Thanks to the cosmic intersection of the impending shift to daylight savings time on Sunday (spring forward!) and the dropping COVID numbers, which make school reopening imaginable, doesn’t it suddenly feel like life is opening up? This week, for the first time in nearly a year, the days distinguished themselves. Not just for me, but for my kids, too: it’s been a full trip around the sun since Thursday felt like Thursday. Sitting on this ledge of possibility, we are all able to start thinking outside the Zoom box.
 
           And so, this week, I am not going to deep dive into a philosophical corner of COVID. Just about the time this newsletter arrives in your inbox, I’ll be finishing my first shift as a vaccinator at a local clinic, seriously the most exciting gig I have ever clinched and that includes my 3-week run on the epic game show Joker! Joker! Joker! in 1979.
 
Today, I’ll keep my opinions of rapid reopenings in places like Texas to myself, and instead focus on topics beyond the pandemic… like the Meghan and Harry interview! Hers was a narrative of bullying and depression; of finding the strength to seek help and being turned away; of enduring the cruelties of racism. Whatever parts of her story you believe or don’t believe, there was a giant pearl in there for all parents: if we teach our kids to see unkindness, we increase the chance they will stand up to it. Harry watched the torment of his mother and ultimately stood up for his wife – in the words of Bayard Rustin, he spoke truth to power.
 
The magnitude of the interview – I mean, when was the last time anyone tuned in to a live TV event that wasn’t a sports finale or a major political moment? – was ultimately about the intrigue surrounding two exiles banished from their kingdom. It was a conversation about aloneness, which then makes us think about the importance of community and family and people who have our backs. And that got me thinking about a piece of parenting advice I dole out all the time: Give your kids someone to throw under the bus.
 
All of our kids are going to find themselves in sticky situations from time to time. While these may bear no resemblance to the drama among the Royals, they will face moments of extreme pressure or worry or risk and they won’t necessarily see a clear way out. If they know that you will always be cool with being blamed, they will find their exit. If you truly don’t care what their friends think of you, and you give your kids permission to spin a tall tale about some rule or curfew or demand that makes you seem completely batsh*t crazy, then you can become the invisible bad guy so they don’t have to play that role. They will feel supported and free to make the better choice. Not quite sure how my brain got from an Oprah primetime special to that nugget, but there you have it.
 
As an aside, I am also not quite sure who orchestrated the commercial ad sales for the 2-hour program. But I will admit that when that ad came on for a razor that provides a better pubic hair shaving experience, I thought: wow, I really haven’t watched live TV in a long time! Which is another reason why this week, even my links lean heavily into tween and teen-dom, not so much COVID. It’s time we all emerge from our little boxes.
 
  • News from the war on period poverty… Whoop! Whoop! Maryland is getting on the period equity bandwagon – hopefully 49 other states will follow suit. Meanwhile, Mexico City’s ban on single-use plastics applies to tampons with plastic applicators, and that’s causing all sorts of downstream effects.
 
  • And there’s this story about the assault on transgender youth rights – if we don’t shine a spotlight on what’s happening in half the states in the US, we’re going to be blind-sided by legislation quietly attacking freedoms of kids who live on the gender spectrum.
 
  • There’s also data drawn from children of the Amazon answering the age old question: what matters more for weight loss, diet or exercise? (Side note: I will not be shocked in the least if the hunter-gatherer diet becomes a thing.)
 
 
  • On to one of my favorite topics of 2019, suddenly back in 2021: vaping. When the issue was booted from headlines thanks to COVID, one e-cig maker got crafty and now the brand Puffs is exploiting a loophole in legislation originally aimed at protecting kids from nicotine addiction. There’s also mounting evidence that vaping weed damages the lungs even more than straight-up nicotine.
 
  • While we’re going back to the future, let’s talk gun safety. This newly released paper looks at how fast teenagers who live in homes with guns can get their hands on the weapons – a third say they can do it in under 5 minutes, and a quarter claim the same even if the gun is locked up. Meanwhile, 70% of their parents prove clueless, thinking the guns are completely out of their teenagers' reach.
 
 
Of course, I couldn’t resist sharing some COVID news, too!
 
 
  • This poignant editorial by the new president of the AAP talks about the pandemic’s mental health toll on kids. My brilliant friend Mallika Chopra put out a new book this week that can help younger kids manage some of this stress and anxiety. Her advice: Just Feel.
 
  • An eye swab instead of a nasal swab to test for COVID. What could go wrong?
 
 
 
 
 

In case you missed it, the best “commercial” of the year! Oprah’s Royal interview should have included this during one in the breaks...