Conversation #43: Nanny States and Loco Parents (June 3, 2018)

We’ve been gone for a while! We explain what’s been going on, and why we’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed, and try to start working through a big backlog of articles and ideas. Then we take on related ideas raised in three recent articles on the economic challenges of raising a family in modern America, and some possible solutions. Finally, we look forward to a book by Melinda Cooper that looks like it might offer a red-hot take on the decline of support for the American family.

How to Listen

You can find the MP3 file here.

The Podcast feed is here.

The Podcast channel on YouTube is here.

Links

From Vox, Alex Press writes about how “The record-low birthrate offers yet another sign that millennials are eoncomicallys screwed.”

From Slate, Henry Grabar writes about a startup with a disturbing solution to the poverty-in-retirement problem among American home-owning seniors in “Live Free and Die.”

From Current Affairs, Vanessa Bee writes about how “Every Parent Deserves a Nanny State,” and proposes an interesting old new thing as a solution: public boarding schools.

From Viewpoint Magazine, Ben Mabie interviews Melinda Cooper, author of Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism.

This Week’s Music

The music is is a little improvisation on 12-string guitar that Paul recorded a few years ago.