The One Thing ‘Inside Out 2’ Got Wrong, According to My 9-Year-Old

Let me start by saying Inside Out 2 was a delight. Though perhaps not as fresh as the 2015 original, the new film has so many of the same selling points: an all-star cast (this time with the addition of Maya Hawke and Ayo Edebriri alongside Amy Poehler and crew), a fun-yet-existential romp through the subconscious and a kids-growing-up plot that hits home for children and causes even the most calloused parent to emerge from the theater teary-eyed.

It also gets so much about childhood absolutely right—the intricacies of sorting out friend group dynamics, the weird fears and deep dark secrets that get lodged in our brains, the confusion of having core values that might not align with what the world throws at you.

But according to my very discerning 9-year-old, there’s one thing the movie gets wrong: Anxiety.

See, the conceit of Inside Out 2 is that, as Riley enters adolescence, she’s introduced to new, previously-untapped emotions: Anxiety, Envy, Ennui and Embarrassment. And for anybody who has ever suffered through 8^th grade, this makes sense; this is the age when, all of a sudden, your parents become mortifying, somebody else’s clothes become enviable and all you want to do is lie around and watch Sponge Bob.

But saying that kids younger than 13 don’t experience anxiety is just flat-out wrong. As my son puts it, “I would say I feel anxiety—sometimes at school, sometimes at home, sometimes playing games.” And the data backs this up. According to the CDC, 7 percent of children age 6 to 11 experience anxiety (compared with 11 percent of kids age 12 to 17) and 11 percent of children age 5 to 11 received some form of mental health intervention in 2021. Also interesting is that, in the 2- to 8-year-old range, boys were more likely to experience anxiety than girls. In other words, puberty clearly accelerates the prevenance of anxiety, but a lot of American kids have already experienced it well before they enter middle school.