Welcome! You probably want to know what’s on offer here, but I realize we’re all short on time, so I’m giving you a choice (of good and bad-hair day photos):
My Bio, the short version:
Early childhood educator/public health advocate/ Harvard College administrator/journalist. Unmarketable bachelor’s degree (Harvard, anthropology). Semi-marketable graduate degrees (Johns Hopkins, University of Pennsylvania…). Rewarding career at the intersection of family, society, and schools (including frequent pop-culture diversions and long stint in parenting vortex). Forging a new path to connect all of the above.
My Bio, the long version:
I’ve spent many years — as a teacher, parent, preschool director, college administrator, and advocate for progressive schools – trying to understand the impact of cultural and political forces on young people. Wait, you’re not riveted? Could I interest you in my treatise on… fair trade pornography?
This is not a blog primarily about children, but I’m generally interested in the things that shape young lives. Things like politics, school boards, scientific findings , media, parents, religious institutions, and so on. You can find all of my work on children/young adults here at Growing Up. I write for TIME.com as a solo columnist and also have shared an occasional joint byline with my husband. I’ve published a few opinion pieces for CNN.com, the Financial Times, Boston Globe, Cognoscenti, and elsewhere, and you can read my sometime blog posts at the Huffington Post here. Here’s my take on child development, the importance of empathy, the politics of breast cancer, sex trafficking, why summer camp is a good thing, the death penalty, birth control, college binge drinking, my inexplicable Kristen Stewart crush, school shootings, and other topics here and here and here and here.
I’ve collected various credentials over the years, all somehow related to the wellbeing of small children, but in recent years I’ve moved a few notches up on the human development scale where I’m currently supporting the emotional and moral life of Harvard undergraduates. I live right on campus, and my job was once described as being mayor of a small town without a police force and comprised entirely of people lacking fully developed frontal lobes.
I try to cast a wide net with my thinking, but I always come back to certain themes: How do we balance collective and individual responsibilities? How do we live in a plural society without resorting to fist fights? How many more Sephora purchases can I make before my husband notices?
Spending an adult life with young people, as I’ve done, offers a weird mix of sublime and mundane. It’s impossible not to be moved by the freshness and honesty of their dreams. It’s equally impossible not to be overwhelmed by the workaday headaches of shepherding kids into some semblance of adulthood…
I could veer off on a tedious inner monologue right about now. But a little voice has been whispering in my ear for a few minutes, grabbing me at the legs and whining like a house cat: All the cutesy personal stuff you want to share? The coy musings about your peri-menopausal journey and how great it feels to have built a more mature relationship with your college sophomore son and how you spent last year’s Valentine’s day ordering Thai food for your ingrate kids? No one cares!
Thank you, inner voice. That’s very sound advice. But I do have some original(-ish) thoughts about contemporary life that I’d like to share. And I may sound like an Oscar reject but I’ve just always really wanted to write.
It always helps to imagine an audience, so please accept my sincerest thanks for stopping by.
Yours truly,
Erika
Comments policy:
My policy is to post a cross-section of comments, including negative feedback and plenty of ‘hater’ stuff. However, I sometimes limit comments that are very threatening or use misogynist, racist etc. language. (I’m okay with swearing.) You should not expect that every comment will be posted, or that I will include multiple ’rounds’ with an individual person. If this doesn’t satisfy you, much of my work can also be commented on at the sites where it was first published, such as TIME.com.
I like to listen to a range of voices and I appreciate feedback. However, this is my personal site that I curate in my own way, not a forum for open-ended online dialogue.
Thank you very much for visiting my blog.
Love the new blog, Erika! I look forward to reading your posts!
You write so well, I am envious! Hard-hitting, funny and from the heart. Love it.
I came across your blog fortuitously as I was taking a break from studying (read: procrastinating) and checking out articles on various news sites. I also have a rather unmarketable bachelor’s (psychology and Spanish) and am currently pursuing a hopefully-marketable graduate degree (MPH in Behavioral Sciences and Health Education at Emory). It’s wonderful to read articles written by someone who has the same degree that I’ll be getting and writes with a fresh voice about topics that really interest me (e.g. women, adolescents, sexuality, education). My intended break was just supposed to be 15-20 minutes, but because of your blog it has lasted about an hour, so thank you for diverting me from my fascinating studies of epidemiology. I normally never comment on blogs but can’t resist commenting here, just to let you know that you have a new fan in Atlanta (who still reps the Midwest) who is looking forward to reading more of your work.
Hi, Thanks for the feedback! I really appreciate it and am glad to hear from a fellow MPH-er. I’ve found it a very useful degree – mainly as training to think critically about things. Best of luck to you with those epi studies!
Lots of great content here. Can’t wait to read more of your stuff.
I have really enjoy reading your blog Erika. Keep writing, because Ill keep reading!
*enjoyed
Thanks so much, Holly!! One of these days I’m going to join the world and get on facebook.
I love this blog, it’s in my bookmarks! You have such great insights and your delivery is often laugh out loud hilarious. Can you write something about your own parenting strategies, skills, and struggles? I read your dolphin mother article, but I want to read more!
