The Atlantic

The Atlantic Journalism of no party or clique—exploring the American idea since 1857.

“The charges against Comey are not just about the president’s abuse of his power for personal retribution. They represen...
09/26/2025

“The charges against Comey are not just about the president’s abuse of his power for personal retribution. They represent a test of the president’s plans for the future,” David Frum argues: https://theatln.tc/J7iFX6iW

“According to a certain brand of parenting advice, motherhood isn’t just caregiving; it’s also a series of psychological...
09/26/2025

“According to a certain brand of parenting advice, motherhood isn’t just caregiving; it’s also a series of psychological interventions that can make or break a child’s future,” Maytal Eyal writes. “Do enough ‘work’ on yourself, this advice goes—regulate your nervous system, master emotional attunement, follow the rules of attachment parenting—and you can safeguard your child’s psychological future.”
https://theatln.tc/dJT32i3N

This type of advice is a manifestation of “therapy culture,” Eyal writes: “the growing landscape of Instagram posts, self-care products, and self-improvement guides that encourage ongoing self-scrutiny and the pursuit of constant personal betterment.” Its message is seductive, Eyal continues, but “ultimately an illusion, one that is based on shaky science, and that diverts attention from the material realities that can make parenting so difficult in the first place.”

The connection between how people turn out and how they are parented is not as direct—or as deterministic—as many have argued, Eyal continues. One researcher posited that parental influence pales when compared with other environmental factors, such as the influence of peers, in shaping who children become. Numerous studies have since backed up that assertion, Eyal writes: “Genes, for example, seem to play a bigger role than the environment that children are raised in.”

“I’m not arguing that moms shouldn’t work on their own mental health, or that they shouldn’t think deeply about their approach to parenting,” Eyal continues at the link in our bio. “Rather, I worry that therapy culture prompts mothers to gaze obsessively, unhealthily inward, and deflects attention from the external forces (cultural, economic, political) that are actually the source of so much anxiety.”

🎨: E S Kibele Yarman

09/26/2025

We asked 12 staffers at The Atlantic: What’s the one book you recommend again and again to friends and loved ones? One of their favorites will, we hope, be the title you pick up next: https://theatln.tc/hWEMhO6c

The Comey indictment is an advance glimpse of Donald Trump’s next attempted seizure of power, David Frum argues. “James ...
09/26/2025

The Comey indictment is an advance glimpse of Donald Trump’s next attempted seizure of power, David Frum argues. “James Comey’s rights and liberties are not the only ones at risk today.”

Read more: https://theatln.tc/J7iFX6iW

“The charges against Comey are not just about the president’s abuse of his power for personal retribution. They represen...
09/26/2025

“The charges against Comey are not just about the president’s abuse of his power for personal retribution. They represent a test of the president’s plans for the future,” David Frum argues:

If Republicans are serious about protecting speech, they could pass laws to do so, Conor Friedersdorf writes. “But my fe...
09/26/2025

If Republicans are serious about protecting speech, they could pass laws to do so, Conor Friedersdorf writes. “But my fear is that the MAGA coalition cares far more about punishing the left than about better securing even their own rights.”

Martyrdom can make “a polarizing public figure more influential in death than they were in life,” Mark Whitaker writes. ...
09/26/2025

Martyrdom can make “a polarizing public figure more influential in death than they were in life,” Mark Whitaker writes. He explores how Malcolm X's legacy could offer insight into what might become of Charlie Kirk’s, despite the two men's differences:

When Olga Khazan introduced “The Big Lebowski”—her favorite movie—to her friend, she was nervous. “I was worried that sh...
09/25/2025

When Olga Khazan introduced “The Big Lebowski”—her favorite movie—to her friend, she was nervous. “I was worried that she would dislike it so much that she would kind of dislike me too, through osmosis,” she writes. Jitters such as hers, it turns out, are common. https://theatln.tc/fwLvXLEX

“If something really matters to you,” Beverley Fehr, a University of Winnipeg psychologist, told Khazan, “there’s a vulnerability in sharing it with someone else.” When we declare a favorite book, movie, or album and introduce it to others, says Jeffrey Hall, a communications-studies professor at the University of Kansas, “what we’re doing is saying, ‘This is an aspect of my identity that I’m willingly putting out there in order for other people to know me. And if you reject this thing, you reject me.’”

Our friends often like what we like. The trouble is, we usually want our friends to be even more similar to us than they actually are, Fehr told Khazan. Whether a disagreement over a beloved book or movie sparks friction in the friendship depends on how well you know the friend, what else you have in common, and how important that particular book, movie, or show is to you, Angela Bahns, a psychologist at Wellesley College, told Khazan.

📸: H. Armstrong Robert / Classic Stock / Alamy

Labubus, capri pants—according to the internet, these are signs of our impending economic catastrophe, Ellen Cushing wri...
09/25/2025

Labubus, capri pants—according to the internet, these are signs of our impending economic catastrophe, Ellen Cushing writes in The Atlantic Daily. “Maybe the ultimate recession indicator is how much people are talking about recession indicators.”

A century ago, the book “Public Opinion” understood the ways the American mind was at risk—and would be exploitable by a...
09/25/2025

A century ago, the book “Public Opinion” understood the ways the American mind was at risk—and would be exploitable by a president. The book also foresaw Donald Trump’s most basic strategy, Megan Garber wrote in April:

Hanna Rosin spoke with Ryan Walters about his vision of public schools by conservatives, for conservatives. Walters, who...
09/25/2025

Hanna Rosin spoke with Ryan Walters about his vision of public schools by conservatives, for conservatives. Walters, who just resigned as Oklahoma's state superintendent, had announced ideological purity tests for teachers, among other changes.

Listen on "Radio Atlantic":

James Parker explores coverage of the great American poet-buffoon Allen Ginsberg, and the lesser-known Ginsberg Sr. who ...
09/25/2025

James Parker explores coverage of the great American poet-buffoon Allen Ginsberg, and the lesser-known Ginsberg Sr. who preceded him, in this week’s Time-Travel Thursdays:

Address

Washington Mall, DC

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Atlantic posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category