San Francisco Chronicle (January 25)
“The start of the new year brought a familiar wave of distress for many Bay Area parents: Omicron infections were accelerating; preschools and child care centers were shutting their doors; adults saw their work regimens upended, their children cloistered and irritable.” But there is now a new worry. It’s hitting children harder. “The pervasive threat of omicron to children too young to be vaccinated has added a layer of anguish.”
Tags: Accelerating, Adults, Anguish, Children, Distress, Familiar, Infections, Omicron, Parents, Preschools, Threat, Upended, Vaccinated, Wave, Work
PEW Research Center (November 19)
U.S. fertility rates “were already at a record low before the pandemic began” and have continued dropping during it, “lending evidence to predictions… that economic uncertainty might trigger a baby bust.” The center’s recent survey shows even broader concerns. “A rising share of U.S. adults who are not already parents say they are unlikely to ever have children, and their reasons range from just not wanting to have kids to concerns about climate change and the environment.”
Tags: Baby bust, Children, Climate change, Economic uncertainty, Fertility, Kids, Pandemic, Parents, Record low, Survey, U.S., Unlikely
Reuters (August 31)
“Parents will feel the change” of new restrictions limiting minors to a single hour of video game time on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. “Workaholics will find it harder to … use addictive games and apps as de-facto babysitters, but then the government is trying to reduce overtime too. Over the longer term, this could be healthy for Chinese families, but not so much for businesses.”
Tags: Addictive, Apps, De-facto babysitters, Families, Government, Healthy, Hour, Minors, Overtime, Parents, Restrictions, Video games, Workaholics
Boston Globe (September 8)
The shift to online learning has been filled with challenges and pitfalls. For professors, “reinvention has meant reworking syllabuses, prerecording lectures, and reconsidering how to test students’ knowledge of material – and even how to bond with them virtually.” The universities want “to avoid a repeat of last spring, when disgruntled parents and students filed lawsuits claiming the online learning experience was not worth the thousands of dollars in tuition costs.” Meanwhile, one survey showed that roughly half of the students “feel that higher education is no longer worth the cost, and 40 percent believe it’s a bad deal now that It has moved online.”
Tags: Challenges, Disgruntled, Lawsuits, Online learning, Parents, Pitfalls, Professors, Reinvention, Students, Tuition, Universities
New Yorker (December 23)
As “more established environmental organizations” have adopted “defensive positions, Sunrise has established itself as the dominant influence on the environmental policy of the Democratic Party’s young, progressive wing. Just as the March for Our Lives has changed gun-control activism from a movement of grieving parents to one led by students, Sunrise is part of a generational shift in the environmental movement” as they push for a “Green New Deal.”
Tags: Defensive, Dominant, Environmental, Established, Generational shift, Green New Deal, Gun-control activism, Influence, March for Our Lives, Parents, Students, Sunrise
The Atlantic (April 25)
“More and more Americans are first sharing a home, then having children. Marriage comes later, if at all.” According to the Pew Research Center “35 percent of all unmarried parents are now living together, up from 20 percent of unmarried parents in 1997” and less than 1 percent in 1968. Aside from changing social norms, much of the trend appears to be linked to economic reasons and financial instability. “In response to an unintended pregnancy, a couple is three times more likely to move in together than get married.”
Tags: Children, Economic, Financial instability, Marriage, Parents, Pew, Social norms, U.S., Unmarried
1843 (August Issue)
“Doctors and parents both tell young people to eat healthily and drink in moderation, and the young finally seem to be listening. Recent shifts in spending” in both the U.S. and the UK “indicate that they are spending more on healthy food and less on boozing.” For example, in the U.S. “households headed by under-25s have increased their spending on fresh fruit by 77% and on fresh vegetables by 47% (in real terms)” while more than halving annual spending on alcohol “from about $560 in 2000 to roughly $270 in 2015.”
Tags: Alcohol, Doctors, Food, Fresh, Fruit, Health, Moderation, Parents, Spending, U.S., UK, Vegetables
Bloomberg (May 24)
“More young adults now live with parents than partners. It’s the first time that this has happened in the U.S. in more than 130 years.” Much of the cause is economic, but “millennials and their parents may also simply be more comfortable with living together” than previous generations.
Tags: Economic, Millennials, Parents, Partners, U.S.
The Economist (June 21)
“Since time immemorial, Chinese children have been expected to take care of their aged parents—but rising incomes and shifting norms are changing things.” Retirement homes, some quite stylish, may prove the wave of the future in China.
Tags: Children, China, Elderly, Future, Incomes, Norms, Parents, Retirement, Retirement homes
USA Today (September 4)
“As evidence mounts that permanent brain damage and dementia are legacies of some still-unknown number of NFL careers, the league faces a dilemma: Bone-jarring hits are an unavoidable part of football, but if the game gets too brutal, fans and the parents of prospective players could abandon it…. Making an inherently violent game less dangerous won’t be easy.”
Tags: Brain damage, Career, Dangerous, Dementia, Evidence, Fans, Football, Game, Hits, NFL, Parents, Players, Violent
