Can you tell how hyped I am about my first car? I felt as elated as Cinderella must have been when that pumpkin was transformed into her coach. And I didn’t even need a fairy godmother to make my new ride happen—I bought this car all by myself. 

My brand-new ‘89 Pontiac Grand Am would be a big step up from the ‘78 Malibu Classic hand-me-down sedan I’d been driving. 

This car was about to drive me into full-blown adulthood. I had one semester of grad school left, and then my Hot Wheels would ferry me back and forth to the cool job I was sure I would land right after graduation. (Spoiler alert: That didn’t turn out like I expected.) No doubt my new car would see its share of road trips too. 

I was proud of myself for navigating my first big-ticket purchase all by myself. I researched my options, made the rounds of the car dealerships, and test-drove the final candidates with my fiancé along for the ride. I even negotiated the price and got myself a car loan. (Now I would have car loan payments just like so many other grown-ups!) 

The only rain on my car parade came just before I returned to the dealership to complete the final paperwork. My mom raised a question that never occurred to me–was it wise to buy a two-door car?

I couldn’t understand why my mom was being such a buzzkill. What did it matter whether my car had two doors or four doors? It was only going to be ferrying my soon-to-be husband and me around. Who cared how easy it was for someone to get into and out of the back seat? If we had any other passengers, they’d just have to deal, or we’d take someone else’s car. 

I wrote my mom’s hand-wringing off to the fact that she hadn’t been there to look over my shoulder as I navigated buying the car. Or maybe it was just that my mom didn’t like two-door vehicles—after all, our family had never had one.

Since I had carefully evaluated my options and was happy with my choice, I went ahead with purchasing my sporty coupe.

The Grand Am and I went on to log many happy miles together. We zipped down the highway together on the way to my Big Pharma job. Since it was a 50-mile round-trip commute, I listened to a lot of FM radio. I can still picture myself trying to get another coat of nail polish on as I inched along in traffic during the last leg of the journey. The Grand Am was perfect for a DINK (double-income no-kids) like me.

Despite my mom’s misgivings about my two-door car, I never felt any buyer’s remorse—until eight years after I bought the car.

Suddenly, I finally understood my mom’s concern over the Grand Am’s missing two doors. In 1997, baby Cassie arrived, and I discovered how hard it is to get a baby into and out of a car seat in the backseat of a two-door car. 

Within weeks, my husband and I concluded it was time to trade the Grand Am in for a four-door car. Soon a Dodge Intrepid was parked in our garage. 

It wasn’t a tragedy. We had gotten eight years of service and many happy miles out of my Grand Am. But it sure would have been nice if we hadn’t had to buy a new car so soon after purchasing a new house and having a baby. 

So what’s the moral of this story? 

I wouldn’t say it’s to only buy cars with four doors. 

I can’t even say that it’s to always do what your mom recommends because if I had it to do over again, I still might have bought my Grand Am. 

I would say the moral is to listen when your mom (or another wise person older than you) offers advice. 

Your mom has spent decades accumulating wisdom through her life experiences. She’s faced scenarios that may not even occur to you, and she may be able to see things that you can’t see yet. 

While you may ultimately decide not to follow a piece of her advice for any number of reasons, it’s at least worth considering what she has to say. 

When my mom expressed her misgivings, I wish she had explained why she thought a four-door car might be a better long-term investment than a two-door car for an about-to-be-married 20-something who planned on having a family someday. If she had, perhaps I would have reevaluated. 

But sometimes people aren’t good at articulating the reasons for their positions. Maybe my mom didn’t want to bring up how hard it would be to get a baby into and out of a backseat because she didn’t want me to think she was trying to pressure me to produce a grandchild sooner rather than later.

So I guess maybe the lesson is this—when your mom raises an objection or makes an observation that seems a little off-the-wall to you, probe further with a simple reply like, “That’s interesting. Why do you say that?”

It will be up to you whether you follow her recommendations. But you might as well consider what your mom has to say before you simply chalk it up to “mom has different preferences/would make different choices than me” and dismiss it.

As with anyone’s advice, we should recognize that our mileage may vary.  But you never know when mom’s wisdom may be helpful as you steer your own course.

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The most meaningful gift we can give our grown children isn’t guidance or answers…

It’s our stories. The real ones. The imperfect ones. The ones that didn’t go according to plan.

I recently joined Jodi on her Dare On podcast to talk about how sharing our lived experiences can open doors with our adult kids that advice alone often can’t.

We explore:
✨ Why stories tend to land where advice gets dismissed
🙏 The health scare that pushed me to start writing down what I wanted my daughters to know
💛 A simple but powerful question that can shift how you connect with your adult children
👀 And a little bonus moment at the end we almost left out!

The episode is now live 🎙️ — I’d love for you to listen and share it with someone in your life who desires a deeper, more honest connection with their grown kids.

Later this week, we celebrate National Cousins Day. Humorist Erma Bombeck titled one of her books, “Family-The Ties that Bind and Gag,” and I think that speaks to why we need cousins. Sometimes the proximity of your immediate family breeds contempt. So it’s helpful to have other relatives in your posse you don’t have to deal with on a daily basis.

The above photo (which looks oddly like we might have been auditioning for an episode of “Family Feud”) features some of my cousins on my dad’s side of the family. Because my dad and my Uncle Bob were only two years apart, we were close in age to this cousin cohort. Since my parents enjoyed Uncle Bob and Aunt Anita’s company, we routinely got together with their family while we were growing up.

Here’s why cousins are a valuable limb on your family tree.

Sometimes a cousin is the sister you wouldn’t otherwise have

Having my cousin Carol around was like having a pseudo-older sister without the downside of actually having one who’d be around enough that we’d get on each other’s nerves. Plus, who else but your cousins are as well-versed as you in dealing with the quirks and oddities circulating within your gene pool? The five people pictured here understood why every family gathering had to end with the singing of our dads’ alma mater, and even grew to appreciate this unique custom.

Sometimes a cousin is the friend you discovered in your own backyard

My Uncle Chuck had said he had a hunch that my youngest daughter would hit it off with my cousin Chip’s daughter. When Meredith was almost 4 and Christina was nearly 5, they had the chance to test that theory out in person. Turned out that Uncle Chuck was right.

Though their playdates were sporadic since we live in PA and Christina lives in NC, Mer and Christina were like two peas in a pod when they did get together.

Imagine how tickled their great-grandparents must be when they look down from heaven and see these distant cousins having the time of their lives together.

Other times, a cousin is like having an extra brother who doesn’t always enjoy your company

My younger brother and I are seen here with my cousin Michael. My mom and her first cousin Margie somehow managed to birth their firstborn children on the same day in 1966. My mom and Margie were already close when this happened, but having two kids the same age further cemented their bond.

All through our childhood, our families routinely got together. But by the time Michael and I turned 16, we didn’t have much in common. Can you tell from the photo? Nonetheless, it was more fun than just being with my immediate family all the time.

Cousins are there for you on your big days

Who else besides your parents and grandparents is willing to sit through a three-hour dance recital even though you spent only 5 minutes on stage? Why cousins, of course (shoutout to the aunts and uncles who accompanied them). Cousins are sometimes the first people who help you experience the joy of someone showing up for you.

Cousins can keep a family outing from being lame

For a time, some of my Conrad cousins and our offspring would make an annual excursion to NYC over Thanksgiving break. We all enjoyed the Broadway shows and the sightseeing. But for the teens, the real attraction was having somebody their own age to roll eyes with over the hereditary insanity they had in common.

