Welcome to Children At this time! I’m Anna North, a senior correspondent at Vox protecting coverage and tradition, and in the present day, I’m launching a Vox publication that can have me in readers’ inboxes weekly with tales about Technology Alpha (individuals born between 2010 and 2024) and American childhood. It’s a publication about youngsters — for everybody. In case you’d prefer to obtain it, join right here.
I’m a dad or mum of two younger youngsters, however I’m not right here to speak to you about parenting. For that, I like to recommend Sara Petersen or Angela Garbes. On this publication, I wish to deal with the expertise of really being a child in America proper now.
Childhood in 2024 is an extremely fraught matter. We’re all attempting to make sense of the aftermath of a pandemic, the impression of social media, and the results of local weather change and conflict on the world youngsters develop up in. Kids have additionally taken an outsize function within the upcoming presidential election, with Sen. JD Vance and others arguing that having youngsters is a patriotic obligation, and never having them makes you “deranged.”
A part of my objective with this text is to get deep into a number of the most heated debates round modern childhood and provide you with an accessible, panic-free take a look at what’s actually happening. I fear about youngsters in the present day (the demographic, not this text, though I’m positive I’ll fear about it too) as a lot as anybody, however I additionally know that each era has freaked out concerning the children on its garden, and I wish to strategy in the present day’s scary headlines with a dose of skepticism.
I additionally wish to deliver you a portrait of Gen Alpha that tackles what’s distinctive about this group of younger Individuals, in addition to what they’ve in widespread with Gen Z, millennials, and past. We reside in a time of intense and fast-paced generational warfare, and whereas a few of that’s fairly enjoyable and humorous, I additionally wish to take a look at the place these generalizations fall quick.
I’ll acknowledge that I’m an imperfect information to the world of youngsters. As a grownup, I’m inherently uncool. I’ll by no means perceive child tradition in addition to youngsters themselves do. My very own older child likes to name me “Man Who Doesn’t Know Something.”
That stated, I’ve been speaking to youngsters — from preschoolers to youngsters — as a part of my reporting course of for almost a decade now. I’m dedicated to assembly youngsters on their stage, with curiosity, openness, and honesty. Whereas I’ll undoubtedly speak to grownup specialists for this text, I’ll be bringing you the voices of precise kids every time potential.
Children are us earlier than our filters totally developed, when the world was nonetheless contemporary and unusual and complicated. Children are unpredictable. (My 6-year-old, for instance, simply requested me if worms can do yoga. Sure?)
However youngsters are additionally good and considerate. They’ve sharp insights concerning the world in the present day, and concerning the future once they’ll be in cost. I’m excited to study from them, and I hope you’re too.
Subsequent week, you’ll get a full publication from me about what youngsters take into consideration “Gen Alpha” as an idea — how they see their very own era, and what they give thought to TikToks and information tales that criticize them. Within the meantime, right here’s somewhat of what I’m studying and fascinated about as summer time winds down:
- College provide lists are all the time a difficulty this time of 12 months — with district budgets usually inadequate, households or academics find yourself on the hook for buying all the things from pencils to graphing calculators. I’m additionally inquisitive about how youngsters take into consideration back-to-school procuring, and to what extent the monetary stresses of this course of trickle all the way down to them.
- Children’ relationship to nature is decided extra by their socioeconomic standing than by whether or not they reside within the metropolis or the suburbs, in keeping with a brand new research.
- Extra states are shifting to place chaplains in public colleges, regarding some who fear that these clergy members could proselytize, or supply counseling to college students with out correct mental-health coaching.
- Child-friendly dance events, the place mother and father can take pleasure in home music with toddlers in tow, are apparently on the rise in Brooklyn. I used to be ready to be aggravated by this however truly it’s candy.
- Proper now my older child is obsessively watching Bread Barbershop, an animated present a couple of slice of bread who’s a barber.
- My little child doesn’t wish to learn Spring is Right here, by Taro Gomi, a soothing story concerning the inevitable biking of seasons that helped hold me sane throughout the pandemic. He needs to learn a ebook that makes vrooming sounds, and that I can’t title.
A remaining word: I’d love to listen to your questions on youngsters and childhood, whether or not you’re a dad or mum, a childfree grownup, or a child! (Children with questions on grownups are additionally welcome to write down in.) Are there matters you need me to cowl? Experiences you wish to share? You’ll be able to attain me at [email protected].