. I agree that we should put the public's best interest first, not succumb to industry influence. I think the way that RFK talks about it is a real overstatement down a very dark conspiracy theory. The idea that JAMA and the American Medical Association and the New England Journal are just like corporate journals that just put corporate, completely distorted research out for the sake of making profits, it's just not serious. He starts to discredit the very institutions, like HHS, that you actually need to do the work to rein in industry. The way that industry does make inroads is that they fund a lot of research. If you want to reduce industry influence, you should dramatically increase [government] investment in funding of scientific research on agriculture and climate change, on food and nutrition. One of the biggest fights in the Obama era was over stricter nutrition standards for school lunches. The administration won some of those battles, but quite a few children still have obesity, according to the latest data. Is there anything you wish the Obama administration had done differently? Are there things policymakers should be doing differently? School nutrition is just one part of a young person's diet. You're not going to solve kids' health issues just through school nutrition, but obviously it's a huge lever to pull. If we really want to make progress, you have to look much more holistically at the food environment that people are living in. This is generational work. It's going to take literally decades of work to shift, not just the policies, but our culture, our businesses, to change how people are eating. I think the one thing we missed would have been a much stricter restriction on sugar across the board. We had it for drinks,, but we didn't [apply it across the board], and that was a miss. We should have pushed harder on sugar. I think the policy was a really important start. It can always be improved and strengthened. Both the first Trump administration and this one are looking to roll back some of that. The thing that we have to not forget — and this is true for schools, and certainly true for SNAP and WIC — is the biggest problem is not enough money for these programs. I started doing a lot of work on finding ways to restrict sugary drinks as an example from the SNAP program. But if you want to do that and actually get the health outcomes you need, you need to also increase the total dollar amount that people have so they can purchase healthier food. Part of the reason why people are drinking these things is they're the cheapest available drink. Coke is cheaper than water sometimes. RFK recently called sugar 'poison.' Do you agree with that? One of their tactics to obfuscate truth in science is dosage, right? The amount that we're consuming matters. If you had a birthday cake on your birthday and you have a cookie — my kids eat a cookie, they're not dying, they're not being poisoned to death. They're fine. I think the problem is the amount of sugar we're consuming and the sizes of the portions we have. It's the cumulative amount of sugar. It's probably technically not exactly the right word, poison. But I don't take issue with that. I think the levels of sugar consumption for young people are deeply alarming and are absolutely going to drive preventable death and disease for millions and millions of people. It already is and will continue to do so. It is a very serious problem. But what do you do? I can't wait to see the policy proposals here. It's a tough problem to solve. It is not a problem that can be solved overnight, and it's going to take a very comprehensive effort to really shift the amount of sugar we're consuming, but it should be the goal of this administration. They should work very hard at it in a very serious and science-based way. Thus far, I have not seen that.
Atlantic
4 hours ago
- Atlantic
Another Side of Modern Fatherhood
Much of what you've heard lately about men has probably been negative. Young guys, we're told, are being radicalized and sucked into the manosphere; adult men are toxic, or victims of a loneliness epidemic. We may have become so used to crisis narratives about men, masculinity, and fatherhood that we're failing to see the ways in which men are progressing. One omnipresent parenting influencer, Becky Kennedy, thinks that, when it comes to fatherhood in particular, a lot of dads are doing just fine, and that should be celebrated. 'I asked a group of dads the other day, 'What is something you do that your own dad never did?'' Kennedy, who goes by 'Dr. Becky,' told me earlier this week. 'It brought tears to a lot of their eyes to be able to say, 'Maybe not even 50 percent of the nights, but maybe 30, I put my kids to sleep even if they're screaming for their mom every time. My dad never put me to sleep.' I could cry, John.' Kennedy has found a large, eager market for her views. Four years ago, Time magazine dubbed her 'the Millennial Parenting Whisperer,' and her reach continues to grow. She's the author of a No. 1 New York Times best-selling book, a podcast host, and the proprietor of a parenting-education program—all branded under the banner 'Good Inside,' her 'app-based membership' platform. On Instagram, she has more than 3 million followers. She makes part of her living on the speaking circuit; at times, the charge for a virtual Dr. Becky appearance has run to as much as $200,000. Her detractors say she's more a shrewd businesswoman than a benevolent force, but thousands of parents have come to see her as some sort of healer. Kennedy, who holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, leans more on anecdotal evidence than on hard research, presenting herself less as an expert and more as a confidante. At the recent 'Future of Fatherhood Summit' in Midtown Manhattan, Kennedy was among the speakers discussing topics such as caregiving, paid leave, and 'inclusive masculinity.' Most of the voices were male—Jonathan Haidt, Chasten Buttigieg, and Representative Jimmy Gomez of the Congressional Dads Caucus among them. Kennedy's upbeat presentation stood out amid no small amount of pontificating. Kennedy offers a centrist perspective: She rejects the expectation that men are breadwinners and nothing more; she also rejects the idea that dads 'need to be made into moms' or that successful parenting requires 50–50 sharing of household tasks. Listening to her there, and during a follow-up interview, I thought about one of my favorite New Yorker cartoons. In the frame, a slump-shouldered middle-aged man is holding a vacuum cleaner and daydreaming about a wild celebration—confetti, people cheering, and a banner that reads NED HELPED OUT. Kennedy's glass-half-full mentality is undoubtedly a form of positive reinforcement for guys who feel like they can't do anything right. Kennedy is often associated with the 'gentle parenting' movement, but her overall philosophy boils down to what she calls 'sturdy parenting,' an even-keeled approach that is, in some ways, a welcome alternative to 'helicopter parenting.' She likes to talk about what she calls 'deeply feeling kids,' or 'DFKs' for short, and her defense of the modern dad is almost a continuation of her child-care approach— You're doing great, sweetie. Like many figures in the wellness and self-improvement space, Kennedy occasionally falls back on platitudes—fathers are looking for a 'dad journey,' not just 'dad duty,' she maintains. And the resetting of expectations that she proposes also runs the risk of stalling progress. At what point does affirmation for dads become nothing more than handing out participation trophies? Kennedy feels confident that fathers are hungry to better their domestic lives. 'We've had this drumbeat of 'parenting is a skill,' which I think means anyone can learn it,' Kennedy told me. But she's found that today's dads actually have 'less shame' than moms around confronting the hard truth that they may not know everything from the moment their child is born. She believes that this is partly because society doesn't home in on the phrase paternal instinct, whereas an innate 'maternal instinct' is widely expected. In lieu of male pride or obstinacy, she's found modern dads to be genuinely curious. 'They know they don't have the skills,' she said. 'They're like, 'Someone just teach me.'' In the end, Kennedy believes that today's dads, to varying degrees, want 'repair' with their kids, and to be 'cycle-breakers'—making up for all those nights they went to bed without their own dad tucking them in. Rather than raising boys who will end up in the manosphere, they want to teach their kids how to deal with their feelings. In a time of wall-to-wall negativity, Kennedy's optimism is refreshing. Whether or not the proper prescription for modern parenting partnerships lies in patting dads on the back for performing seemingly basic tasks, Kennedy's pragmatism about making men feel capable of the job of raising children seems a worthwhile place to start.
