I’m holding out this week for the posting of details on the under-5 vaccine trial, which should be up tomorrow. I will write frantically and get the post out fast. So stay tuned for that!
But I hate to miss the schedule, so I’m taking today’s slot to reintroduce ParentData to those of you who may be new here (I just hit 100,000 subscribers, so I know a lot of you are newbies!) and map out a little bit of what might be coming next.
What is ParentData?
ParentData publishes twice a week (Monday and Thursday) and occasionally off-cycle if there is something that seems especially salient. It’s written by me. I’m a professor of economics at Brown University and the author of books on pregnancy and parenting (Expecting Better, Cribsheet, The Family Firm).
I started this newsletter in February 2020, when I had … different designs on the content. Specifically, I thought it would be about pregnancy and parenting. It rapidly changed to be largely about COVID, or at least parenting during COVID (the second post ever is entitled “Special Edition: Coronavirus,” which, well, let’s say that turned out to be more the regular edition).
I’ve spent most of the writing here trying to help people work through the COVID decisions that we all unexpectedly found ourselves having to make. The most-read post of this newsletter is still “Grandparents and Day Care,” from May 2020.
Over the past two years, the newsletter has expanded and formalized, but ultimately the goal remains to try to provide data to help parents make decisions — both within and without COVID.
Where is ParentData going next?
Good question. I made a graph below of the share of COVID versus non-COVID content over time.
In the first months of 2020, most of the writing here was about COVID. Over time, I’ve moved to something closer to 50-50. This isn’t especially conscious; my goal is to meet what readers are asking for and, in particular, to make sure I’m addressing the things that are on parents’ minds. Sometimes that’s more COVID; sometimes it’s toxic baby metals or the SNOO. Over the next months, I’m hoping we’ll cover more parenting and less COVID, but I think I’ll just have to see.
Is this newsletter free?
The two weekly posts of ParentData are free. However, you can be a paid subscriber, and I’m very grateful to those who have chosen to contribute. The paid subscriptions allow me to make this a bigger part of my time, keep the main posts free, and finance a small team to edit, organize, proofread, improve the graphics, and so on.
Paid subscribers to the newsletter also get a bit of extra content: monthly Roundup posts and an extra Q&A feature with me. If this sounds good, please consider a paid subscription. (And if you want access but a subscription is out of the budget, email us and we’ll work it out.)
In conclusion
Thanks for reading ParentData! I’m really grateful for what this community has provided to me over the past two years.
Now back to eagerly watching for child vaccine trial data…
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