Now Jerry Seinfeld Is Complaining About His Kids’ Ex-Private School

There was a time when Jerry Seinfeld’s public opinions mostly concerned things like breakfast cereal, sneakers and the fallibility of Superman’s secret identity.

But lately, Seinfeld has been generating headlines for offering his opinions on a number of matters, including how the “extreme left” is killing comedy, a claim that he recently walked back. “I did not know that people care what comedians say. That literally came as news to me. Who the hell cares what a comedian thinks about anything?” Seinfeld argued.

Yet, despite claiming nobody cares what comedians think, he still keeps telling the press what he thinks about things. Most recently, he weighed in on the private school that his two sons attended, for an article that ran in The New York Times.

The Times piece reported that high school students at New York’s Ethical Culture Fieldston School will be excusing students from classes, and making psychologists available for counseling, on the day after the election, in case anyone feels “too emotionally distressed.” In addition to these measures, no homework will be assigned on election day, according to an email that was sent out to members of the school’s community.

Since the school declined to make a comment in the article, The New York Times instead decided to reach out to the guy who directed the world’s only Pop-Tart movie. 

While one current parent called the move the “right decision,” Seinfeld, whose kids no longer attend Fieldston, was less of a fan. So he opted to make that opinion known despite the fact that this will literally have no effect on his life whatsoever. “This is why the kids hated it,” Seinfeld told The Times. “What kind of lives have these people led that makes them think that this is the right way to handle young people? To encourage them to buckle. This is the lesson they are providing, for ungodly sums of money.” 

He later called the paper back to clarify that he didn’t mean that his kids hated the school, but they “hated the coddling that would happen at times.”

Okay, first of all, complaining that a private school, which costs in excess of $65,000 per year to attend, is “coddling” students is a little like grumbling that your private swimming pool is too wet. Secondly, it’s well-documented that anxiety and depression are currently “sky high” amongst young people for reasons that should seem pretty obvious to anyone with access to an internet connected device and/or a window. Teaching kids the importance of mental health isn’t “buckling.”

It’s also been widely reported that election-related stress is a real problem for some adults, so it stands to reason that teenagers could similarly be coping with mass anxiety that’s rippling across the country right now. So why exactly is it a problem that kids’ mental health is being prioritized for just one measly day? The real problem here is that kids only get this kind of support at schools that cost $65K to attend. 

Also, just throwing this out there, perhaps Jerry Seinfeld isn’t the best celebrity to reach out to on issues concerning the well-being of high school students?

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