Sometimes, a cousin just makes your whole day

A cousin can arrive at just the right time, like when you happen to be old enough to cradle them in your arms like a real live baby doll of your very own. Doesn’t Cassie look like she’s having the best day ever cradling cousin Kylie?

Years later, Cassie made Kylie’s day by letting her help blow out the birthday candles.

Comedian Jim Gaffigan has said, “Cousins are the barometers of how fun a family get-together will be,” and I believe he is correct.

When you’re young, you can usually rely on your parents to facilitate get-togethers that allow you to stay in touch with your cousins. That may no longer be the case when you’re grown. So it becomes part of your responsibility to periodically cultivate the family tree so its roots remain healthy and its branches stay strong.

Why not observe National Cousins Day by organizing a cookout with your cousins, or by at least giving one or more of them a call?

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Not long ago, my husband and I ran into our sophomore-year English teacher at the camera shop. Bumping into Mr. Probert on a random Saturday afternoon was an unexpected treat. You don’t get many chances to reconnect with your teachers, especially the ones you’d grade on the right side of your bell curve. Mr. Probert’s sense of humor always made him seem more like the entertaining host of a late-night show instead of the teacher charged with building our vocabulary, literary analysis, and essay writing skills for the SATs and college applications looming on the horizon. 

Chatting with Mr. Probert was like stepping into a time machine. Listening to him reminisce about our class transported me back to a time I don’t often revisit, even though I have mostly good memories of high school. It was like stumbling upon an episode of “This Is Your Life” from the season when my classmates and I were still figuring out how life worked, but we were getting better at navigating it. We could still rely on the teachers, parents, and other adults looking out for us. It wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies, but all in all, we had it pretty good. 

As I listened to Mr. Probert talk, I was reminded of how seriously he took his job of helping students mature and succeed in whatever they pursued. But it was also clear that he had delighted in us. We may not have consciously realized it back then, but it was what probably allowed him to connect with us. 

That’s the cool thing about talking with your teachers once you’re a grown-up. You get to have conversations with them that you couldn’t have had while you were a student. You get to revisit episodes that were part of your own coming-of-age story and get the perspective of a character who was there to see the whole thing happen. It allows you to see a more complete picture of scenes from your life story.

I couldn’t resist pulling out my sophomore yearbook when we got home. As I thumbed through the faculty section, I saw–though I didn’t remember doing this–that I had asked each of my teachers from that year to sign my yearbook. And each one had written a few lines. I suppose we mattered more to each other than I remembered.

It reminded me how lucky I was to have had teachers committed to preparing us for the world while making our everyday high school life as good as it could be.

Once I opened my yearbook, I couldn’t resist taking a further journey down memory lane and reading the notes my classmates had written when they signed it. I wasn’t entirely surprised that I had forgotten some of the incidents my classmates had encouraged me never to forget (and truthfully, some still didn’t ring a bell even after I’d read about them). But it was fascinating to recall what life was like as a 15-year-old.

I was surprised to come across notes from classmates I hadn’t thought about in years. I suppose because your friend group evolves from sophomore to senior year, sometimes the people who were part of your early high school career aren’t as prominent in your takeaway memories. But in any case, reading those notes reminded me I was lucky to have had those people in my life, even if we only played a bit part in each other’s lives for a while.

I know high school reunions are less common these days. With social media, a mass gathering every five years seems less necessary than it used to be to keep up with your classmates. But if a high school reunion rolls around, I strongly encourage you to go. There’s a big difference between reading what somebody posts on Instagram and interacting with them in person.

And take advantage of other opportunities to stay in touch with your old school. Go to the homecoming game. Go to the spring musical. When you get an invitation to an alumni happy hour that includes some of your old teachers, go. 

I know it isn’t always easy to return to your high school. Maybe you feel like you have to prove to yourself that you’ve moved on and you don’t need those people anymore. Or that glass-half-empty voice in your head may say you will only run into people you don’t want to see. 

But I would wager that you will enjoy connecting in person with the people who starred in your personal edition of High School Musical more than you expect to.

Just because something is in your past doesn’t mean that it deserves only to be in your rearview mirror. There’s something special about staying in touch with the people who knew you when you were an earlier version of yourself. 

Who knows–maybe if you’re really lucky, one of those teachers who helped make your high school years great will turn up, and you can make each other’s day.

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If you’re in your 20s or 30s, maybe you’re already noticing that some of the things you used to enjoy a few years ago aren’t as enticing as they used to be–maybe sleeping on the floor of your friend’s shore house doesn’t seem as worth it to enjoy a weekend at the beach. Or forking over big bucks for a concert festival and sleeping in a tent no longer feels like a no-brainer. 

What gives? Do our tastes change that much as adults? When you don’t want to do things you used to find fun, does it mean you’re getting old?

Some photos I recently sifted through from my time as a Girl Scout may help answer that question.

I have many fond memories from my time as a Girl Scout, especially of the camping trips. It’s funny even typing that sentence because once I hit my 20s, I never once had the urge to spend any time at a campground. 

And yet look at how happy I am in the photo above (I’m the little girl on the right). I’m standing with my best friends at the time, Jackie and Mary Beth, outside our cabin at Camp Laughing Waters. We’re on our first camping trip ever, and I am full of glee.

What made that weekend the best ever? Since I don’t have sisters, spending 24 hours a day with other girls my age was fantastic. Plus we were away without our parents! In the country! We could stay up as late as we wanted to (or at least until the Girl Scout leaders put a stop to it)! We got to sleep in bunk beds! I slept in a sleeping bag for the first time!

Even hiking around the camp was cool. There was a swingy plank suspension bridge across a really wide creek. We also got to take turns crossing the creek on a raft—A RAFT! We went on a scavenger hunt! The latrines, which flushed when you sat on the toilet seat, were a little weird, but who cared? 

Our two-day, two-night adventure was da bomb. I doubt any college student on spring break enjoyed themself more than I did that weekend.

My camping adventures got taken up a notch in 7th grade when I joined a Cadette troop whose leader loved to camp. Our troop went on three or four camping trips a year. 

We even spent a weekend backpacking on the Appalachian Trail (no photos from that weekend, though all you would have seen were trees anyway). Backpacking ended up being a once-in-a-lifetime experience for good reason–Saturday night, we slept outside in the middle of a rainstorm. The piece of plastic that was supposed to shield us from the elements didn’t do much. I felt so miserable that I fantasized about the authorities sending in a helicopter to rescue us so we wouldn’t have to hike back to the trailhead the next morning.

Though I never signed up for another backpacking trip, I happily continued to go on camping trips with my troop. Even after I’d graduated from the troop, I went along on some as a junior assistant leader.

Then camping faded away. Once I went to college, none of my friends ever said, “Hey let’s go camping,” so I didn’t. I discovered many other activities to fill my leisure time, and I never had a desire to camp.

And then I got called back to the campground. 

When my middle daughter was a Brownie, her troop was headed to Camp Laughing Waters for a Mother-Daughter camping trip. I couldn’t wait to return to the place where I’d spent the best weekend of my 4th-grade life.

But somehow camping seemed more dangerous than it used to be. Some of our fellow campers had to evacuate their tent because a bat had taken up residence. Other tents were off-limits because of the wasp nests inside. The camp pavilion didn’t feel like a very safe shelter when a thunderstorm struck (the fact that lightning had sparked a raging barn fire at our house the previous fall probably had me on edge).

Though my daughter seemed blissfully unaware of the hazards, camping wasn’t as jolly as I remembered.

A few years later, when the leader of my oldest daughter’s troop asked me to help chaperone a camping trip, of course I said I’d go. I chalked my misgivings from the previous mother-daughter camping trip up to a little PTSD after our barn fire.

