This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** “Toy Story 5” has struck a nerve. Since its release on June 19, it has become the highest-grossing “Toy Story” movie ever and pulled in the second-highest Pixar opening. The film captures something many parents have felt: the age of toys is over. Play-based childhood has ended, and we are now in the age of screens. The movie’s accurate diagnosis of the crisis in modern American childhood captures the frustrations parents feel over kids and screens. If you talk to most parents, they lament the state of childhood today, but they also feel a sense that the screens are inevitable. The film captures this sentiment well by portraying the collective action problems that screens during childhood present. As Jonathan Haidt explains in his book “The Anxious Generation,” screens and their apps create negative network effects, where even kids who aren’t on smartphones or social media can still experience their negative impacts by how it changes the group social dynamics among peers. In the film, Bonnie has no one to play with because all the other kids are sitting inside on screens. As Jessie, the beloved cowgirl first introduced in “Toy Story 2,” says, “No wonder she can’t make a friend; she is the only one out there still playing with toys.” All the other kids are just tap, tap, tapping away inside on screens. This collective action problem pressures parents to give in to the screens, despite their initial reservations. Oftentimes, like Bonnie’s parents in the movie, parents believe that giving the screen will solve the child’s loneliness problems and help them connect more with friends.  While “Toy Story 5” captures how parents feel fed up with the screens, unfortunately, the film misses the mark on solutions and instead affirms a sense of helplessness on the part of parents that screens are now just an inevitable part of childhood. As Bonnie’s parents hand her a tablet, they note, “Now that you are eight, we figured it was time.” Sadly, the movie is mainly reflecting our cultural reality. The combination of social pressures and the dominant modern parenting strategy of child-led, gentle parenting leads most parents, despite their reservations, to fall into the “screen-time trap.” By age 2, 40% of children have their own tablet; by age 4, over half of children (58%) own a tablet, and about 80% of kids between ages 5 to 11 interact with tablets, according to Common Sense Media’s latest survey. Despite initial concerns, parents end up relenting to the screens, and they are told by the tech companies that they can mitigate any dangers by imposing time limits and controls.  Thus, most parents (86%) have rules around when, where, or how their child can use screens, according to a Pew Research Center survey. However, in practice, only one-in-five parents say they are able to stick to their rules around screens all the time. Furthermore, even companies’ own internal research finds that their time limit tools are ineffective. TikTok created the option for parents to limit children’s time on the app, and the company set the default time limit for children to 60 minutes each day. Their internal research showed that this tool didn’t put a dent in the average time children spent on the app. Minors’ usage dropped by less than 1%, from about 108.5 minutes each day to roughly 107 minutes on the app each day. All of this shouldn’t surprise us if we correctly understand that interactive screens are designed to be addictive to our brains, especially the developing brains of children. Brain studies show that screens activate the same reward pathway in the brain as alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, as they release constant bursts of dopamine. Dopamine is responsible for motivation and incentivizes us to keep going to get a reward. But dopamine doesn’t produce satisfaction or fulfillment; it only creates a constant craving for more. Unlike natural rewards in real life, with screens there is no completion point, no consummation that triggers an opioid satisfaction response in the brain and then naturally winds down our motivation. Instead, a user is permanently trapped in a wanting phase, stuck dopamine chasing.  A time limit will never be enough. Even 15 minutes of screen time a day creates a biological constant compulsion for more. As one mom said to me about managing screen limits, “It’s me, a drug-dispensing machine, and an underdeveloped child.” No wonder only one in five parents can stick to their screen rules. But what are parents to do instead?   