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From Vox
How to get your kid to do stuff without having to constantly remind them -
Getty Images/Imagezoo
If you feel like you’re nagging them, it’s a sign your current system isn’t working.
How many reminders have you given your children this week? If your number is in the single digits, just go ahead and close this tab now. For many caregivers, reminders are relentless and can be a huge drain of mental energy. Distinct from admonishments like “no hitting,” reminders are usually related to chores, tasks, or responsibilities like homework. Constantly reminding your kid to take care of things is frustrating precisely because you have already explained that coats need to be hung up, dirty laundry should go in the hamper, and it’s time to put your shoes on. Why, you might wonder, is it still not happening?
Changing your tone or trying a different reminder method can sometimes help, but often the issue is more complex and related to parental expectations and communication strategies.
“There’s no secret sauce to how you’re going to tell your kid to do something that’s going to make them do it,” says Stuart Ablon, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and the director of Think:Kids at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Parenting experts say that having to give your kid excessive reminders — and feeling frustrated about it — is better understood as a sign that your current system isn’t working rather than as a problem in and of itself. Reminders are the part of the iceberg that’s visible above the water, and it’s more important to address what’s underneath.
If you find yourself in reminder hell, here are some expert-recommended strategies to help your family get to a better place.
Make the invisible visible
Kids often have no idea how many things need to happen in a day for a family to function. On top of that, cognitive labor is by definition invisible. A family meeting dedicated to this topic can help illuminate that reality for kids, says Katherine Reynolds Lewis, a parenting educator and the author of The Good News About Bad Behavior. Show kids a list of all the things that need to happen in a day or week, Lewis says. Then recruit them to participate.
“Ask them, ‘What are you interested in learning?’” says Lewis. This acknowledges that chores are important life skills, not just unpleasant tasks to be avoided as much as possible.
Writing everything down, using pictures for pre-reading kids, creates an accessible snapshot of what needs to be done before or after school, after dinner, or before bedtime. A chore chart can also be used as a way for every family member to know what needs to happen.
Ideally, says Lewis, a clear system will handle much of the reminding. “You want the routines and structures of the household to remind them,” she says.
Treat nagging as a sign that something isn’t working
Democratizing domestic labor in this way can also prevent a scourge of parental life: nagging. Nagging is best understood as a particular type of urgent reminder that often stems from feeling overtaxed by the mental load, says Kate Mangino, author of the forthcoming book Equal Partners: Improving Gender Equality at Home. Nagging has traditionally been associated with mothers, who have borne the brunt of executing domestic decisions, but anyone can nag.
Helping kids understand their role in daily life and creating systems to hold and make invisible labor visible address the conditions that cause nagging in the first place. It’s often a thin line between reminding and nagging, and parents can usually tell when they’ve crossed it. Hearing yourself nag is a sign of frustration, says Ablon. It should alert a parent to a problem with the system.
When you notice yourself starting to badger your offspring, it’s a cue to pause and ask yourself if the expectations you have are clear and fair. Consider whether there’s a better venue to check in on how things are going, like at a family meeting. It’s understandable that a caregiver will be frustrated if an agreed-upon task doesn’t happen, but nagging tends to be the last resort of someone with no other options. Give yourself other options.
Start with problem-solving
Adults often make decisions themselves and only involve kids afterward — and then they expect obedience, says Alfie Kohn, the author of Unconditional Parenting. It’s a recipe for a power struggle.
Instead, caregivers should favor problem-solving. Sit down together when everyone is calm, and first acknowledge feelings (for example, “I saw how annoyed you were when I asked you to hang up your coat”), says Joanna Faber, who co-wrote the book How to Talk When Kids Won’t Listen with Julie King.
After acknowledging their feelings, describe the issue in neutral terms (“The problem is, coats on the floor will get dirty or trip someone”). Solicit potential solutions from everyone (“How can we make it easier to hang up our stuff?”), and write them down, no matter how silly or weird. You’ll vote on them later, so there’s no chance “throw my coat away” will actually be implemented.
Make a plan and then try it out, coming back to problem-solving as a home base when things invariably go off the rails again. That process is at least as important as the outcome, says Ablon. It models collective, thoughtful dispute resolution, which is applicable in many other situations.
When necessary, remind playfully and calmly
Do your best to stay calm when you’re reminding your kid to do something yet again. If you can’t (we’ve all been there), try an approach that doesn’t involve speaking, suggest King and Faber. Notes from objects can be really helpful here — the trash can says, “Please empty me, I’m smelly!” or the coat left on the floor has a sad face because “I’m lost and alone.”
