Articles: Fatal Distraction, Why Johnny Can't Ride, Sub-Zero Napping

Some articles I've read lately, on the topic of child-rearing. Some of them are longform, but I encourage you to make time to read them. I really enjoy in-depth articles like the ones published in The New Yorker and Wired. Use a service like Pocket or Instapaper to save them for later!

Fatal Distraction (Washington Post, 2009)

A tragic and heart-wrenching examination of the phenomenon of babies who are forgotten in cars, often with fatal results. Who does this happen to? Quoting from the article, The wealthy do, it turns out. And the poor, and the middle class. Parents of all ages and ethnicities do it. Mothers are just as likely to do it as fathers. It happens to the chronically absent-minded and to the fanatically organized, to the college-educated and to the marginally literate.

Why Johnny Can't Ride (Bicycling, 2012)

A story from New York of a family's fight to let their kids bike to school. The decline in walking or biking to school has been noted before, but this article shows the absurdity of the situation. Even though I never walked or biked to elementary school (I lived a five-minute bus ride away), I am an full support of those who choose to do so. We live on a metro line, so wherever Gabe ends up going to school, I imagine Flick and I will have prepared him to walk, bike or take transit to get there on his own.

The babies who nap in sub-zero temperatures (BBC News Magazine, 2013)

Napping babies outside in sub-freezing temperatures (suitably bundled, of course) is a common thing for Nordic parents, according to this article. Reading this, I was reminded of the movie Babies, which tells us that there are a lot of different ways of raising kids.