Photo courtesy of Pixar Unfortunately, “Toy Story 5” doesn’t offer parents a positive path away from the screens. The sad irony in the movie is that even once it becomes evident to her parents that Bonnie is being harmed by her screen, Lilypad, and its group chat, it is not the parents who take decisive action to take the screen away. It is Lilypad, the screen herself, who takes action when she realizes that for all the connection and friendship she promised, she has only ended up hurting Bonnie. (If only real screens were so self-aware; unfortunately, they are run by aggressive algorithms that keep kids addicted at whatever cost.)  At this cultural moment, when the evidence of the harms of screens has never been clearer, “Toy Story 5” missed its opportunity to take a stronger stance and show parents that screens do not need to be an inevitable part of modern childhood and, in fact, a better way is possible: getting rid of the screens entirely. We don’t need better uses for screens, as portrayed at the end of the film when Lilypad connects Bonnie with a new friend in real life. We need loving, yet authoritative, parents who decisively take the screens away and instead guide their children toward a life of independent, imaginary play and in-person friendships.  In my book, I outline this different path, called “the Tech Exit.” The definition of the Tech Exit is: no smartphones, social media, tablets, or video games during childhood or the teen years. If this sounds impossible, let me offer you a few tips for how to start on this journey to embracing the real-life childhood that you already want for your kids. It can be done, and it’s even possible to reverse course if you’ve already given your child screens. First, you have to detox from all interactive screens if you have already given them. Start with a 30-day detox if you can. Prepare your family by explaining what you’re doing and why. Pick a day to start, and then do it. Get rid of all the screens from your house. Science shows that detoxes work to reset our brains — for anyone at any age at any time.  Once you have detoxed, to keep going over the long-term, you will need to find other families.  No parent can make this exit alone. From tablets in kindergarten classrooms to smartphone apps required of college and even high school students, we are all expected to participate in a society-wide social experiment. To counteract these pressures, parents must join together. By working with other families in your communities and schools, you can create counter pressures to push screens back out of childhood.  This also means parents need to take a more active role in helping a child build an in-person social life, setting up play dates, helping them set up in-person activities, and helping them find friends who also aren’t on screens. Helping your children find friends and build a healthy social life takes work. One older mom gave me as a young mom a word of caution: “You’ll have to work at helping children build a social life, especially when they’re tweens and teens. These things used to happen more naturally, but because kids are so plugged in now, you have to be far more intentional about it as a parent.” Parents can help by facilitating social activities in their homes, like having a fire pit in their backyard for teens to hang out around, putting a ping-pong table in the basement, or organizing hikes or service projects for teens to do together.  Saying no to screens is ultimately about saying “yes” to so much more in real life. As we take screens away, we need to replace them with positive responsibilities and activities in the real world. Give children tools and tasks that foster independence and adult responsibility. For teens, it can be a car or a first job. For tweens and younger children, it can be a bike they are allowed to ride to their friend’s house or the neighborhood pool, a pet that is their responsibility, chores around the home, or even early informal jobs such as raking a neighbor’s yard or babysitting. Real-life responsibilities channel a child’s time and energy toward building productive life skills such as work ethic, care, responsibility, creativity, and problem-solving that will help them flourish both in the present and in the future. This is the life we all want for our children and the bold solution that “Toy Story 5” should have held out to parents: Get rid of the screens entirely, get your kids outside, help them find friends in real life, and give them responsibilities. This is the path to true flourishing.  *** Clare Morell is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of “The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones.” She previously worked in the White House Counsel’s Office and the Justice Department during the first Trump administration.

