My students, who must be pushing 40 now!
Dear fellow wonderer, Do you know how different public schools were 30 years ago? When I tell someone I’m writing a book about how much childhood has changed, about how much independence kids have lost, the person often assumes I’m talking about freedom out in the world, how kids can’t roam neighborhoods and play outside [...]
Dear fellow wonderer, Welcome to April’s cabinet of curiosities.1 This month we’ve been pushing back against the notion that kids are all screen-affixed zombies and talking instead about cool stuff they’re doing away from screens. And on that theme, some links! I will forever be pointing you toward the work of Lenore Skenazy, author of [...]
The plastic croissant kills me. Dear fellow wonderer, Are you as fed up as I am hearing about how kids today have been irreversibly damaged? That they do nothing but gaze brainlessly as screens? Let’s flip that script, shall we? Let’s talk about kids who are playing and making and messing around and acting like [...]
Dear fellow wonderer, Welcome to this slightly tardy cabinet of curiosities.1 Recall that this month we were chatting about the mid-’90s rise of the “parenting expert” and how that shift is still messing with parenthood today. How to push back? Some links! How pushback is done: Jenny Anderson of How to Be Brave questions Jonathan [...]
1995, in my early Over the Shoulder Baby Holder® days Dear fellow wonderer, A stat to consider: There were five times as many parenting books published in 1997 as in 1975, when the word “parenting” was not yet a classification and books about childrearing were listed under “Children–management.” –Anne Cassidy, Parents Who Think Too Much [...]
Shelf in a china cabinet I inherited from my grandmother containing all sorts of goodies: a prayer book from her childhood with a gold-edged prayer card from 1909; dolls from my other grandmother; a postcard of my hometown; matchbooks from my honeymoon; and an earthquake-broken ballerina that I can’t bear to throw away. Dear fellow [...]
Dear fellow wonderer, A stat for you: After increasing steadily from the 1950s on, American children’s creativity began to decrease, beginning in 1990. Declines have continued, year after year, research tells us, until at least 2021. Likely, you have questions. According to who? How was this creativity measured? What do you mean by creativity anyway? [...]