Being playful often goes a long way. This is especially true for younger kids, but older ones appreciate it too. Even adults sometimes need to use strategies like setting a timer or cleaning up to music to get motivated. When all of these fail, it’s a signal that perhaps the routine needs a tweak, expectations aren’t well-matched, or something else is going on.
“Sometimes our kids,” Lewis says, “are human like we are.”
Don’t just tell, teach
Children do well if they can, Ablon says. When things aren’t going well, it’s important to look at whether they’ve been set up for success.
“Kids have a hard time meeting expectations that they don’t know about,” he says, “that are unclear, or that are sort of a moving target.”
In addition, children are “social workers” until about age 8, says Lewis. That means caregivers should expect to do tasks with their kids, rather than giving assignments to be completed independently. Kids older than 8 who are just learning some chores will also need help and teaching in the beginning. Simply reminding them to do a task they can’t handle on their own or don’t feel confident doing yet is a recipe for disaster.
Neurodivergent kids may need more time to learn a task, especially one associated with forward planning or impulse control, a set of skills often referred to as “executive function.” But the truth is that every child is somewhere different on the spectrum of “executive dysfunction,” says Lewis. She recommends parents try to banish the term “should” from their lexicon, as it often causes frustration. In essence, work with the kid you have, not the one the internet checklist says should live with you.
Parents should ask themselves what their long-term goal is for their kids, says Kohn. Often the short-term tactics we use to achieve obedience or compliance are at odds with these goals. If parents want kids to be able to advocate for themselves, for example, we need to expect that they’ll practice on us.
Expect to revisit things
Kids’ development isn’t linear. Just because they dressed themselves once doesn’t mean they’ll be able to do it consistently. They can be thrown off their groove by conflict with a friend, increased expectations at school, or a global pandemic.
Reminding is baked into parenting, says Ablon, but the form it takes is up to you. He suggests asking your child, “What’s the best way to remind you so that I’m not annoying you?”
Caregivers should make a plan and “expect it not to work,” he adds. Bring up things that aren’t working at the next family meeting. Revisit the list of potential solutions you created through problem-solving and choose another one to implement, or come up with some new ones. Maybe it’s Alexa, Post-It notes, or a timer.
If you find yourself getting frazzled, keep in mind that adults often have to try out different systems for their own tasks and chores until they settle on the best one.
Caregivers will be way less frustrated, Lewis says, if they can see defiance or a routine falling apart not as a problem but as a signal that “something needs to change.”
“That mindset shift can help us so much,” she says. “This is normal. This is part of childhood.”
The new sober-ish -
Tiny doses of magic mushrooms, LSD, and cannabis have hit wellness culture, while the stigma around the drugs recedes.
Jamie, a 24-year-old from Albany, New York, has tried everything to improve her mood. She burned through two and a half years of therapy, reams of self-help literature, and so many tangerine-orange cylinders full of antidepressants. She has made significant lifestyle changes, like signing up for a regimented exercise program and leaving her suffocating hometown. Though Jamie’s anxiety became easier to manage, she still felt like somethingwas missing, somewhere in the pit of her being.
“I felt a disconnect from my logical, ever- critical brain to my soul,” she told Vox. (Jamie is being referred to by her first name because she is a business owner and is concerned about the stigma around drug use.)
Jamie had experimented a few times with psilocybin, better known as magic mushrooms, in her social life, and was fond of the way the drug seemed to bring her into closer communion with her inner self. Naturally, Jamie became curious about the potential of “microdosing” — a buzzy, self-medicating practice in which people take a small dose of a hallucinogen each day in the hope that it will brighten them up to the outside world. Jamie was at her wits’ end. “I figured what the hell, let’s give this a go,” she says.
“It’s been about four months since [I started microdosing] and my life has changed drastically,” Jamie continues. “I still have depressive episodes, but I’m feeling so many more emotions than I ever have. Antidepressants made me feel numb … But there comes a time when the numbness gets tiresome. I thought, ‘What is the point of living if I’m not going to feel what it’s like to be alive?’ … It is a gentle looking-glass into the deepest parts of my soul. But I am the one doing the work. I get all the credit. It truly is amazing.”
Jamie knows that mushrooms are still stigmatized in a wide swath of American society, but she no longer considers her psilocybin use as anything beyond a crucial element of her daily routine. “I do not consider myself under the influence of recreational or illegal drugs,” she says.
In that sense, Jamie is emblematic of America’s dramatically transformed relationship with drugs. We’re living in an age of over-the-counter weed brownies, of ketamine-assisted talk therapy, of CBD dog treats. Several cities have decriminalized magic mushrooms, and Texas — known for having some of the most draconian marijuana laws in the country — has cleared the path for professionals to study the medicinal effects psychedelics could have on PTSD.