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that Republicans will make history this September by holding the party’s first national convention during a midterm election year, an unprecedented gathering designed to energize voters and showcase the administration’s accomplishments ahead of November. The Republican convention will take place September 9-10 in Dallas, marking the first time the GOP has staged a national convention outside of a presidential election cycle. “BIG NEWS! For the first time ever, the Republican Party will hold a MIDTERM CONVENTION,” Trump announced on Truth Social. Calling it a “truly Historic Event,” Trump said Republicans will celebrate what he described as the “Great American Comeback” and the successes of his America First agenda. The president said the convention will feature “hardworking Americans, our Great Innovators, Entrepreneurs, Manufacturers, First Responders, and Job Creators,” alongside entertainment and what he promised would be “a RALLY like none other.” Although Trump first floated the idea last year, Tuesday’s announcement confirms that the event is officially moving forward after the Republican National Committee approved rule changes earlier this year that allow for a national convention outside the traditional four-year presidential cycle. The convention comes as Republicans defend a razor-thin House majority and a narrow Senate majority, where even a handful of losses could hand Democrats control of Congress for the remainder of Trump’s term. Historically, the president’s party almost always loses seats during midterm elections, and Republican strategists have acknowledged the challenge of motivating voters without Trump’s name appearing on the ballot. The convention is intended to help counter that trend by putting Trump himself at the center of the campaign and nationalizing congressional races around his administration’s record. In his announcement, Trump highlighted a list of administration priorities he said Republicans will celebrate during the convention, including tax relief, border security, lower costs, increased domestic energy production, and what he described as the country’s “Golden Age.” Holding the event in Texas also places a national spotlight on one of the country’s most consequential battlegrounds. Texas will feature multiple competitive House races, while Republicans also are defending a closely watched Senate seat between Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democrat Texas state Representative James Talarico. The state also remains central to Republican efforts to preserve and expand their congressional majority following this year’s mid-decade redistricting fight. While Republicans move forward with the historic gathering, Democrats ultimately abandoned discussions about organizing a similar midterm convention of their own, despite reportedly considering the idea earlier this year. The timing of the event is also notable. The convention will conclude on Sept. 10, the first anniversary of the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, whose death last year became a defining moment for many conservatives and prompted renewed discussions about political violence in America. Whether that date becomes part of the convention’s messaging remains to be seen.

Vice President JD Vance laid out his vision for the future of the Republican Party during a wide-ranging interview with Daily Wire host Michael Knowles released Tuesday, touching on everything from his conversion to Catholicism to artificial intelligence, Iran, and the direction of the conservative movement after President Donald Trump’s second term. While much of the conversation focused on Vance’s new book, Communion, and his journey back to Christianity, it also explored the political philosophy guiding one of the GOP’s leading figures. One of the interview’s biggest takeaways came when Vance declared that today’s Republican Party has fundamentally moved beyond the economic consensus that defined conservatism for decades. “American economic policy on the right is now much more Alexander Hamilton than it is Milton Friedman,” Vance said, arguing that President Trump’s political movement has already transformed the GOP’s approach to trade, tariffs, manufacturing, and industrial policy. Rather than viewing economic growth as an end in itself, Vance argued that government should prioritize policies that strengthen families, communities, and workers. “The economy is a tool to service the dignity of the human person,” he told Knowles. Vance also took aim at modern meritocracy, arguing that elite institutions have encouraged Americans to pursue achievement for its own sake instead of focusing on what gives life meaning. He contrasted elite careerism with the importance of family, faith, and community, telling Knowles that “nobody is on their deathbed” wishing they had spent less time with their children in exchange for greater wealth. Knowles also asked Vance about the intellectual influences behind his worldview, prompting discussions of St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, René Girard, Pope Leo XIII, and Catholic social teaching. Vance credited those thinkers with helping shape both his religious conversion and his political outlook. The vice president also reflected on his own conversion to Catholicism, describing his journey from an unchurched evangelical upbringing through atheism before ultimately finding stability in what he called the Catholic Church’s continuity across generations and its unchanging doctrine. Beyond philosophy, Knowles pressed Vance on several major policy issues. Discussing the administration’s handling of Iran, Vance defended President Trump’s willingness to use military force while rejecting what he