A Passport To Anywhere

Author

Jeremy Intal
July 25, 2024

Wow. What a news-filled few weeks, amirite?

Regardless of how you feel about American politics, it’s likely that President Biden notifying Americans via X (fka Twitter) about his withdrawal from the presidential race is just preparing you as a parent. For what, exactly? For the day when you find out about your child’s first significant other via TikTok. How dare they…

Activity of the week

Traveling with young kids is…tough. Remember what happened whenever Kevin McAllister’s family tried to go on a trip?

You during crunch time at the airport

How can you recreate the experience for them in a way that’s more accessible, requires less time watching YouTube videos on a tablet, and little likelihood they throw up in your car? Make a local passport with different points of interest around town. This activity is part travel part treasure hunt.

What you’ll need: a small pocket notebook like these, a few markers or crayons, and some stamps like these or stickers like these.

Step 1: Create your child’s bio page for their passport. First, have your child select the picture they want for their passport from your saved photos on your phone. After you select the picture, print it and have your child cut and glue the picture onto the passport.

Step 2: Ask your child what information they want to include in their passport. This information could include their name, a preferred travel nickname, their favorite food, their favorite color, their height, or anything they want to add about themselves. If you want, have them write or draw the information on the same bio page.

Step 3: Create a table of contents for all the activities you’d like to track on your passport. To simplify the activity, pick a theme for the passport. Three simple themes could be 1) local points of interest you and your kid want to visit, 2) activities you two want to do, or 3) cuisines you and your child want to try. Ask your kid if they have a preference, too! Depending on the theme of the passport, ask your child one of the following prompts:

  • What places in town do you want to visit? (Examples include visiting the library, post office, zoo, or a grocery store)

  • What activities do friends do that you want to try? (Examples include trying a new playground, visiting a friend or family member, biking with friends, or picking fruit)

  • What kinds of food do you want to explore? (Think about trying food from a random food stand/truck, ordering something from a restaurant that you’ve never tried before, grabbing something new from the grocery store, or trying a random recipe from a cookbook)

You can always give examples of places you’d like to visit, things you’d like to do, or foods you’d like to try if your child doesn’t have any ideas that come to mind. These places, activities, and foods do not have to be new. They can be places you’ve visited or activities that you’ve done or food you’ve already tried that you’d like to try again.

Try limiting the table of contents to around five to seven items so it’s a manageable list of activities! Note that there’s no pressure to have a full list at the beginning either. You can always add new points of interest, activities, or foods to your passport later when new ideas come up.

Step 4: Create a page for each of the items from the table of contents by adding the point of interest, activity, or food at the top of a blank page in the notebook/passport.

Step 5: Plan your next trip or activity and have your stamps or stickers ready to use when you do the activity. Once one point of interest is visited, activity is completed, or food is consumed, stamp or sticker that passport page and take a picture of the completed trip/activity!

That’s it! You can use the passport for future inspiration the next time you have an afternoon with no activities planned and you have an eager child who wants to do some exploration. So get ready for departure!

Not for tots

Here is this week’s not for tots segment where we share some internet finds/treats/toys exclusively for the adults in the room.

  • Last week, we shared a story about what’s been lost since the landline has gone the way of the dodo. How do you recreate some of that magic? Use this vintage audio guestbook at your next get together with loved ones. It really is a novel and nostalgic way to replay the best memories from your favorite people.

  • Having trouble keeping up with all the artificial intelligence lingo? Here’s a fantastic AI cheat sheet that’ll get you all caught up (at least until the end of this newsletter).

  • A “long conversation” is a new format for a conference. Two speakers begin a conversation on stage. After 15 minutes one of the two speakers is replaced by a new speaker and the conversation continues, and every 15 minutes for the next 8 hours one speaker is swapped out.

  • Daylight is the computer, de-invented, built to limit distractions and increase focus in an increasingly cluttered digital world.

  • If you’re in-market for new furniture and hope to save some money, don’t go to Facebook Marketplace. Find a perfect dupe of your ideal couch, bookshelf, credenza etc for a fraction of the cost by using Dupe.

  • Want to make it to the MoMa, but don’t live in New York City (or can’t find a babysitter)? Enjoy this video of Refik Anadol’s Unsupervised — Machine Hallucinations from the comfort of your home.

Kidult of the week

When’s the last time you used skills from your job on something that wasn’t work related, on something novel or on something that was just fun to do? That’s the question I started asking myself when I came across Emily Morgan, this week’s kidult.

Emily is a graphic designer and an avid sports fan. I recently discovered her work thanks to the social media algorithm gods 🙏 After watching her Instagram Reel redesigning the Chicago Bulls logo (see below), I jumped into the Instagram rabbit hole and finished watching all of her previous redesign videos including her redesigns of the Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Knicks, Oklahoma City Thunder logos.

In order to build out her portfolio in between projects, Emily decided that she would merge her work (design) with her passion (sports), start redesigning sports logos for fun, and post them publicly on her social media accounts. Her ability to have fun with her work and bravely post them publicly to very opinionated sports fans makes her our kidult of the week. Those two things are very difficult to do, but Emily shows how they can both be equally rewarding.

So try something new and build in public. Just make sure you ignore the haters in the comments section.

Stat of the week

Last week, we shared a stat that 71% of 18-24 year-olds reported living with either their parents (56%) or other relatives (15%), making it the most common living arrangement by far.

That stat is consistent with this week’s stat of the week: today, more than ever, Americans are living alone.

Thinking about tomorrow, today

Young adults today are less likely to drink than young adults two decades ago – but older adults are more likely to do so, according to Gallup. The share of adults ages 18 to 34 who say they ever drink dropped from 72% in 2001-03 to 62% in 2021-23.

Americans 55 and older, on the other hand, are more likely than their counterparts two decades ago to say they do all of these things. Among those ages 35 to 54, the shares who do these things have remained relatively stable over time.

Before the inevitable conversation about alcohol consumption comes up, it might be helpful to understand how alcohol is being perceived by different groups of individuals, especially across generations. In a recent survey, Gen Z survey participants mentioned the desire to 1) improve mental health, 2) improve physical health, and 3) save money as some of their core motivations for decreasing their alcohol intake.

Parenting-ish Headlines

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