I was glad to see that I wasn’t the only one wondering why Ms. Klein was a bus monitor if she couldn’t control the students. According to her, the taunting had been going on for around six months. I also questioned the fact that the bus driver didn’t take any action. And, finally, I have to question the total lack of respect for an adult. It is bad enough for one child to bully another but, as my sister and I discussed, we had to learn how to deal with it when we were bullied (back in the 50′s) but that a 13 year old would even have the audacity to speak to an adult like that! That shows a serious lack of discipline in their upbringing. During my childhood, I NEVER heard a child talk back to an adult let alone ridicule one! What is happening to our society?
Thank you for having the balls to discuss the overwhelming maleness of violence. As the sister of four brothers and a violent father I know first hand the impact of being removed from that environment by our mother. The boys were old enough to understand domestic violence but young enough to learn never to react like their father. My mother, sister and I were instrumental in that effort. It is essential that our young men learn to channel their natural tendencies for good and not evil. There is no doubt in my mind that had my father remained in our house some of my brothers would have followed his lead. Thank God for women.
It was so nice to read your clear headed article on men and mass murder.Most are hardly random, i am a firm believer in for everything a cause.Depression,bullying are but a few of these causes.
I have had the unpleasant experiance of dealing with the medical profession thru these areas and i can say without hesitation 90% of have no clue in how to deal with depression.In their defence though it is one of been there done that requirements they simply have not had.These problems will continue until people like yourself,myself and others bring them to the forefront.
Thank you for your article
Joseph Beaudin
I know you don’t care abou IQ.
The problem, which you fail to grasp, is that you don’t care about presenting an accurate story to your readers. You don’t care about being respsonsible to the Fourth Estate and you feel no obligation to fact check a story.
I see this often.
Yes, he recorded a 61, but had 5-6 other tests showing him above 70. Did you look? Did you care? No. And you have no remorse in saying that you don’t care.
My opinion is that it is important to care about truth and the facts.
Just because you want the death penalty gone should not be your justification for being irresponsible.
But, it seems you believe otherwise.
The point of my opinion piece was that I believe a person’s IQ is irrelevant to the death penalty debate. I stated clearly that any attempts to justify executions on grounds such as intelligence, family background, race, inadequacy of legal counsel etc. are a sham. The system is bankrupt, both financially and legally, not to mention morally.
However, on the narrow issue that seems to engage your interest so powerfully, it’s true I did not list the “5-6 other tests” that apparently showed a range of IQ numbers between 61 and 73. In what way were my “facts” wrong? He had a measured IQ of 61. The fact that it was measured 12 points higher is an almost laughable piece of evidence to present. You’re not seriously suggesting he is somehow a normally cognitive functioning person, are you? Even the state of Texas does not deny that the condemned man is ‘retarded’ – only whether he is retarded “enough.” Leaving aside all the other arguments for or against the death penalty, it seems like an awfully harsh system that can cherry pick which IQ results it uses to justify a person’s murder. I, for one, wouldn’t have such confidence in the validity or reliability of most testing to put a life in the balance.
On the issue of wealth you mention, below: There is a large body of research on the way that poverty disadvantages criminal defendants, not least because they often have such grossly incompetent legal counsel whereas wealthy people can buy their way out of a death sentence. As Allen Dershowitz infamously noted many years ago, you’re much more likely to end up on death row — controlling for variation in crime rates among different kinds of people — if you are “dumb, poor, and black.” How, exactly, do your ‘fact finders’ account for that? Surely you understand that we have a strong but nonetheless imperfect system, enacted by imperfect human beings, and its results do not always produce “justice.” You might want to read this shocking story of an innocent man who was executed due to a mistaken identity case that could have been solved by Nancy Drew:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/yes-america-we-have-executed-an-innocent-man/257106/.
One day, these arguments will become moot. Society will no longer want to commit resources to executions that could be better spent on building schools. Life in prison without parole works.
so much positivity here. congrats for creating this beautiful place. cheers!
Wow, thanks very much!! I so appreciate your feedback. (I’m afraid there’s some snark here, too, if you nose around…)
Nice. The longer version especially. Best ~kl
Erica, you are right, the system need overhauling. I know this because there are a lot of people who suffer from mental disabilities, who should not be imprisoned some are not able to function, or have the ability to know what is right and wrong. We need a better mental health system and the courts need to change their present routine of just punish and more punishment. That thing needs to be changed. You are right the system is corrupt and needs to be changed, so everyone is judged justly. Then, maybe, I will believe in our legal system.To convict someone on circumstantial evidence is ridiculous and not fair. Where happened to reasonable doubt., or the evidence to back it up. Look how many have wrongly accused, then released after DNA proved them innocent. Prosecutors are to quickly to judge without enough evidence.
OK, I’m hooked! Now to go back and read more of your posts. Congratulations on being Freshly Pressed!
I was so surprised and thrilled to find your article on the maleness of violence, as NO ONE speaks about it. It’s not ‘our society’, or ‘young people’, or ‘we’ who commit violent acts..it’s males. How do we get this to be a topic of conversation ‘out there in the world’, so that we
can find ways to intervene with young males?
Thanks for commenting. I was disheartened by the response from many, implying that acknowledging the “maleness” of violence is in some way an attack on men or masculinity. On the contrary, it was always my concern about men (who are, after all, the majority of victims of violence) that drove my interest in the epidemiology of violence. We ignore this at our peril.