Though the leader was good company and the girls enjoyed themselves, camping wasn’t as fun as it once had been for me. Who wants to sleep in a tent if you have to leave the front and back flaps open in case some creature wanders into your domain overnight and needs to get out? And how safe was it really to sleep in a tent without a lock or a door? 

While the latrines were a step above the outhouses I had come across back in the day, I had a whole new appreciation for Thomas Crapper or whoever invented indoor plumbing.

I concluded that, while I would always be grateful for my Girl Scout experiences, camping’s moment had passed for me, and I didn’t want to return to camp ever again. 

So, did that mean I was now officially old because I didn’t want to camp anymore?

I don’t think so. I believe my little Girl Scout camping show-and-tell reveals that it’s normal for what you enjoy to change over time. 

That first camping trip in 4th grade was my first overnight trip without my parents. How could it not have been thrilling? Since I only had a brother four years younger than me, it was my first chance to spend hours of my free time with other people my age who liked the same things I did. 

And those Cadette camping trips were a chance for teenage me to spend a weekend away from my parents. It wasn’t so much that I loved hiking or campfires; it was a chance to spend time with people my age. Though I loved my Girl Scout experiences, my love affair was never with camping itself. 

As I got older, my leisure options opened up. Once there were other ways to spend time with friends without giving up standard creature comforts, camping lost its allure. 

I think there’s a tendency as a young adult to lament that it’s a sign you’re getting old when some of the things you used to do don’t appeal to you anymore. 

But I don’t think these changes in preference mean you’re getting old; it just means your circumstances have changed, and your preferences have evolved. It’s silly to cling to old ways of life that you don’t enjoy in the same way anymore. 

Sometimes we try things because there’s no other way to discover whether we like them. Later we may find other things that hold greater appeal. Or sometimes the things we enjoy only appeal to us during a particular season of our lives.

So if some of the ways you spend your free time or your weekends aren’t doing it for you anymore, go ahead and change it up without worrying that you’re getting old before your time. 

Consider what element of the pastime you used to enjoy was the key to the enjoyment. Perhaps it wasn’t the venue, setting, or activity itself that created the joy. 

To borrow a line from an old Girl Scout song, keep the old friends, but find the new thing that better fits your evolving tastes.

You’re not getting older; you’re just getting better at identifying how you want to spend your time–a life skill more likely to serve you than knowing how to build a campfire.  

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When our youngest child headed off to college, my husband and I planned a fly-drive vacation to take our minds off our newly empty nest. Since one of my personal goals is to visit all the homes and historic sites associated with U.S. presidents, I pitched a trip centered on Tennessee, which is home to four presidential museums. I sold my husband on the excursion by planning an itinerary that would also offer us a chance to see places we hadn’t been before–Nashville and Asheville, N.C.–as well as an old favorite, Charleston.

One of the things I love about road trips is that you can round out your itinerary with points of interest along the way to break up the trip. When I discovered that Woodrow Wilson’s boyhood home is in Columbia, S.C., a natural stopping point on the way to Charleston, I seized the chance to cross another site off my presidential bucket list.

As luck would have it, the Wilson home was closed the morning we happened to be in Columbia. I told my husband, who’s been a good sport about my presidential list, that if we walked the grounds, we could admire the architectural details of the 1871 Italian-villa-style home, and it would count towards crossing the site off my list.

Since no one was around, we climbed the steps of the front porch to peek in the windows, and that’s where the house’s caretaker found us. Delighted to find history buffs (they can be kind of hard to come by these days), the caretaker opened the door for us to have a look around the home where the Wilson family lived while Woodrow’s dad served as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church.

We soon discovered that this wasn’t your typical historic site featuring the furnishings and belongings of its prominent former residents. About a decade ago, the site was reimagined as the Museum of the Reconstruction Era, using the Wilson family’s experience during the post-Civil War period as a lens to examine the complexities of both Reconstruction and Woodrow.

Wilson is of course best known as the president who led the U.S. through World War I, and as the leading architect of the League of Nations, the first worldwide organization focused on maintaining global peace.

Like me, you may recall hearing rumblings about Wilson being a racist in recent years, but not have gotten the whole story. The museum’s exhibits caught me up on why Wilson’s legacy has come under scrutiny.

Elected in 1912, Wilson was the first Southerner elected president since the Civil War. Many believe his tone and policies while in office set back civil rights for decades. Both Wilson and many members of his cabinet held segregationist views and permitted the reintroduction of racial segregation into federal agencies.

While he was in the White House, Wilson also hosted a screening of the film The Birth of a Nation, which portrayed Reconstruction as a time when vengeful former enslaved people, opportunistic White scalawags, and corrupt Yankee carpetbaggers plundered and oppressed the former Confederacy until respectable White southerners rose up and restored order. Many historians credit the film with fueling the Ku Klux Klan’s resurgence after World War I.

The lesser-known stories of the Reconstruction

If you don’t recall learning much about the Reconstruction Era in your high school history classes, you’re not alone. I remember learning that after the Civil War, slavery was abolished, African Americans gained the right to vote, and were granted equal protection under the law.

But I don’t recall spending time discussing the messy legal, social, and political challenges that arose during Reconstruction. We didn’t study how the advances of newly freed Black Americans triggered a backlash, and the degree to which white Southerners strove to restore white supremacy.

I learned a lot of history I didn’t previously know at the Museum of the Reconstruction Era. How Black workers who voted for the Republican Party were fired or evicted. How the Ku Klux Klan and other groups employed intimidation, arson, and murder to suppress Black voter turnout and harm Black-owned institutions. How, as the Northern political will for intervention faded, white Southerners successfully “redeemed their state governments and instituted sweeping Jim Crow laws.

Once you learn more of our country’s backstory, it’s easier to understand why America is still suffering from the wounds of fractures first incurred more than a century and a half ago. And the more you know about what transpired during Reconstruction, the more eerily familiar recent happenings in the U.S. seem.

It seems that Winston Churchill was truly on to something when he said, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Why has some of America’s history been hidden?

Three decades ago, sociologist James Loewen analyzed the twelve leading American history textbooks because he wanted to understand why high school American history courses bored students to tears. His project evolved into a book, Lies My Teacher Told Me, which reveals how history textbooks oversimplify and sanitize the past to present a narrative of unquestioning patriotism:

“The stories that history textbooks tell are predictable; every problem has already been solved or is about to be solved. Textbooks exclude conflict or real suspense. They leave out anything that might reflect badly upon our national character.”

Loewen notes that the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II was barely mentioned in American history textbooks for decades. It wasn’t until the passage of a 1988 law apologizing for the “grave injustice” and paying $20,000 to each survivor of the camps that textbooks started devoting two pages to discussion of the internment.

According to Loewen, there is a reciprocal relationship between the truth about the past and justice in the present: “When we achieve justice in the present, remedying some past event or practice, then we can face it and talk about it more openly, precisely because we have made it right.”

Says Loewen: “Conversely, a topic that is mystified or distorted in our history, like secession, usually signifies a continuing injustice in the present, like racism. Telling the truth about the past can help us make it right from here on.”

How to discover what really happened

According to Loewen, “When we understand what really happened in the past, then we know what to do to cause our nation to remedy its problems in the present.”

Think about how many of the pickles that we seem to get ourselves into as a country might be avoided if only we were more knowledgeable about our history. Colonial Williamsburg, the largest U.S. history museum in the world, has adopted the motto “that the future may learn from the past,” and I believe that we should follow their lead.

