I Have a Gwyneth Paltrow-esque Quarantine Confession
Don’t let those haters get you down, Gwyneth. I totally feel your pain. Eating bread is bad. A real low point during Covid quarantine for us too. For my husband and I, it began with a bread starter, given us by my so-called friend Bella. She said everyone in London was making sourdough loafs in quarantine. I thanked her and let the starter sit in the fridge — glaring at me like dental floss — for more than the five days she said it would last.
Read full storyStarting Over Professionally After 50
By now you’re a cliché if you’re rethinking your career amid Covid-19. But it’s worth pausing a second to reflect just how fast this change occurred: people across the globe suddenly rethinking work and life-- some losing jobs, others scrapping them to do something new altogether.
Read full storyFast Fashion And Kids Love of Consumption
My daughter has always been a fashionista. From the earliest age, she had firm ideas about what was stylish and what wasn’t. At age three and four, she insisted on dresses. At five and six, it was the Elsa dress only. Fast forward to 11, and it was ripped jeans and halter tops (yikes!). Now, nearly 12, she wears baggy leggings and sweatshirts, much to my husband’s relief.
Read full storyHow iPhones are Crack for Kids
My daughter used to be an artist. She would spend hours in front of a TV, not watching TV, but on the floor surrounded by scraps of paper, beads and string, making collages and jewelry, or copying cartoon characters into notebooks.
Read full storyWhy People Ignore Your Corporate Content
A company commissions a big report to engage customers and media. It assembles an internal team, designs and conducts a lengthy survey, finds a writer, an editor, does interviews, case studies and makes a video. It hires a design agency and engages its PR firm. People work tirelessly for months.
Read full storyShould We Pity Depressed Dads?
Research reveals that 8% of men suffer from depression related to becoming dads. “Fatherhood can be a challenging period in a man’s life, and some men are at risk of developing depression leading up to and following the birth of their child,” according to the British Journal of Mental Health Nursing.
Read full storyHow Career Women Unwittingly Become Housewives
It’s 7AM on a Saturday and we’ve overslept. I roll over and wake my husband. “We have 45 minutes before we have to walk out the door,” I say. “You should probably get in the shower.”
Read full storyEurope wants to see you this summer
I had no interest in leaving home this summer. With onerous Covid requirements, fear of catching Covid, and assuming Europeans wouldn’t be thrilled to see us, it hardly seemed worth it. But now with the 14-hour journey from the UK to France behind us, and happily settled in the Chamonix mountain valley, I’m delighted we made the trip. It turns out the requirements weren’t all that onerous and I was wrong about people being unwelcoming.
Read full storyAnxiety Over Covid-19 Can Be Deadly
I worry about things big and small; I worry my daughter will freeze if she doesn’t zip her coat; I worry rich people like Elon Musk are obsessed with space travel because they know our planet is doomed. I worry about Covid-19.
Read full storyPuppy Litter Playdates are a Thing
Who knew it was a thing? Puppy playdates with your dog’s litter. I’m at the park with our dog Leo. He races off to join four other puppies, all about the same size, with similar curly coats but in different colors. They’re running around under two park benches upon which sit five adults.
Read full storyI'm Suffering from Covid Lockdown Syndrome
Self-portrait by a friend who prefers to remain anonymous (sort of) It happened the other day. I’m at my first non-Zoom book club in ages. It’s in a beautiful garden. The sun is shining. I’m with women I’ve known for years. We have a decent book to discuss (Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene). And yet I barely say a word. When I do speak, it’s like the words ring tinny in my head. I feel awkward and discombobulated.
Read full storyMarketers Are Turning Kids Into Crass Consumers
A friend’s teenage daughter wants to inject Botox under her arms to stop herself from sweating. The scary thing — and there are many scary things about this — is that at 14 she’s thinking about Botox and armpits at all.
Read full storyHealth Scares, Homelessness, and the Kindness of Strangers
A year ago her husband crashed his motorcycle and underwent multiple surgeries to fix his wrist. He couldn’t work and lost his job. He also lost his health insurance. The wife didn’t work. She raised their two children. Then she got breast cancer and needed chemotherapy.
Read full storyPicking up Other Moms at the Park
My daughter and I are hanging out at Starbucks. She happily sucks on a rice cake as I sip a latte. Every few minutes, the cafe door opens, and I look up. I’m not waiting for my husband or a friend. I’m trying to pick up. It’s a woman I’m after, preferably one with a baby roughly my daughter’s age.
Read full storyOur Kids and the Creeps on Social Media
She met him on Roblox. He said he was an 11-year-old boy from Sweden. He loved role-playing adult life on this wildly popular platform for kids. He told the girl they should connect on Snapchat.
Read full storyBritish Tween Takes On TikTok
An anonymous 12-year-old girl’s class-action lawsuit against TikTok in the UKcould result in the Chinese company paying billions of pounds worth of damages. The suit alleges that ByteDance (owner of TikTok) illegally harvested the private data of millions of kids in Europe. If the suit succeeds, kids could get thousands of pounds each.
Read full storyWhy Can’t We All Sleep Late?
A new study shows that starting the school day just one hour later would help teens not just get more sleep, but perform better academically and be healthier overall. Most high schools in the US start before 8:30am — if not as early as 7am — meaning that five days a week, teens are disrupted from their natural sleep patterns, leaving them perpetually exhausted. Kids who get too little sleep have a greater chance of developing anxiety, depression and other mental illnesses. For years, scientists and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have recommended a later start.
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