I’m delighted today to welcome Stef Rozitis, one of my favourite parenting + politics thinkers, to help us help our kids tackle the climate crisis with calm confidence. Stef is an early childhood teacher and academic, a climate change activist and a mother of some really thoughtful men who cared about the world even when […]
As part of our ongoing occasional series on helping kids grow into world-changers, check this out! Here’s the kind of book I want every kid in the world to have a copy of. Here’s what it’s all about, and a bit from one of the creators, Kirsten Liepmann. Enjoy! Hello! We are Karen Ng and Kirsten […]
Why don’t children get to vote? As far as I can see, they’re as capable of understanding what’s important about the world as many adults and they have a higher stake in the future of our society and world. As I wrote in this manifesto for The Spinoff: A classic Big Piece of Cheese episode of The […]
Due to recent events with Metiria Turei, we have been hearing about the struggles that single parents experienced in the 1980s and 1990s. Those of us who lived those times as children are now adults; a lot of us will now be raising families of our own. I am the child of a solo mother, […]
During the United States primaries, I had to consciously limit my fascination with US politics and remind myself that it was getting daily updates on the campaign trail shenanigans wasn’t much different to reading about foreign celebrities in gossip magazines. I had better things to do with my time and attention. And then Trump got elected. […]
Have you ever noticed that all the animals in the popular children’s lift-the-flap book Dear Zoo are male? Every single one. It’s not an isolated example. Looking at almost 6,000 children’s books published between 1900 and 2000, the study, led by Janice McCabe, a professor of sociology at Florida State University, found that males are central characters […]
A warm welcome to Penny Ehrhardt! Penny runs a public policy consultancy called Ehrhardt Advisors. She is a writer, researcher, international human rights law practitioner, parent, Soka Gakkai Buddhist, and lifelong feminist. Formerly based in Napier, New Zealand, she is currently undertaking doctoral research into the economic and social rights of single-parent families at Oxford […]
The Presidency is actually just a job. Unwise or unkind people have jobs and success everywhere. Success in life is not always related to how kind or wise a person is. People look up to the President more than they probably should. The President is just a person, and all people are a mix of […]
How do you want your kids to turn out? I mean, to the extent that anything we do has or should have influence, what do you really care about? What do you really hope will stay with them? What if you could know that, say, three things you teach your kids will actually stick in their lives? […]
We’re still swimming in sexism Here’s a quick exercise for you: grab a pen and paper, or open a document on a device. Briefly note down the ten or so kids’ television shows that you see or hear most of when you are around kids. You could include kids’ movies as well if you like. What shows […]