So let’s give America the type of birthday gift that will keep on giving long after this Semiquincentennial year is over–a commitment to becoming better informed about our country’s past. If you’re in, here are some practical ideas about how you can do your part:

Visit a museum or historic site. America is home to 64 National Historic Parks and 85 National Historic Sites. Beyond that, there are over 35,000 museums in the U.S., more than half of which fall into the history category. Check the National Parks website for Historic and Cultural Parks and National Heritage Areas. See The History List for road trip ideas. Visit Great American Treasures to craft an adventure tailored to your interests.

Subscribe to the free email newsletter Letters from an American. American history professor Heather Cox Richardson explores America’s history and provides context for current events. For a sample of what she writes, check out the February 9, 2026 letter, which gives greater context for understanding the significance of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance.

Choose a period of history that interests you and give yourself a reading or viewing assignment (no quizzes or tests necessary). I recently read the book Blue-Collar Conservatism: Frank Rizzo’s Philadelphia and Populist Politics because I wanted to better understand what was happening in the city my parents decided to leave behind in the 70s for the burbs. I found it fascinating to learn about what was unfolding around me while I was a blissfully unaware child.

Read Lies My Teacher Told Me, which is described as an “eye-opening critique of existing textbooks and a wonderful retelling of American history as it should–and could–be taught.” For extra credit, read Lies My Liberal Teacher Told Me, written as a counterpoint to Lies My Teacher Told Me so as to “debunk the historical myths that have infiltrated America’s school curricula.” Compare, contrast, and decide for yourself how America falls short in teaching its history. You’ll be much better informed if your local school board begins to debate history curricula.

Thomas Jefferson once said, “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” Sounds like committing to learn our history would be the perfect 250th birthday gift for America.

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It was a Saturday morning. I was away at a conference. My husband was staffing the helpline when our middle daughter called in a panic. Southwest had canceled her flight to Nashville and now plans for a fall break trip with her college buddies were in jeopardy. Southwest couldn’t rebook them on a flight until Tuesday, which was kind of pointless since their getaway was scheduled to end Thursday.

My husband hopped online to help my daughter search for another flight. The best alternative was a flight out of Newark that evening. The only problem was how to get seven people to an airport 90 miles away.

Who ya gonna call when even an Uber XL won’t work? McHughber.

Our Ford Expedition seats eight, and my husband signed on as their driver. He’s seen above stowing some of the travelers’ luggage in the rooftop cargo carrier he borrowed from our neighbors.

Susannah and her friends were extremely fortunate that she has the kind of dad who didn’t mind a 4-hour round trip on the New Jersey Turnpike to get them to the airport on time.

Dads don’t typically garner as much admiration as moms on parental holidays, and that’s a miss on all our parts. Think of how many times your dad engineered a solution to your problems.

For many of us, Dad has long been the backup plan–the person you called when you were stranded somewhere or when something had broken and you didn’t know how to fix it.

If you have a Dad you can call no matter the hour or the problem, hopefully you recognize how lucky you are.

Dads don’t seek recognition. Most simply see it as their duty to stand their posts, ever ready to assist you. They don’t even expect a tip, unlike Uber drivers.

This Sunday is a chance to recognize Dad for all those times, large and small, that he’s come to your aid.

Don’t miss your chance to make his day.

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One of the downsides of becoming a grown-up is that it gets harder to gather everyone in your friend group together at the same time. Schedules become harder to coordinate. You may see a friend or two individually, but random hangs of the whole gang become rare.

When we managed to get all our friends together on a random Saturday in August for a barbecue without it being a special occasion, it was so remarkable that I took pictures to document the moment.

You can see by the burgers and dogs that it wasn’t anything fancy, but nobody cared.

It took a little effort to organize–extending the invites, planning the menu, coordinating who brought what, and making sure the house was presentable–but it was worth it.

It’s easy to default to staying home by yourself. Binge-watching and scrolling are comfortable ways to occupy your time that aren’t a heavy lift. But spending recreational time with friends shouldn’t be considered optional.

Humans weren’t designed to be solo beings. Regularly communing with other people gets you out of your head. It prevents your social skills from getting flabby. It’s good for you.

Grabbing dinner out or hitting the bars are simple ways to fill in the blank about how to spend time with your friends. But too much time out of the town can strain your budget. One possible solution–start taking turns hosting.

Hosting doesn’t have to be hard

Inviting people over for a meal or gathering can add a layer of stress to hanging out. But it doesn’t have to be complicated.

Dear Nina from Conversations about Friendship offers 10 tips for making hosting easier. Her first one is key–remembering that the goal of hosting isn’t perfect food or a perfect setting. It’s to allow people to connect.

Priya Parker, who wrote the book The Art Of Gathering, says giving your gathering a specific purpose can help. She told NPR’s Life Kit that identifying a purpose can begin to shape the group’s experience and help refine the other details.

Parker also offered guidelines for how many people to invite to a gathering. She said 6 is a good size for a really connected conversation, 8-12 is a great size for a dinner party, and 20-30 feels more like a full-on party.

So go ahead and make some plans. Organize a barbecue or dinner party to celebrate a random holiday (This calendar of fun, random, and weird holidays might inspire you). Host a trivia night. If your circle of friends lives near enough to one another, host a progressive-style gathering where guests move from house to house for different courses of drinks or food.

And remember, you don’t have to do everything yourself. People love to feel like they are contributing to the festivities. Ask somebody to bring a dessert. Say yes when someone offers to bring a salad. Put your clever friend in charge of the group activity.

Gathering together is good for your health

Spending time with others is an essential and meaningful aspect of life. In fact, getting into the habit of gathering would be good for our national health.

In 2023, Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy released an advisory report, “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation. He warned that loneliness can increase the risk of premature death by up to 29% — the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Yet data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that in 2024, only 4% of Americans attended or hosted social gatherings on a given weekend or holiday.

The surgeon general’s prescription: “Given the significant health consequences of loneliness and isolation, we must prioritize building social connection the same way we have prioritized other critical public health issues such as tobacco, obesity, and substance use disorders. Together, we can build a country that’s healthier, more resilient, less lonely, and more connected.”

Likewise, Pope Francis said that isolation is contrary to human nature: “Life exists where there is bonding, communion, fraternity; and life is stronger than death when it is built on true relationships and bonds of fidelity. On the contrary, there is no life when we claim to be self-sufficient and live as islands.”

I bet the surgeon general and the pope would be happy if you got the party started.

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In the olden days, moms used to clip newspaper articles for their kids when they came across something they thought would be useful. I’m keeping an eye out for things that may help you.

This week’s clip:

Cathy Cassani Adams reflected on meeting the hard parts of early adulthood with compassion and understanding:

”Early adulthood is the time in life when you're held hostage by everything you could do and become. Potential feels heavy, like you haven't proven anything yet, and every choice feels like you’re actively closing other doors. This is why so many people in their 20s may seem to be acting paralyzed or avoidant. It's not laziness, it's that committing to something means giving up the safety of being someone who could be anything…”

If you’re in your 20s and you’re starting to feel like being a wedding guest or attendant has become a part-time job–and you’re the one who has to make payroll–you’re not alone. With the median average age to get married at 30.2 years for men and 28.4 years for women, sooner or later you’re bound to be deluged with wedding invites. 

How can you celebrate these happy events without being overwhelmed by the expenses that come along with them? 

Make peace with the fact that during this season of your life, a lot of your “entertainment” budget is going to be earmarked for expenses related to friends’ weddings 

Most people have a year or two like this; the weddings multiply if you’re a couple. Once upon a time, my husband and I had a year like that. In May, my husband was in his friend Steve’s wedding. In August, I was in my friend Marylynn’s wedding. In September, my friend Rachel got married. In October, my husband’s friend Mike got married. It was rare that year to have a weekend that didn’t involve a shower, a bachelor or bachelorette party, or a wedding.

