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The first 1,000 days of life shape every day that follows.
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A beat by Irene Caselli
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Populism meets parenting
Childhood is political. The decisions about who has a child, when, and how go far beyond personal choices. Authoritarian and populist politicians the world over are despairing over falling birth rates. They are trying (and often succeeding) to set strict rules about conception and birth
Forever in the archive
Is not using the word tantrum enough?
A few weeks ago I wrote a newsletter about why we should stop referring to children’s meltdowns as tantrums. Michael, a reader, inspired me when he wrote to say that the word tantrum had negative connotations and stigmatised children. Thanks to the help of Andrea
You don’t need to praise my child’s multilingualism
When people congratulate me and my partner Nacho on our son’s linguistic achievements, we usually shake off the compliment and joke that there is little merit in them. Don’t get me wrong: it’s astounding for someone like me who grew up as a monolingual to
I am gathering the sun
This autumn has greeted me with a sunny day in Trento, northern Italy. A beautiful day — but it can’t fool you. A chilly wind catches you in the shade, a clear reminder of winter just around the corner. There is a large crowd of
What my child is teaching me about travelling
We’re on the road. We left Greece a couple of weeks ago for the first time in over a year to travel to Italy overland to see my parents and meet my brother’s daughter, Ines, who was born five months ago. Those 14 months in
In praise of the 6am wake-up call
I am writing this at 6am. For most of my life, this was an ungodly hour, a time I would spend awake only if I carried on through the night or if I had picked one of those cheap flights with a low-cost airline. I
A healthy start for an Afghan migrant baby
As an Afghan born and raised in a loving, large family in Iran, Fatimah always expected to become a mother one day. So when she found out she was pregnant, she was overjoyed. At the same time, she also felt the need to change her
These are my favourite stories from this year
The news have been scary and sad around us. For a week, the air here in the outskirts of Athens was awful, with terrible wildfires only 40 km away from where I live. The climate report left me anxious as we experienced an awful heat
Slowing down – and a preview of the stories I’m working on
The other night I dreamt that I was in a dark garage and I was trying to slowly get a car out of a complicated parking spot. I don’t like driving, but I’ll tell you about that some other time. Back in my dream, I
Why we should stop using the word “tantrum”
Before I dig into this week’s material, I wanted to apologise because last week I shared my Google Doc without the right settings. If you feel like adding your thoughts to my investigation about early education, as I explained last week, please check out the document here. A
How I write – with you. And let’s collaborate on early education stories
Tomorrow, Thursday 5 August, I’ll be speaking at the Membership Puzzle Project summit. So what is this, and why is it important? For four years now, the Membership Puzzle Project (MPP) has been studying how journalists can do better for their readers by more comprehensively understanding
Forever in the archive:
Popping a few bubbles – or some deep reflections prompted by screen time
Lorenzo has woken up with a fever. I felt it straight away when he got out of bed and hugged my legs to say good morning. His shoulders felt too hot – even for a warm summer morning. The thermometer proved me right. The paediatrician
Why do we judge parents?
It’s a sunny Sunday in winter. Greece is in lockdown, parks are closed, but the beach is open to all. I arrive at Kavouri, south of Athens, with Lorenzo; we carry a bag of buckets, spades, scoops and other beach toys. We sit down, and
Sweet summer memories, or the love between children and grandparents
In Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book, Grandmother and her grand-daughter Sophia co-exist on a tiny island in the Finnish Gulf as Father works away. Mother is dead, but none of that is spoken about explicitly, except for one mention and whatever the reader wants to
Eat, play, love: our first six months together at The First 1,000 Days
“Eat, play, love”: I first saw these words on a slide at a journalist workshop on early childhood development organised by the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. It was Charles A. Nelson III, a neuroscientist at Harvard, who mentioned it, explaining
Fathers are not “helpers”
If a man thinks he is “helping out”, this means he thinks he has no responsibility and that the responsibility falls on the woman. Let’s change that!
Pregnant – and harassed – in Japan
This post is public, so feel free to share it. Also, it is packed with information, so my recommendations will be back next week! It was the picture that caught my attention first. There was a guy sitting on a bed, wearing a vest that
What’s wrong with the idea of the “terrible twos”
I heard of the “terrible twos” way before I decided to have a child. The idea goes something like this: cute chubby, mostly benign babies turn into screaming, irrational, defiant dictators. The developmental shift that creates such an explosive potential is the child’s gradual understanding
What negative feelings about breastfeeding tell us about the struggles of motherhood
Even before becoming a mother, Zainab Yate was sure she would breastfeed her children until they turned two. It was part of her cultural and religious upbringing: born in Iran to a Persian mother and a London-based English convert to Islam, Yate grew up in
Taking the first steps (Or: why I dislike milestones)
I rarely mention milestones in my newsletters, which may be puzzling to some of you who have children or work with them. Milestones are checkpoints in a child’s development: taking the first step, using the toilet for the first time, saying the first word. They
Learning from our falls – and getting up again
This week I’ll skip recommendations because this is a longish newsletter. Many of you have said that time is an issue, so I’ll also tell you how long it will take you to read this newsletter, and I’ll try and keep the reading time to
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