But the singular mention of Emily Oster, the immensely popular parenting guru and economics professor, in a New York Times editorial was enough to kick off a small scandal.
asserted
mention → kick → scandal
“Pretty disappointed that @ProfEmilyOster would choose to lend her credibility to prediction markets (which are, in practice, sportsbooks with a side of wagering on elections and oil futures), particularly when one considers the harm they are bringing to kids and parents,” Elliot Haspel, a senior fellow at the think tank Capita, wrote on social media.
asserted
Haspel → disappoint → media
The frustration came from the specific revelation that Oster had been a key speaker at a breakfast event hosted by Kalshi, the leading prediction market valued at roughly $40 billion.
asserted
Oster → come → billion
Estimates suggest people under 21 traded more than $5 billion on the site from January to August this year.
asserted
people → suggest → August
Multiple lawsuits have accused the site of “running an illegal gambling operation” that skirts existing laws aimed at protecting kids from underage gambling.
asserted
that → accuse → gambling
Which raises an obvious question: Why would one of the most trusted voices in parenting seemingly endorse such a company?
asserted
one → raise → company
When asked about the appearance, Oster told me that she was “happy to clear it up.”
asserted
she → ask → it
“Kalshi hosted the breakfast and paid me a speaking fee to moderate a conversation with Luana Lopes Lara,” she said in an email.
asserted
she → host → email
They asked me because I’m an economist with an understanding of prediction markets, and the audience was parents.
asserted
audience → ask → markets
”
“As for how it fits with my work,” she continued, “these platforms are on a lot of teenagers’ and young adults’ phones, parents ask me about them, and I believe helping parents understand how these platforms work is part of how they have productive conversations with their children, as well as understand how teens under 18 are kept off the platform.
asserted
teens → fit → platform
I asked those questions on stage.
asserted
I → ask → stage
The explanation might seem sufficient to some.
uncertain
explanation → seem → some
Oster had presided over a corporate conversation, and that corporation paid her to do it.
asserted
corporation → preside → it
Maybe that isn’t so loathsome in the age of celebrity-packed “Airbnb Balls?”
asserted
that → pack → Balls
But squint closer and Oster’s effort to cast herself as a mere conduit for parenting questions—not a Harvard-educated academic whose appearance would surely be seen as extending great authority to a platform parents view with increasing alarm—limps on arrival.
asserted
parents → squint → arrival
(Kalshi did not respond to a request for comment on Oster’s appearance.
asserted
Kalshi → respond → appearance
Perhaps even more curious was Oster’s emphasis that the breakfast was a one-off occurrence, as if the event’s premise, as Jessica Grose wrote, to explore “how data, forecasting and probabilities can sharpen [parenting] choices” didn’t fit squarely into the data-driven parenting approach Oster has effectively led over the last decade.
asserted
Oster → write → decade
In fact, The Family Firm, Oster’s third book, takes pride in its application of business school teachings to modern parenting, as if childrearing is something that can be hacked and perfected, with a maximum return on investment.
asserted
that → take → investment
It’s a similar approach that informs the fleet of parenting products that promise to lighten the burdens of raising a child, particularly among wealthy families: chiefs of staff for the home, AI-guided storytelling, sleep gadgets.
asserted
that → ’ → home
But at what point do these offerings transcend their goals of ease to collapse what it even means to parent a kid in the first place?
asserted
it → transcend → place
Consider Marissa Mayer, the former Google and Yahoo executive, who told the New York Times that she struggled to think of three qualities that made her daughter special without the use of an AI tool.
asserted
daughter → consider → tool
When she asked the question to Dazzle, a new AI assistant from Mayer’s start-up, “it came back and was like, your daughter is empathetic, creative, and an animal lover,” she told the Times, apparently unable to see how such an anecdote was fundamentally depressing.
asserted
anecdote → ask → Times
Dazzle bills itself as an AI app that offers answers to tasks traditionally seen as belonging to a mother—booking birthday parties, calendar organizing, buying new shoes for the kids—responsibilities that can, from time to time, seem like drudgery.
asserted
that → bill → drudgery
But they are also joys, the small cornerstones of raising a kid.
asserted
they → raise → kid
Even if technically possible, do we really want to live without the minutiae of shaping and filling out a kid’s life?
asserted
we → want → life
Is that what we mean when we say parenting in America has gotten too challenging?
asserted
parenting → mean → America
The reality is that Mayer and her billionaire ilk, who are out to sell us the fiction that parenting—with enough products and data-driven decisions—can be optimized down to the seconds, already have the resources to fund the things that countless families actually need: child care, health care, paid leave.
asserted
families → sell → that
It’s not the app helping them hack parenting.
asserted
them → ’ → parenting
It’s the nannies, concierge services, and sponsored days off.
asserted
It → ’ → ?
A similar illusion animates the actress Jennifer Lawrence’s suggestion that her new haircare line, Mes, might help tired moms look hot.
uncertain
moms → animate → suggestion
“I want to be a sexy mom,” Lawrence told The Cut in an interview tied to Mes’ launch.
asserted
Lawrence → want → launch
“At drop-off, I want to look like a woman that has her shit together even when I’ve just woken up and don’t have my shit together.”
asserted
I → want → shit
The same interview mentioned Lawrence’s “boob job” and desire to get a facelift, two cosmetic procedures that she, as one of Hollywood’s most in-demand actors, can easily afford.
asserted
she → mention → actors
Celebrity-backed beauty brands, of course, are not the same as a Kalshi or a Dazzle.
asserted
brands → back → Kalshi
But it’s worth interrogating which technologies and products aimed at struggling parents are being laundered and sold, as Oster may have done for Kalshi, and to what extent we actually need these things.
uncertain
we → ’ → things
Because we’ll still be tired and overworked, our school drop-offs anything but sexy, even after handing these companies our money.
asserted
offs → overwork → money
As Amanda Hess, author of Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age, told me last year, for so many of these offerings, “once you scratch beyond the surface and examine the products that are sold as helpful to parents, you start to notice that these services aren’t helpful at all.”
asserted
services → have → parents
The Aporia