Looking back, most of our friends’ weddings occurred within five years. So if you feel caught in a tsunami of weddings, maybe you’re in the midst of your peak wedding season.

Remember two things: (1) This won’t last forever. Before you know it, your calendar will start to thin out, and you’ll wonder how you became a boring older person with a less exciting social life; and (2) Since weddings are once-in-a-lifetime occasions, you might as well enjoy them to the full extent possible.

Ideally everyone, including you, will get their turn to be the bride or groom. Celebrating your friends’ life events will involve some level of spending on your part, but there are worse things to spend money on.

Accept that being in someone’s wedding involves some level of financial commitment

Being part of a bridal party is an honor that comes with a cost. When you accept this invitation, you agree to assume the cost of outfitting yourself in special attire for the occasion, as well as for pitching in to help cover the expenses of festivities like showers and bachelor/bachelorette parties. 

If you are lucky, your friends do not have champagne tastes and will be mindful about not wanting to excessively burden you with expenses. 

You probably already know where your friends fall on the cost-sensitivity scale. If a friend’s spending habits suggest that their choices may be too rich for your blood, you may want to gracefully decline their invitation to be in the wedding party. 

But if you do sign on, you must make peace with the fact that you’ll need to earmark part of your budget for wedding-related expenses. Maybe you’ll have to defer some other spending you had in mind for that year. But just like anything else, adjusting budgetary line items when necessary is part of being a grown-up.

Being in a friend’s wedding is one of those e-ticket ride experiences that don’t come along often. It will cost you, but that expense can be worth it if your relationship with them is meaningful enough that you want to be part of their closest circle of support as they get married.

If you’re not feeling that way about it, perhaps that’s a signal you should carefully consider whether you want to accept that “Will you be my bridesmaid/groomsman” invitation.

Select a wedding gift according to your means

Zola says the average cash gift for a wedding ranges from $100-$200, depending on how close a guest is to the couple. If you want help calculating an appropriate amount, try The Knot’s Wedding Gift Amount Calculator or CreditDonkey’s Cash Wedding Gift Calculator. 

Remember that these are only guidelines. Though everyone likes to give a generous gift to the happy couple, no one should ever feel pressured to give more than they can afford. 

Most reasonable people understand that young adults just starting out have only so much disposable income to spend on a wedding gift. Presumably your friends get this because they are in the same boat as you. If you are feeling pressure to measure up to expectations, it’s worth considering whether your ego is powering the voice in your head nagging you to spend enough on a gift.

Remember that although money is a common wedding gift, it’s not the only option. If the amount you can spend on a gift isn’t as large as you would like, you may feel better giving a gift with some meaning attached instead of money. 

Draw on your intimate knowledge of the happy couple and their history for a gift that only someone who knows them well would think of. Or choose a personalized item that celebrates the new family they’re forming. Or select something that can become a sentimental favorite–like a set of ornaments meant to bring happiness and good luck when hung on the Christmas tree during the first year of marriage according to an old German tradition. 

And don’t forget that if the couple has created a gift registry, it typically includes items at various price points so you can get them something you know they want that fits your budget.

In the end, it really is the thought that counts. If you come up with a gift that you feel good about giving because it has meaning, the monetary value of the gift becomes less central.

Trim the expenses you can

It’s a fact of modern life that we don’t always live in the same metro as our friends. So a wedding often involves travel expenses.

Though a tighter budget may require careful planning, you can find ways to get to the wedding without breaking the bank. Economize where you can. Book the first or the last flight of the day, which is usually cheaper. See if you can split a hotel room or an Airbnb with a friend.

Maybe wedding-related travel will replace your vacation travel for a while. Consider adding a day or two to your stay to turn it into a vacation.

Weigh whether you have to be there for all of the festivities. If the bachelor/bachelorette weekend is at an exotic location that exceeds your budget, you could decline and take your friend out for a special celebratory dinner instead. Or if there are multiple showers, you may not need to attend all of them.

While sometimes it’s nice to have a good excuse to buy a new dress or suit, remember that you don’t always have to purchase new attire for a wedding if you aren’t in it. If Kate Middleton recycles her outfits, you can too. 

Give and participate in festivities according to your means 

Being someone’s friend or relative does not come with the obligation to break the bank or go into debt to celebrate their nuptials. Whether it’s the wedding gift or wedding-related events, you should give or participate in ways that fit your budget.

If you can’t afford to participate in the bachelor/bachelorette festivities, you should not feel obligated to go. If the budget for the festivities has somehow gone over the top, then it’s better for everyone if you gracefully decline instead of going along begrudgingly. 

*******

When I went through my archives for images to illustrate this story, I noticed that the vast majority of photos in the album from my “peak wedding years” were from friends’ weddings and showers (unfortunately the photo quality from back then isn’t as great as the memories are). It’s evidence of the prevalence of weddings during your 20s and, likewise, the significance of weddings in your memory bank. 

Yes, you may spend a lot of money celebrating weddings during these years, but it’s in the service of significant life events. Though it may require some thought, planning, and boundary-setting, it’s possible to find a way to celebrate the happy couple without creating financial angst for yourself. 

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In the olden days, moms used to clip articles from newspapers for their kids if they thought they needed to know something. I’m keeping an eye out for things that you might have missed that may be helpful to you.

This week’s clips:

Inspiration for times that try one’s soul

When Sharon McMahon prepared a commencement speech for Utah Valley University, she wanted to send grads off with something stronger than easy optimism–durable hope:

“Durable hope is not the belief that everything will work out. Durable hope is the decision to keep working when you don’t yet know how things will turn out, when the outcome is not yet assured.”

As McMahon, who’s known as “America’s government teacher,” pointed out, neither the patriots of the American Revolution, nor the abolitionists, nor the suffrage workers had any assurance of success–but they had durable hope.

McMahon’s address was canceled because of safety concerns, but you can read her inspiring words for these times that try one’s soul here.

Do talk to strangers

Although Rick Springfield famously counseled, “Don’t talk to strangers,” Melissa Kirsch says we definitely should.

When Kirsch went to hear some live music by herself, a delightful stranger bravely said to his fellow strangers, “We’re all here solo, so we should talk to one another.” And when they did, they pleasantly passed the half hour before the show. Kirsch makes the case for taking a chance on starting a conversation.

If I look a little bit smug on my first day of school at Lansdale Catholic in 1980, I couldn’t help it. I was extremely happy to be headed off to L.C. instead of what would have been my mom’s choice of high school for me—Gwynedd Mercy Academy.

From the very beginning, I wanted to go to L.C., the archdiocesan high school where all my friends were headed. My mom, on the other hand, thought an all-girls academy would be a better pick for her straight-A, college-bound student.

I was sure that I could be just as successful at L.C. My mom was particularly worried that (and I’m laughing as I type this) if I went to a co-ed school, I might be too distracted by boys and vulnerable to falling off the college bandwagon.

My mom had loved her high school experience at all-girls Hallahan, and it was hard to convince her that a single-sex school wasn’t the linchpin to ensuring a great high school experience for me. But even 14-year-old me saw the advantages of being used to operating in a co-ed environment if I were headed out in a few short years to conquer the equal-opportunity world now open to bright young women.

I have to think too that my attending an academy would have been a way for my mom to vicariously live out the high school dream she’d been denied. My mom had won a partial scholarship to an academy she would have loved to attend, but my grandmom thought a private school would be too highfalutin. To my grandmom, whose mom had denied her the chance to even go to high school, the archdiocesan high school was good enough.

