I spent a good chunk of the summer reporting these stories — and then I wrote a newsletter about the process of doing such a big reporting project. When I first started talking with @scribd about this project, I knew we were at pandemic parenting content saturation — like, no one wanted to read another (really well done) analysis of how hard it's been & why. I felt like an oral history — with a lot of detailed stories from all sorts of situations — could be immersive and compelling in a different way. And people really, really, REALLY wanted to talk. I had 1000+ people volunteer to spend an hour+ of their time to tell me their stories; when people are that eager to talk, you know 1) they feel like they haven't been heard or 2) they feel like no one has even thought to ask (also 3) they are still very much processing). I talk about this more in the accompany piece on my newsletter, but I reported this very differently than I report most stories — all the Zoom interviews were camera off; I tried to say very little. People told me things they said they'd never told anyone about that time. Punched walls, grandparents who totally broke parents' trust, marriages dissolving — but lots of small joys, too. I also ended each very heavy interview by asking each person to tell me what was delighting them most at that moment in time about each of their kids — which is a great way to talk to anyone about their kids, just generally. My special thanks to every caregiver who spent the time to sign-up, answer questions, and be patient with the timeline for this story. I appreciate all of you. You’re all doing fucking great. 🚨🚨FOR A LINK TO 60 DAYS OF FREE SCRIBD, JUST LOOK IN BIO OR STORIES🚨🚨