Children and Family

All in the Family Debt

How neoliberals and conservatives came together to undo the welfare state.

  • Melinda Cooper

Songs of White Innocence

Why did the alt-right, so eager to excuse Milo Yiannopoulos, finally turn on him?

  • Judith Levine

Hillary Clinton and the Unqualified Right to Abortion

She is the first major politician to support abortion without qualification. And she has never polled better with millennials.

  • Judith Levine

Lost in Translation

Schools in Nepal increasingly use English as the language of instruction. But in the name of preparing them for a globalized world, non-mother-tongue education often fails the students it aims to help.

  • Eleanor Hildebrandt

Pink and Blue

Many young children become obsessed with gender. How do we know which are trans?

  • Anne Fausto-Sterling

White Leghorns

On the cruelties the South doles out to animals, children, and black folks.

  • Colin Dayan

Sign up for our newsletter

The Thing with Fathers

Poetry is offering new candor about the ways men care for their children.

  • Stephanie Burt

What Is Education For?

Above all, preparing students for civic and political engagement.

  • Danielle Allen
with responses from
  • Carlos Fraenkel
  • Deborah Meier
  • Michel DeGraff
  • Debra Satz
  • Lelac Almagor
  • Jeffrey Aaron Snyder
  • Lucas Stanczyk
  • Rob Reich
  • Clint Smith

The Online–Sex Predator Panic

Laws Against Online Luring Harm Children

  • Judith Levine

To Hell with Good Intentions

School reform is failing America’s children.

  • Rob Reich

Our Panics, Ourselves

Richard Beck’s new book on the moral panic over child abuse in the 1980s.

  • Rebecca Onion

Left Out

The instability of the white working class.

  • Claude S. Fischer

The Seduction of Normalcy

On Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts.

  • Diana Arterian

Styles for Him—and Her

Unisex Fashion Fought the Gender Binary, and the Binary Won

  • Philip N. Cohen

Lena Dunham Wasn’t a Pedophile, and Neither Were You

Why are we even debating whether a seven-year-old child was a child molester?

  • Judith Levine

Islam’s Abortion Debate

Islamic jurisprudence does not encourage abortion, but unlike the Catholic Church, it does not absolutely forbid it.

  • Tom Hundley

Fearful Parenting Is Contagious

Anti-vaxxers need to relax.

  • Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow

Standardized Testing Can be Good

But only if we put students first.

  • Lelac Almagor

Letting Go of Normal

It is easy, but wrong, to see development in terms of ‘genes for X’ or a nature/nurture balance.

  • Anne Fausto-Sterling

Trusting the Poor

Welfare policy breeds distrust, which in turn undermines outcomes. Judith A. Levine offers modest proposals for how we can reach the most disadvantaged among us.  

  • Judith A. Levine

When Kids Are Sex Offenders

  • Sally Mairs

The Good of the Child

Is there actually a right to know one’s biogenetic familial origins?

  • Charlotte Witt

Promoting Social Mobility

The accident of birth is a principal source of inequality in America today.

  • James J. Heckman
with responses from
  • Mike Rose
  • Robin West
  • Charles Murray
  • Carol S. Dweck
  • David Deming
  • Neal McCluskey
  • Annette Lareau
  • Lelac Almagor
  • Adam Swift & Harry Brighouse
  • Geoffrey Canada

Natural Woman

Elisabether Badinter blames “naturalism” for all-consuming motherhood, but she leaves the real culprits off the hook.

  • Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow
trending_flat
Get our newsletter

Vital reading on politics, ideas, and culture to your inbox

A political and literary forum, independent and nonprofit since 1975

Registered 501(c)(3) organization

Help Us Stay Paywall-Free

Donate

Become a Member

Subscribe