characterized as intervention for its own sake. “The president is willing to drop bombs,” Vance said, “but only if it serves an objective.” On artificial intelligence, Vance argued that America must remain competitive with China while also preventing AI from becoming a tool for social harm. He distinguished between AI used for breakthroughs like curing disease and applications that promote pornography, exploit children, or concentrate power among large technology companies. Looking ahead to the 2028 election, Vance predicted Democrats would likely nominate Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), arguing that universities, rather than labor unions, have become the Democratic Party’s true center of power. Vance laid out the broader ideas informing his vision for the Republican Party: one centered on national development, family, faith, and what he repeatedly described as the dignity of the human person, arguing those principles should guide the GOP beyond Trump’s second term. Watch the full interview:

Our Founding Fathers would not have recognized today’s Supreme Court ruling, which upheld bans on transgender athletes in girls’ and women’s sports. After many pen strokes on parchment, what would later become the most powerful nation the world has ever seen laid its foundation on one word: liberty. Liberty is the means to pursue happiness, and thus we were given the Declaration’s most famous phrase. But the Declaration doesn’t promise happiness; it protects its pursuit. Liberty never meant “I get whatever I want.” It has always meant “I am free until that freedom unjustly burdens or harms someone else.” Liberty must be balanced with responsibility. And that’s why today’s decision isn’t simply about sports. It’s about whether one person’s identity can override another’s rights. The nation’s highest court didn’t create a new principle — it reaffirmed an old one. Rights often conflict. When they do, justice must prevail. Girls deserve equal opportunity, privacy, safety, and fair competition. And no one’s liberty can be protected by a society that refuses to acknowledge reality. I’m not a founding father, but I am a girl dad. And every dad understands this instinctively. I don’t hate boys (I have two sons). I simply love my daughters. They deserve to compete fairly for scholarships and championships without having to share a bathroom with a boy. Liberty does not permit another child to take their opportunities. One of their classmate’s freedoms can’t erase their rights. But there is another victim in this debate. The Left likes to claim that conservatives hate transgender individuals. I certainly don’t. I treat each one I meet with the same dignity I afford others. I believe many are suffering, and political slogans only fail them. You can despise an ideology without despising the person trapped inside it. Where else in society do we not offer healing to those who are suffering? This is where “truth” gets in the way. We now hear phrases on debate stages such as “my truth” and “your truth.” But truth isn’t subjective. And truth is often framed as the opposition to compassion. But truth makes compassion possible. Without an honest diagnosis, there can never be real treatment. We don’t buy the alcoholic a beer. We help him find a rehab facility. We don’t tell anorexic people to lose another twenty pounds. We help them shift their perception. A compassionate doctor doesn’t hide a diagnosis. He delivers the truth because that is the first step in the healing process. In every example, pursuing the former remedy results in greater suffering. The most compassionate thing we can do as Americans is help our neighbors reconcile with reality rather than conform to their suffering. But it is the former approach that our media and corporations continue to employ. When ESPN reports that the Supreme Court “upheld state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school athletics teams,” or that dozens of states “have adopted bans on female transgender athletes,” it is rejecting the compassionate truth. “Transgender girls” and “female transgender athletes” are boys. When one sees his identity confirmed by our most prominent institutions, it affirms “his truth.” Instead of asking, “How do we help people become comfortable in the bodies God blessed them with?” these institutions ask, “How do we persuade everyone else to participate in the identity they’ve adopted?” Affirmation is never treatment. This is where conservatives have a tremendous opportunity to not just be known as the defenders of truth but as the people most willing to help those living through this struggle. It is well known how the Left panders to groups like this (and others) to win votes. But winning someone’s identity isn’t the same as winning the person. And there are a lot of hurting people. But, like everything, this transcends politics. The Supreme Court shouldn’t have to fix natural truths. In fact, it should never make it past the dinner table. It should never make it out of the Church walls. It should never make it to the school pickup line. Parents first, but pastors, teachers, and citizens alike can play a role in identifying, helping, responding, and intervening. It’s the compassionate thing to do. I want my daughters to inherit an America where girls can be girls — fairly. I also want every young person struggling with their gender to get the appropriate help. Washington, Jefferson, and Madison gifted us a nation built on ordered liberty, not limitless self-definition. The challenge before us is not choosing between truth and compassion but refusing to surrender either in our pursuit of happiness. *** Gates Garcia is the host of the YouTube show and podcast “We The People.” Follow him on Instagram and X @GatesGarciaFL.

Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ) revealed Tuesday that the undisclosed medical condition that kept him away from Congress for nearly four months was depression, ending months of speculation about one of the House GOP’s most closely watched absences. Returning to the House floor for the first time since early March, Kean disclosed that he was hospitalized after experiencing health concerns and was ultimately diagnosed with depression, a condition he described as far more debilitating than many people realize. “Many people think it is feeling sad. It is so much more than that,” Kean told colleagues. “It is physical, it is emotional, and until you experience it yourself, it is difficult to fully understand how powerful this illness can be.” The announcement comes after Kean missed more than 100 House votes and largely disappeared from public view, creating headaches for House Republican leadership as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) attempted to navigate the chamber’s razor-thin majority. Kean last cast a vote on March 5 before abruptly stepping away from Congress. His office initially described the situation only as a “personal medical issue,” repeatedly declining to elaborate while assuring constituents the congressman expected to make a full recovery. Earlier this month, Kean’s political adviser, Harrison Neely, announced the congressman would return to Washington on June 30 and promised he would be “fully transparent” about his condition. On Tuesday, Kean explained that he initially entered the hospital for medical testing before receiving his diagnosis. “I was given the diagnosis of depression,” he said. Kean said doctors advised him to remain hospitalized because it offered the quickest path to recovery. “I was hesitant,” he said. “I didn’t think I had time for it.” The second-term Republican acknowledged that when he previously told constituents he expected to return within weeks, he believed that timeline was accurate. “But as the over 48 million of my fellow Americans being treated for this illness have come to discover, there is no timeline for healing,” Kean said. “Today I stand before you healthier, stronger and excited to return to the work that I love.” Kean characterized himself as “a private person by nature,” explaining why he chose not to disclose his diagnosis sooner. He also encouraged others struggling with mental illness to seek treatment. “Asking for help is not a weakness,” he said. “It is a strength.” Despite revealing the reason for his prolonged absence, Kean left Capitol Hill immediately after delivering his remarks without answering reporters’ questions, leaving several unresolved what initially prompted his hospitalization. Speaker Johnson said he had repeatedly encouraged Kean to be more forthcoming with the public during his absence. “I encouraged him all along to be as transparent as possible,” Johnson told reporters. “I’m glad he finally has.” Johnson declined to criticize Kean further, saying the decision ultimately rested with the New Jersey congressman. “It’s his personal issue,” the speaker said. Kean represents New Jersey’s highly competitive 7th Congressional District, one of the Democrats’ top pickup opportunities heading into November. His absence became an issue in the race as Democrats questioned whether constituents were receiving adequate representation while Kean remained out of public view. Democratic nominee Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy helicopter pilot, is expected to challenge Kean in what is projected to be one of the country’s most competitive House contests. Before Tuesday’s announcement, President Donald Trump and House Republican leaders had continued backing Kean’s reelection campaign despite his absence. Trump endorsed Kean earlier this month, while Johnson repeatedly defended the congressman’s right to medical privacy and urged reporters to be patient. Kean, the son of former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean Sr., missed more than 100 House votes during his absence, though his office maintained that he continued to perform constituent services and campaign activities remotely. The congressman’s remarks drew support from some lawmakers who have publicly discussed their own struggles with mental illness. At the same time, critics argued that while Kean’s diagnosis deserved empathy, his constituents also deserved greater transparency during an absence that stretched nearly four months. New York Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres, who has spoken openly about living with depression, wrote on X that he had “deep sympathy for anyone struggling with mental illness,” but added that “public office carries a duty of transparency.” “When a public official is absent for an extended period,” Torres wrote, “the public has a right to an honest explanation.”