This is an OZY Special Briefing, an extension of the Presidential Daily Brief. The Special Briefing tells you what you need to know about an important issue, individual or story that is making news. Each one serves up an interesting selection of facts, opinions, images and videos in order to catch you up and vault you ahead. WHAT TO KNOW What happened? Parenting isn’t what you’d call a new gig — large people have been raising small people since before we came up with the concept of time. But much about the job has changed in recent years, from recent shifts in home-schooling trends to the diminishing role of religion in families to the exploding role of tech in virtually every aspect of parenting (so long, Mary Poppins; hello, Alexa). Parenting may still be the hardest job you’ll ever love, but to keep up with how it’s changing — the good, the bad and even the ugly — OZY took a hard look for a new series: Parenting, Disrupted. Why does it matter? We’ve come a long way since What to Expect When You’re Expecting, or Dr. Spock advising parents on how to raise healthy children. Now we’re told about helicopter parents, tiger moms, lawn mower mothers — terms that replaced the “good enough” parent of 70 years ago — and are meant to capture a particular (and not particularly healthy) approach to raising kids. But our series addresses what’s really new on the parenting front — apart from the billion-dollar industry preying on parental anxiety by pumping out advice on what to do, what to buy, what to read and how to think about shaping young minds. |