The battle of L.C. vs. Gwynedd was a fierce one, especially since I’d won a partial scholarship to Gwynedd. My mom advocated hard for Gwynedd. But to her credit, ultimately she let me decide where I was going to high school. And once I made my decision, my mom was totally supportive of my choice. I never heard an “if only you’d gone to the academy.”

As it turned out, I enjoyed my high school years at L.C. just as much as my mom enjoyed hers. I wasn’t distracted by the boys, managed to graduate in the Top Ten of my class, and then headed off to college and grad school just like my mom had hoped.

I still maintain that I was on to something as far as being better prepared to function in a business world half-full of men. And L.C. delivered a really big bonus: I met my husband there—one upside of co-ed!

Later, I’d follow my mom’s good example and let my daughters make their own choices about high school, even though I held my breath a little while one of them considered attending Gwynedd.

The fact that I hoped my daughter would choose the archdiocesan high school instead of the academy perhaps points to one almost universal truth of parenting—as long as a choice we made worked out well for us, we tend to default to believing a similar choice will suit our kids.

My mom’s positive experience at an all-girls school made her less sure about sending me to a co-ed high school. My positive experience at an archdiocesan high school had me crossing my fingers that my daughter would choose the same.

Why do parents do this? My theory is that most parents have the goal of always doing what’s best for their kids–but knowing exactly what’s best all the time is exhausting.

Parenting requires so many decisions that we often default to what worked for us. We’d be totally overwhelmed if we didn’t make some choices based on our past experiences.

So our experiences become the starting point–like when I assumed my daughters would enjoy piano lessons and Girl Scouts just like I did. Sometimes that proved true, and sometimes it didn’t.

It’s also tempting for parents to transfer dreams they haven’t achieved themselves to their kids. Look at how easy it was for my mom to make the case for the academy’s merits because that was the high school experience she would have chosen for herself had she been allowed. I believe that, consciously or subconsciously, my mom saw my attending an academy as a way to make up for the dream she’d been denied.

We parents often start off assuming that our preferences and dreams will fit you just as well as they fit us.

It can be a heavy lift for a parent to let go of a dream when it turns out their child has something else in mind. That’s why I so admire my mom’s willingness to let me choose the high school that was right for me.

I believe that everyone is happier when parents respect the principle that grown children are entitled to be the authors of their own lives.

But I also believe that sometimes it’s necessary to extend some grace to parents who have tried to nudge you in the direction that they believe is best.

With any luck, your parents will come to understand that the best dreams are the ones you dream up for yourself.

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In the olden days, moms used to clip articles from newspapers for their kids if they thought they needed to know something. I’m keeping an eye out for things that you might have missed that may be helpful to you.

This week’s clips:

Is planning your own birthday celebration better than waiting for someone else to take the lead? When an episode of the Dear Nina: Conversations about Friendship podcast explored what happened when one woman planned her own birthday festivities, it struck a nerve with listeners.

How can you tell when you’ve outgrown your job? Gen Twenty names 7 signs you have and suggests what to do about it.

Are you inadvertently offending people? The Guardian compiled a list of 19 modern etiquette mistakes and how to avoid them.

Curious about what inspired me to start telling you all these things?

My guest post for Her View From Home has the backstory

I turn 60 this week. Instead of lamenting how old I am, I decided at the beginning of this year to celebrate with a little throwback photo party on Instagram every Thursday. I dug through my photo archives from my life on the “0s” and the “5s” (the years I was 10, 15, 20, etc.) to find five photos that represent what was happening in my life at the time.

One of my favorites so far has been the photo from my 10th birthday party. I know it looks like Julie, the American Girl doll from the 70s, had her story turned into a live-action movie, but that’s actually me in the bedazzled, tie-dyed shirt and bell-bottom blue jeans with a flower patch.

My 10th birthday was the first time I was allowed to invite classmates to a party. You can tell by the gleam in my eye that I am absolutely thrilled to have a group of girlfriends of my very own. In fact, look how enthused we all were to be embarking on a social life of our very own.

Fourth grade had been a big year for friendships.

Two buddies in this photo, Mary Beth and Jackie, were Junior Girl Scouts with me, which was especially exciting because our troop went on camping trips. Since I didn’t have any sisters and my brother was four years younger than me, it was amazing to spend time with other girls my own age who I had something in common with.

Another friend in the photo, Rosemarie, lived on the other side of the public school playground two blocks from my house–close enough that I was occasionally allowed to walk myself over to her house for a playdate.

It would have made a very nice story if I could say I was still friends with these same girls five decades later. Alas, I cannot.

After fifth grade, my family moved from the city to the suburban frontier, so my fourth-grade friendships didn’t last.

Seeing my 10th birthday party photo and remembering how delighted I was at the time to be friends with these girls made me think about how many friendships we make over the course of a lifetime that fall by the wayside.

Much of the time, these friendships flame out not because of a falling-out, but because the circumstances that initially brought us together fade.

Sometimes you discover your interests weren’t as aligned as you thought they were. Before you know it, they’re no longer the first person you look to hang out with at recess or on a coffee break.

Sometimes friends end up in an outer circle of your orbit where you just don’t interact as often anymore.

Other times one of you moves–to a different town or a different company–and you lose touch. (By the time you’re reminiscing about that party decades later, you might not be entirely sure that you remember their names.)

The pattern of waning friendships doesn’t end after childhood. Adults go on to make work friends or parent friends or neighborhood friends that we don’t manage to keep in touch with as much as we would like after our proximity changes for one reason or another.

It’s not a failure on anybody’s part. It’s just how life goes. We’re all just passing through, lucky to find buddies to keep us company for a while.

As spiritual teacher Ram Dass once said, “We’re all just walking each other home.” Maybe that’s the best way to think about the ebb and flow of the friendships that come along as we journey through life.

Just because a friendship isn’t forever, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t meaningful.

After I racked my brain to remember the names of my 10th birthday party attendees, I did what any curious mind does in 2026–surfed the internet to see what happened to my old friends.

I was startled and saddened to discover that one of my 4th-grade friends, Rosemarie, had died a few years ago. She was only 53.

It’s always unsettling to learn that someone the same age as you has died. It reinforced something that my dad observed after my mom passed–it all goes by faster than you think.

My mom made it to 83–the type of lifespan that seems long when you’re in your 20s or 30s. However, when you’re rounding the bend of 60, your perspective is a little different.

Since my mom died, I’ve had a new watchword: “If not now, then when?” Rosemarie’s untimely passing was a reminder of why that’s a good watchword.

Rest in peace, Rosemarie.

If you’d like to join my weekly Throwback Thursday party to see what else I discover in my photo archives, follow me on Instagram.

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I won’t be sharing any new things your mom should have told you this week since I declared a spring break for myself last week.

My middle daughter was in town for her bridal shower. My youngest daughter had flown home from London to attend the shower. Their presence meant my oldest daughter was around too.

In a situation like this, normal work simply must fall by the wayside, especially when the weather in Pennsylvania is summerlike enough to sit in the sun and tan.

A normal Things Your Mom Should Have Told You post will return next week. In the meantime, you catch up on some of the things you might have missed the first time I shared them.

See what else mom should have told you

Recently I’ve been working on a personal history project I’ve titled Big House on the Prairie. It’s the tale of my family’s move from a little brick twin in the city to a sprawling single colonial on the suburban frontier in the 70s.

As a child, I only cared about what my new school would be like and whether I’d make friends. As an adult, I wonder why my parents decided to leave the city behind. I was also curious whether the not-in-my-backyard sentiment so common today when farmland is about to sprout houses was a thing back then too.

