When the tooth fairy has to go digital
A crisp dollar bill under the pillow used to be magic. For a lot of kids today, it barely registers. They want Robux, V-Bucks, or in-game coins, and a…
Category: Home & Family
The kids’ debit card, and why parents are signing up
A child with her first debit card quickly learns she can buy almost anything online — including a music subscription that bills every month, whether she…
Logistics: When your teen needs a ride
In a big city, the hardest part of raising a teenager is often logistics. A 13- or 14-year-old has to get to practice, a lesson, or a friend’s apartment…
A pool may be the best gym for painful joints
Water does something no treadmill can: it makes the body lighter and the workout harder at the same time. Step into a pool and buoyancy lifts the load off…
Don’t skip the state fair because of your knees
You do not have to give up the state fair just because walking the grounds has become difficult. The mobility scooter has become standard equipment at…
We’re engaged, civil, and not the ones shouting
If American politics sounds like a shouting match, here is a quiet bit of good news about us. A new study suggests that older Americans are, by and large,…
Luck on the frontier: The superstitions settlers couldn’t do without
Little House on the Prairie showed the wagons, the blizzards, the fevers. It left out the horseshoes. Frontier settlers packed everything they owned onto a…
He’ll be visiting: Meet the brown marmorated stink bug
If you grew up not knowing what a stink bug was, congratulations, you are old enough to remember a better time. The brown marmorated stink bug…
Americans have stopped cooking
Americans now spend more on dining out than on groceries, by a wide margin. According to the USDA Economic Research Service, food-away-from-home spending…
Screen rules that actually work
The phone is already in the child’s hand. Now what? For most parents and grandparents today, the question is not whether young children will have devices,…