Practice for the homecoming parade

Howdy, friends! We’re unofficially halfway through summer and we have a box office winner that even the kids can enjoy. Inside Out 2 has already grossed well over $1 billion worldwide and it’s given you the ammo needed as an old to fully participate in the latest viral meme. See the following internet artifacts:

Sometimes parenting has its perks after all.

Activity of the week

Fireworks dominate 4th of July celebrations across the US, but you know what doesn’t get enough love? Good old parades. That’s right. Parades. They’re easier on the ears, safer in almost every way imaginable, and the variety of entertainment for kids is far greater.

So, this week’s activity is focused on getting kids to create their own parade and freeing up grownups to talk about serious topics like the economy or season 3 of HBO’s original series Hacks. This week’s activity is a group effort (requiring friends, siblings, parents, and any other family members that want to join) so schedule this activity for the next neighborhood barbecue or family get together.

What you’ll need:

1. Bikes, scooters, or skateboards for kids to use for the parade

2. Things to decorate their mode of transportation like ribbons (grab some that are on sale post-Fourth of July at your local arts and crafts store), streamers, kazoos, pinwheels, and balloons

3. Poster boards for kids to decorate

4. Markers and crayons

5. Speaker for music (optional)

Step 1: Send an invite to friends and family to participate in a random parade on a cool summer afternoon at a nearby park or quiet cul de sac. Encourage them to bring a bike, scooter, skateboard or any other mode of transportation to decorate for the parade.

Step 2: Lay out all the decorating crafts on a table on the day of for kids to use.

Step 3: Encourage kids to decorate their bike, scooter, or skateboard however they like. If they prefer to walk for the parade, they can use poster boards to decorate. Make sure to give kids a set time for when the parade begins so they know how long they have to decorate.

Step 4: Have the kids line up, play some music, and let them show their stuff.

That’s it. You can make it more structured (like setting the order of the parade marchers) or provide no structure at all. You choose. If the kids just like decorating, let them roll with it. This activity is just a primer for when they win homecoming king or queen anyways.

In the end, even if kids aren’t happy with how their decorating turned out, just remind them of the time when Barney the Dinosaur deflated in the middle of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. They have no idea what failure looks like.

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.

• The Cyanokites are a suite of five paper kites in the colors of the sky. The kites are an interpretation of the Cyanometer, an invention of the Swiss scientist and alpinist Horace Bénédict De Saussure to measure the blueness of the sky.

• Describe an emotion, thought, or memory via text and generate a specific color to match.

• See how someone your age spent their money in 1972.

• Take a walk down a street in different cities around the world.

• Here’s an art book for children (ages 7-12) that doubles as a coffee table book.

• Print your version of the internet so you can read off-line.

• Do you know how to find a ripe watermelon? Use the two finger rule.

Kidult of the week

New experiences lose their novelty relatively quickly. It’s easy to take things for granted after that initial rush of excitement of the unknown passes. Inevitably, what was once thrilling becomes mundane. This week’s kidult, New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso, offers some helpful perspective when you feel like you’re going through the motions of a life you once longed for.

This week, Alonso participated in his fifth Home Run Derby competition for Major League Baseball as part of their All-Star Week festivities. Save for the players and coaches selected for the events, every other major leaguer is on a brief weeklong vacation.

Those athletes hope to use the break in the schedule to rest and reset for the remainder of the grueling 162 game season. The break is understandably needed given the physical demands of their profession.

So, when asked why he keeps participating in the entirely optional event (his fifth to date), Alonso said, “I keep doing it because as a kid, I dreamt of doing it. I loved watching it as a kid. I keep doing it for my childhood self.”

His response reminded me that what I often take for granted is what I once desired the most. These are indeed the good old days.

Stat of the week

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.

For both cultural and financial reasons, young people are waiting longer to take those big traditional steps in life: the average age of a first marriage is rising, and the median homebuyer age has risen by a decade, to 49, in the last 20 years. If the current trend continues, more 18-24 year-olds will soon live alone than live with a spouse.

Thinking about tomorrow, today

According to a survey administered by the National Society for High School Scholars, tech giants have lost their luster among companies teens aspire to work for. Among the most desirable companies to pursue a career, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (No. 1), the Mayo Clinic (2), Health Care Services Corp. (3), the FBI (5), and NASA (6) all moved up from their 2018 rankings while Google (4) and other tech giants dropped.

What’s impacted these changes? Six key factors arose from research done by Handshake, a job platform connecting college students to career opportunities:

1. Job stability and financial security

2. Opportunities to develop skills

3. In-person work with plenty of flexibility

4. Sustainable work-life balance

5. Values alignment

6. Competitive pay and salary transparency

Although for many reading this newsletter those career conversations with their kiddo are several years away, it’s worth reflecting on the values you pursued during your own professional journey. What were those values you held dear? How have those values changed or remained the same? That reflection will help you during the inevitable conversations you’ll have with your little one in the not so distant future and build some empathy long before you might need it.

Parenting-ish Headlines

• Who’s responsible when students target teachers in a group TikTok attack? (New York Times)

• Meet the 18 year-old high schooler behind the RNC’s creator strategy. (The Information)

• What would you do if you could talk with your younger self? After reconfiguring his body with Harmony Korine’s EDGLRD and uploading his former self to an OpenAI GPT, The Weeknd meets his (virtual) inner child. (Ssense)

• According to the National Center for Health Statistics, only a quarter of adults in the United States still have landlines and only around 5 percent say they mostly or only rely on them. So what happens to the family unit when the cord is cut? (The Atlantic)

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