So, in addition to sifting through our family photo albums, I headed to the local historical society, which houses the archives of my hometown’s newspaper.

Although many of the issues I needed to access were online, the issues from the 1960s haven’t been converted yet. So I needed to thumb through volumes of yellowed newspapers, which was like opening a time capsule.

As expected, I found accounts of township and school board meetings, as well as plenty of reports from the police blotter (it was stunning to read how common fatal car accidents were before safety belts were required). But much of the content was the kind of information that I had forgotten was once the lifeblood of newspapers.

A primitive version of Facebook and Instagram

I’m old enough to remember when engagements were announced in the newspaper, but I was surprised to see that 1960s engagement photos only included the brides-to-be.

I expected to find spelling bee victors, history award winners, couples celebrating anniversaries, and honor roll students enjoying their moments in the sun. However, I was amazed to see this record of hospital admissions.

It was probably nice to know when babies arrived. And I suppose knowing who’d been hospitalized helped you to be a good neighbor; if you saw someone had been in the hospital, you could follow up and bring the family a meal or offer other assistance.

Believe it or not, an entire column was dedicated to reporting about who visited whose house for dinner. I guess even in the 60s, you weren’t entirely protected from FOMO since you could still see if everyone but you had been invited to a dinner party.

It seemed incredible that these mundane details of social comings and goings were printed in the paper until I realized that back then, local newspapers served up the details of daily life that Facebook and Instagram do today. Before social media, newspapers were the best way to keep tabs on the personal lives of your friends and neighbors.

Where basic information used to appear

It seemed a little strange to me at first that every Friday edition featured an exhaustive listing of the service times for every church in the region. Then I realized that in pre-internet times, this was how, short of making many phone calls, new residents or someone who decided to get back into the habit of attending services learned about their church-going options.

Similarly, at first it seemed kind of silly that a whole ad was devoted to a simple pancake supper. But then I realized–how else did you get the word out about community events in the era before social media and email lists?

If you’ve only ever lived in a world where you can scroll through the TV guide on screen, here’s how you used to discover your viewing options. It was the only way to know what was on TV in the 60s, other than flipping through the channels.

How you hunted for a job or a house before the internet

Before Indeed.com or ZipRecruiter, you checked the Help Wanted section of the newspaper to see who was hiring. Note how, even though the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had been created in 1964, some of these 1968 Want Ads still specified whether they were looking for male or female help.

Before there was Zillow or Realtor.com, the newspaper was how you discovered which houses were available for sale in your price range. If you didn’t have a real estate agent, this was the only information you could see about the houses for sale. You were lucky if there was a photo of the house itself.

My little journey back in time was entertaining and enlightening, and I did manage to find information that helped me understand how the community was reacting to the transformation of vast swatches of farmland into hundreds of houses.

Newspapers have been called the first drafts of history, and they certainly served that purpose for me. Thanks to my local newspaper, I could access a record of what had happened. I’m not sure that someone who attempts a similar research project in future decades will have such robust “first drafts” to rely on. (Here’s hoping the Wayback Machine is as reliable.)

In many ways, the decline of local newspapers is a natural evolution. As my “time travel” shows, much of the information the local newspaper used to contain now appears on Facebook, Instagram, and websites. Companies and organizations no longer depend on newspapers to carry their ads. People no longer need to subscribe to newspapers to keep tabs on their communities’ social lives.

In fact, in some circles, it’s become fashionable to say we don’t need “The Media” anymore at all. All that talk about “fake news” has tarnished the press’s reputation.

But we’re fooling ourselves if we think that we can just say farewell to independent journalism and rely on social media and the internet for all of our information.

Why do we still need independent journalism?

America’s Founding Fathers insisted on freedom of the press because they believed it was a necessary mechanism for keeping government accountable to the people. Without a free press to inform citizens and expose corruption, they believed a free society could not survive.

America’s founders wanted the press–what we now often refer to as The Media–to act as a watchdog. They believed that a free press could monitor government actions and expose abuses of power so that public officials would remain servants of the people rather than becoming their masters.

The Founders believed that democracy requires informed citizens. They believed that free access to news, opinions, and debate would allow people to make responsible decisions about their government.

Having just fought a revolution against British rule, they recognized that tyrannical governments control information. A free press prevents the government from controlling the narrative. They knew that allowing opposition and criticism to exist without fear of censorship was essential for democracy to flourish.

Key leaders like James Madison argued that in a republic, the people must have the right to supervise the government–not the other way around.

Though news formats may evolve, the press–The Media–remains essential to a healthy democracy. In fact, research has shown that news consumption boosts political participation, improves knowledge of current affairs, and improves resilience to misinformation.

How can citizens ensure news sources are trustworthy?

Our Founding Fathers couldn’t have fathomed what “the press” in the U.S.A. would look like 250 years after its birth. Citizens can get their news any number of ways. So the question becomes–how can you tell whether the news source you’re relying on is trustworthy?

In 1997, the Committee of Concerned Journalists began a national conversation to identify the principles that underlie journalism. After four years of research, including 20 public forums around the country and a national survey of journalists, the group identified nine Principles of Journalism.

These nine principles describe what a healthy “free press” looks like. Here’s the SparkNotes version of how journalism is supposed to work, so you can evaluate for yourself how your favorite news sources measure up:

1. Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth. Democracy depends on citizens having reliable, accurate facts put in a meaningful context. Journalism does not pursue truth in an absolute or philosophical sense, but it can—and must—pursue it in a practical sense. This “journalistic truth” is a process that begins with the professional discipline of assembling and verifying facts.

2. Its first loyalty is to citizens. While news organizations answer to many constituencies, including advertisers and shareholders, the journalists in those organizations must maintain allegiance to citizens and the larger public interest above any other if they are to provide the news without fear or favor.

3. Its essence is a discipline of verification. When the concept of objectivity originally evolved, it did not imply that journalists are free of bias. It called, rather, for a consistent method of testing information—a transparent approach to evidence—precisely so that personal and cultural biases would not undermine the accuracy of their work. The method is objective, not the journalist.
   
   Seeking out multiple witnesses, disclosing as much as possible about sources, or asking various sides for comment, all signal such standards. This discipline of verification is what separates journalism from other modes of communication, such as propaganda, fiction, or entertainment.

4. Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover. Independence is an underlying requirement of journalism, a cornerstone of its reliability…While editorialists and commentators are not neutral, the source of their credibility is still their accuracy, intellectual fairness and ability to inform—not their devotion to a certain group or outcome.

5. It must serve as an independent monitor of power. Journalism has an unusual capacity to serve as watchdog over those whose power and position most affect citizens. The Founders recognized this to be a rampart against despotism when they ensured an independent press; courts have affirmed it; citizens rely on it.

6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise. It also should strive to fairly represent the varied viewpoints and interests in society, and to place them in context rather than highlight only the conflicting fringes of debate. Accuracy and truthfulness require that as framers of the public discussion we not neglect the points of common ground where problem solving occurs.

7. It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant. Journalism is storytelling with a purpose. It should do more than gather an audience or catalog the important. For its own survival, it must balance what readers know they want with what they cannot anticipate but need.

8. It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional. Keeping news in proportion and not leaving important things out are also cornerstones of truthfulness. Journalism is a form of cartography: it creates a map for citizens to navigate society. Inflating events for sensation, neglecting others, stereotyping or being disproportionately negative all make a less reliable map.

9. Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience. Every journalist must have a personal sense of ethics and responsibility — a moral compass. Each of us must be willing, if fairness and accuracy require, to voice differences with our colleagues, whether in the newsroom or the executive suite.

