Comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s kids were so famously opposed to eating vegetables that his wife, Jessica Seinfeld, built a cottage industry around preparations intended to trick the nation’s children into choking down produce. But if a recent statement made by the Pop-Tart fan was intended seriously, the trauma of eating leafy greens far outweighs any depression and anxiety the country’s children might be facing as part of the hateful, divisive election that has driven some of the most resilient among us to distraction.
The car-collecting septuagenarian’s latest “in my day”-style remarks were made in response to a fairly unremarkable note from a school his children used to attend. In an email to parents subject-lined “Election Day support,” the principal of the Ethical Culture Fieldston School (a small, private pre-K-12 school in the affluent Bronx suburb of Riverdale) wrote that “this may be a high-stakes and emotional time for our community,” and that the school will “create space to provide students with the support they may need.”
According to the note, which one suspects was spurred by questions to the principal from parents of attendees, excused absences will be allowed the day after Election Day (or whatever day the race for president is called) for any students who feel they won’t be able to “fully engage in classes.” The email also included reference materials for parents to help kids through election-related anxiety and how to speak with kids about this year’s pivotal race.
None of this sounds like a particularly shocking email to me, especially from a school with “Ethical Culture” in its name and a topline self-description as a “progressive school in New York City, fostering intellectual curiosity, ethical responsibility, and social justice.” Being taken aback that a school with those bona fides sends an email like that seems even more clueless than expecting Tony Hinchcliffe not to be a racist when he takes the stage.
Oops, maybe that’s a bad example, given Jerry Seinfeld’s complaints about cancel culture’s alleged impact on comedy, gripes refuted by past co-star Julia Louis-Dreyfus and walked back earlier this month. As you might recall, while promoting his toaster pastry opus in April, Seinfeld claimed that contemporary TV comedy had been destroyed by “the extreme left and PC crap, and people worrying so much about offending other people.”
But in an October episode of comedian Tom Papa’s podcast, Breaking Bread, Seinfeld recanted. “I did an interview with The New Yorker, and I said that the extreme left has suppressed the art of comedy,” Seinfeld admitted. “I did say that. That’s not true. It’s not true…. If you’re Lindsey Vonn, if you’re a champion skier, you can put the gates anywhere you want on the mountain; she’s gonna make the gate. That’s comedy. Whatever the culture is, we make the gate. You don’t make the gate, you’re out of the game. The game is: Where is the gate, [and] how do I make the gate and get down the hill?”
It was a nice respite for the more progressively minded fans of the comic, especially those who believed his “cancel culture” remarks made the once zeitgeist-y figure seem tragically out of touch. Sadly, that respite appears to be over, as Seinfeld’s crankier side showed itself to the New York Times this week.
Seinfeld’s sons Julian (age 21) and Shepherd (age 18) once attended the school that sent the election-related email, the Times reports, which is why the paper called him for his reaction to the its messaging around the so-called “Anxiety Election.” The comedian just wasn’t having it.
“What kind of lives have these people led that makes them think that this is the right way to handle young people?” Seinfeld asked reporter Christopher Maag. “To encourage them to buckle. This is the lesson they are providing, for ungodly sums of money.”
It’s a question Seinfeld might ask his wife, who in 2008 penned a book called Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food. The bestselling book was—per its marketing materials—intended to provide a solution to “the inconvenient truth that kids simply refuse to eat vegetables and other healthy foods” with recipes “stealthily packed with unseen veggies, pureed so kids will never suspect.”
Some might describe this as the kind of overindulgence contemporary parents are mocked for, especially compared to the “you’ll eat what you’re given” parenting many of us experienced as kids. But Seinfeld wasn’t one of those advocates for dietary tough love. In fact, when another author criticized his wife’s book, the comedian questioned the critic’s mental health on national television as part of a vigorous defense of his wife’s food-coddling techniques.
According to a new survey from the American Psychological Association, 69 percent of American adults say their mental health is suffering as a result of a campaign season marked by misogyny, bigotry, and violent attacks. And according to psychologist Kate Roberts, stress is passed on to kids as “children internalize their parents’ concerns, with little understanding.”
One might think that a school that considers that struggle is worthy of applause, but not Seinfeld, who says that emails like the election one are “why the kids hated” Ethical Culture Fieldston School, and why the Seinfeld parents moved their youngest child to a different institution when he hit the eighth grads.
It’s a fascinating reaction from a man who was fine raising kids who turn their noses up at fresh foods that many U.S. households are desperate to afford. But reacting to the possible election of a violence-espousing, treasonous dictator is one thing. Expecting a child to eat their vegetables, undisguised, appears to be another matter entirely.
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