The First 1,000 Days is a project run by Irene Caselli and powered by Slow News.
Irene Caselli is a journalist. Slow News is the first Italian “slow journalism” project.
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The first 1,000 days of life shape every day that follows.
We need to know more about them.
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
I’m creating this space to mourn a loss
*Warning: This newsletter talks about miscarriage. If you find the topic triggering, maybe skip reading this edition, and check out this website for extra resources. I felt so tired when 2021 started. Sure, I thought to myself: I had been made redundant by The Correspondent, the
How do we talk to children about the news?
This week I explore tips on talking to children about the news. If you’re anything like me, you may have more questions and worries. That’s why I’ve invited experts that you can talk to directly, if you’re a paying member: check out the full list of names below. Then log into your account and leave your comments and questions after the story!
What access to free play tells us about our attitudes towards children
(Header photo by Jien Chun)What do you see when you have a child in front of you? Do you see someone to protect? A nuisance? A person in a different developmental stage than you? Do you see that child at all? I started asking myself
How a snowy morning can bring out our inner child
If you live in Greece by the sea and still have your bikini in the dirty clothes bin from your last excursion to the beach only a week ago, when it was 20 degrees Celsius, thinking of a snowy winter is quite extraordinary, even if
My child turns two. This is what I’ve learnt from his first 1,000 days of life
This week my son Lorenzo turns two, marking the end of his first 1,000 days of life. If you’re confused about the maths, don’t worry, you’re not counting wrong. The idea of the first 1,000 days is that they include life from conception, through nine
Nearly forty, going on four: why there’s no age limit on the benefits of play
It was Saturday and we were trying to be efficient. Market, check. Groceries, check. Pharmacy, check. It’s as if I was trying to block out the colour of the sea, the sunny winter day, or the beautiful oranges, soft dried figs and tasty olives I’d
An opinionated child and her younger brother
If you’d met me some 30 years ago, you would have found a rather opinionated child, somewhat chubby after early puberty, with a passion for 1960s protest music, flare jeans and the colour purple. I held opinions on the latest political crisis in Italy, spoke
The unlived lives of parents, or how to chase our dreams
I was rather lucky growing up. For me, childhood dreams, adventure and play are all intertwined with memories of long summer holidays with my parents – my mother, a teacher, who got two whole months of time off, and my self-employed engineer father. Their side
How to be a grown-up in a pandemic
A friend in Madrid is snowed in and has to work throughout the night because her kids can’t leave the house at all, not even to go to school, which is already operating under reduced hours because of the coronavirus. Claudia and Davina, respectively in
So long twenty twenty, welcome 2021!
Wow. Thanks! Your support of my writing was one of the best things about 2020, the one I would like to focus on as we start a new year. So far over 200 of you have become part of this new community, and many have
Forever in the archive:
My last day as your First 1,000 Days correspondent – and where to follow me next
“Can you imagine what it’s like to experience a city when you’re only 90 centimetres from the ground?” I knew that I was doing something right when I saw how my new colleagues reacted to the question I asked during one of our first newsroom
Why the world shouldn’t be split into child-having and childfree people
This week, Jonathan, a member, sent me an email with a provoking subject matter: “The first 1000 days of childlessness”. He told me about having felt like an “outsider” when he and his partner decided not to have kids. “In younger years, we had to
The boy that showed the world that childhood dreams can come true (and the insides of a VHS tape)
I’m writing these notes at 6am, after having slept in short intervals throughout the night. My son Lorenzo is teething and he only accepts me comforting him at night. Lucky me! Somehow I feel awake, and lucid. I debate whether I should sleep some more,
Do you also love someone who’s had an abortion?
Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández wore a green tie last week to announce he was sending a bill to legalise abortion to Congress. This is the ninth time a bill makes its way into Congress in Argentina – but this time there are high hopes that
Listen, love and educate: here’s how to talk about our toughest issues (like abortion)
Activists and legal experts from around the world shared their work on reproductive rights, and how we can best understand one another on divisive issues.
Dear parents, stop organising your kids’ playtime
2020 has been a trying year for parents, with many struggling to arrange a schedule for schooling and playtime. The good news: play doesn’t need to be planned – and it shouldn’t be. On World Children’s Day, it’s the perfect time to remember and value the importance of play.
What I learned about handling 2020 from the tortoise who chose a different path
I was starting to like 2020. After a slow start, a major change of plans because of coronavirus, a long and difficult lockdown, I felt that my family and I had taken all the possible steps to be better prepared for what was to come
The importance of care and empathy
I’m writing this newsletter after being awake most of the night. My son was in pain. He cried and cried. He would only settle in my arms while I walked around. He refused his father’s arms and kept calling for me. I think that even
Breast is best for me, not for you: how you changed my thinking around breastfeeding
I’ve been breastfeeding every day for the past 20 months, since my son Lorenzo was born, for many hours a day. So you’d assume that I’d already done all the necessary thinking around this very foundational experience: after all, human milk is the first food we
Breast milk is free (and five other myths about breastfeeding debunked)
Breastfeeding is misunderstood. It may be natural, but that does not make it easy, spontaneous or free. If we want to make policies that respect breastfeeding, we can start by debunking these six myths.
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