These principles formed the basis of a book, The Elements of Journalism, which has been updated several times to keep up with the evolution of technology and society. In the preface of the most recent edition, published in 2021, the authors summed up in a single paragraph the forces currently at play, as well as the stakes:

“No part of this book has been untouched by the galvanic forces of technology, fragmentation, economic chaos, and the rise of antidemocratic movements around the world. The platform companies such as Facebook and Google are now the most important media forces shaping our information lives, and their algorithms, which are designed to distinguish us from one another to help them sell targeted advertising, have helped bad actors know what can separate us politically, creating rich opportunities for authoritarians to exploit. Despots, in turn, will always call the press the enemy of the people for the simple reason that journalism is a force for democracy.”

If you care about American democracy surviving to celebrate its next milestone birthday, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel explained in the preface of The Elements of Journalism why doing your part to understand and support journalism is essential:

“If those who practice journalism and those who consume it do not understand journalism’s purpose in society and cannot differentiate journalism from political advocacy and propaganda, or opinion mongering from reporting, if they do not understand the discipline of verification or the requirements of passionate, open-minded inquiry, it is not journalism that is threatened. It is democracy…

Democracy and the press, as Joseph Pulitzer warned a century ago, really do rise and fall together.”

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In the olden days, moms used to clip articles from newspapers for their kids if they thought they needed to know something. I’m keeping an eye out for things that you might have missed that may be helpful to you.

This week’s clips:

Just one in three unmarried young adults ages 22-35 are dating, even though about half are interested in starting a relationship. The Up and Up considers the causes of Gen Z’s dating deficit.

Luce from Shit You Should Care About explains why and how she traded showing everyone a slightly different version of herself for just being who she is when nobody is watching.

Need a trustworthy source for breaking news? For a health question? For financial info? Reference librarian Hanna Lee Goldin points you in the right direction in this Card Catalog post.

Hey Parents!

I’m excited to announce that The Lazy Chef Cookbook is part of the Empty Nest Next Chapter Giveaway.

If you’re preparing for an empty nest or already in it, you can enter to win one of four giveaway prizes designed for parents of older teens and young adults:

GRAND PRIZE: $300 Amazon Gift Card

THREE Runners-up PRIZES: Next Chapter Book Bundles: Each bundle includes three influential books and a $30 Amazon Gift Card

How to Enter:

1. Tap this link: Empty Nest Next Chapter Giveaway

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From their 1st birthdays until they turned 18, we hosted a family birthday party for each of our three children every year.

That’s 54 parties. And when I look through the treasure trove of photos from those parties, I am a little blown away by how willing our relatives and friends were to cheerfully and consistently show up.

They came bearing gifts, oohed and aahed while the girls opened their presents, helped wrangle other party-goers if the kids’ party was the same day, sang the obligatory happy birthday tune, and occasionally wore party hats.

Every fall, we subjected them to three parties within the span of 3 months because that’s when the girls’ birthdays fell, but the birthday party MVPs showed up without fail for each and every one.

At one of the parties, in addition to the obligatory cake shot, I also took photos of the partygoers who came to rejoice. I love the photo because it captures the most loyal fan club they’ll ever have.

That’s dedication. That’s love. It’s rare to have such a physical manifestation of appreciation for the simple fact that you exist.

Perhaps you were also graced by people who were there to celebrate your birthdays and special occasions during your childhood.

At the time, I imagine your parents probably coached you to thank those friends and relatives for the gifts you received. Maybe you even thanked them for coming to your party.

Even today, you probably feel a sense of gratitude that your loved ones honored you by being there at all those parties and occasions.

You know what would make this even better? Acknowledging the people who showed up for you before you were even old enough to fully appreciate having a built-in fan club. Think of it as regifting the love.

It doesn’t need to be a grand gesture. Send them a birthday card. Give them a phone call. Send them a postcard the next time you’re on vacation. Stop by for a brief visit the next time you’re in town.

If your fan club is getting up there in years, they may not get out as much anymore, so they’ll especially appreciate the human contact.

And no matter how old they are, they will appreciate the warm feeling that comes from knowing that someone thought of them.

It’s the least you can do. And it will probably make you feel pretty good too.

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In the olden days, moms used to clip articles from newspapers for their kids if they thought it was something they needed to know. I’m keeping an eye out for things that you might have missed that may be helpful to you.

This week’s clips:

Rachel Richardson of Highly Flammable considers what the CBK craze says about our current era.

Cathy Cassani Adams of Zen Moment explains why it’s in your relationship’s best interest to just say the thing.

Karl Pillemer and Mel Robins make the case for why life is too short to fight with your family.

When I see this picture of myself in a cap and gown, it reminds me about the mixed emotions I felt on graduation day. On the one hand, I’d finally reached the top of the mountain. All the studying and tests were over. But on the other hand, now there was a whole other, in some ways steeper, mountain to climb—actually assembling all of the pieces of that wonderful grown-up life I’d been dreaming about all along.

It didn’t take long to discover that in the real world I couldn’t count on things working mostly like I expected them to and being rewarded as long as I put in the effort. In fact, I found that during my 20s very few life experiences unfolded like I had imagined they would.

Adulthood was littered with all kinds of tricky things that I wasn’t sure how to handle at first, like dislikable bosses, rainy wedding days, and in-laws. It also featured troublesome situations like hating my first job and having to fire a bridesmaid.

Plus other larger how-the-hell-is-this-going-to-work dilemmas were looming in the background, like how was I going to find my way to a dream job when I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to be when I grew up? And was it really going to be possible to juggle a career and parenthood someday like conventional wisdom had been telling me all along?

It sure would have been nice if someone had spoken to me honestly about the things I was likely to encounter as a young adult. And yet it seemed like once you graduated, you were expected to fend for yourself without much guidance. Nobody acknowledged the dilemmas and struggles I was routinely encountering. For the most part, my elders and society in general gave the impression that adulthood should be mostly smooth sailing if you were doing it right.

By the time I hit my mid-30s, I managed to figure most things out. And then I got so busy with the life I had assembled for myself (complete with marriage, a house, a career, and three kids who arrived within 5 years) that I forgot about the struggles of young adulthood for a while.

But eventually my daughters grew up, and as they prepared to leave home, I started to become part of the “everything’s fine” conspiracy. Most of the time when we discussed their futures, I talked about limitless opportunities and focused on the upside. I suppose I avoided talking about the struggles ahead because I didn’t want them to be discouraged. Or I guess I hoped that somehow they’d magically avoid all the pitfalls.

Then I read about a golden rule that marathon runners follow—if a runner asks you about the terrain on the trail ahead, you should let them know about tough hills and how far they still have to go. In other words, instead of resorting to happy talk and telling them it won’t be that hard, you should be honest.

So I decided to be more open about the challenges and dilemmas that come along with being a grown-up. I started sharing the non-airbrushed version of my experiences as a young adult with my daughters and telling them all of the things I wished my mom or somebody had told me. I'm happy to do the same for you. 

I feel badly that young people today face more pressure than ever to “have it all”—even though nobody has ever explained how to pull that off. I hope to help you be better prepared to navigate adulthood than I was.

I recognize that 20-somethings aren’t the only ones looking for practical wisdom about everything that comes along with adulthood. In fact, I’ve come to realize that for most people, figuring out how to navigate life is a lifelong quest. So no matter what age you are, I’m happy if you find useful knowledge and wisdom in this “instruction manual for life” delivered a week at a time.

My hope is that reading Things Your Mom Should Have Told You weekly will help reduce anxiety about adulting. If you subscribe, I’ll see you in your inbox every Tuesday.