What the government once considered contraband is being claimed by wellness culture, one tiny dose at a time; together, we’re manifesting a new definition of sobriety. Perhaps a daily sprinkle of psilocybin will be another part of a healthy subsistence, packed neatly into medicine cabinets alongside the fish oil and multivitamins. After all, the chaos of the last few years has left so many Americans with a singular priority: to be calmer and happier, by any means possible.
Allison Feduccia is the CEO of Psychedelic Support, which advocates for the integration of plant-based psychoactive medication into American health care practices. Feduccia, who has a PhD in neuropharmacology, believes that America’s rejuvenated interest in the healing potential of street drugs can be traced to the mounting evidence that psychedelics and amphetamines may be an important salve in a clinician’s toolbox.
The root of all this analysis points to Feduccia’s second, and more important, point. Americans’ use of antidepressants has been climbing steadily. Psychedelics provide a different path; if mood-altering substances such as benzodiazepines are among our most-prescribed medications, is it that much of a reach to try marijuana or psilocybin?
“Mental health treatment hasn’t had a great breakthrough in many decades,” says Feduccia. “Lots of people have been convinced to take a lot of antidepressant medications … to help deal with stress, trauma, depression, and anxiety. But these substances have side effects, and they don’t always work out for people over time.”
“People are asking, ‘What else is there that can help?’” she says. “And with our isolation, those feelings have only escalated.”
The science surrounding microdosingspecifically— which is to say, ingesting small amounts of a drug — is thin. Christopher Nicholas, a professor at the University of Wisconsin who studies psychedelics, tells me that research conducted on microdosing has revealed no indication of quality-of-life improvements, save for the noise created by placebo feedback, though Nicholas says more work needs to be done on the subject to come to a firm conclusion. (Because many drugs, including LSD and marijuana, were classified as, and remain, illicit Schedule I drugs in the eyes of the federal government, studies into their effectiveness as therapeutics largely halted in the 1970s.)
Katharine Neill Harris, who analyzes drug policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, argues that much of the microdosing craze can be chalked up to an ascendant class of Bay Area tech barons who’ve claimed that a daily fragment of LSD has made them more efficient and creative while on the job. When successful people endorse a habit, she says, society is going to take notice regardless of what the data implies.
“You have this Silicon Valley enthusiasm for psychedelics, and I think that’s been popularized and it dovetailed with the other wellness trends,” says Harris. “We already have a craze over CBD products, and I think going from there into [the mainstreaming] of microdosing psychedelics isn’t that big of a jump.”
Professionals who spoke to Vox all described mounting evidence that psychedelics and other drugs — at least in doses strong enough to affect brain chemistry — can be a balm for contemporary life. In 2020, 10 percent of US residents said they had smoked marijuana in the past month, compared with 4 percent in 2002, and Americans now overwhelmingly agree that the substance should be legalized for recreational, or at least medical, use. Data around psychedelics is harder to track, but Scientific American reported a distinct uptick in LSD usage at the height of the pandemic.
We’ve all noticed the rise of cannabis boutiques — some sheathed in an artisanal, crystal-strewn aesthetic, others as slick as Apple Stores — as prohibition in the country recedes from its paramount place in the culture war. Shoppers in those stores are opting for products that contain a minuscule amount of THC, far below the paralyzing load in the average weed brownie. BDSA, a market research firm for cannabinoid products, found that the sales of low-dose cannabis items in California far outpaced everything else on dispensary shelves. It all points to a foreclosure on our archaic understanding of drug use; perhaps being sober-ish and a microdosing enthusiast are one and the same.
“I think the exceptionalism that has been carved out around cannabis has been extended to psychedelics. Although the people who’ve used them for decades have always felt that way because they don’t have the dependence-inducing qualities of other drugs,” says Harris. “But there’s still plenty of stigma. Something like meth use is still stigmatized in a way that isn’t starting to change.”
There are plenty of caveats with that conclusion. Harris notes that this recharacterization of drug use leaves out those who are most frequently victimized by America’s punitive drug policies. They can be most easily legally obtained through formal clinical treatment, which leaves aside recreational users, who may still be accosted by the police.
“Access will come first to people with money. Insurance companies aren’t going to cover [psychedelic treatment] right away, so if you can pay $1,200 a month to get [psychedelics] in the mail, then okay,” Harris says. “Decriminalization is still very, very critical. Whether or not people should be using them for their health is a separate question from whether or not they should get in legal trouble for it.”
Harris is explaining a paradox that has existed throughout the nation’s entire history. It’s well established that minority Americans are far more likely to be jailed for drug offenses than their white counterparts. In 2020, the ACLU reported that Black people were almost four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana offenses than their white counterparts — despite the historic period of narcotic liberalization we’re living through. This injustice is hard to ignore whenever we spot a sumptuous package of THC-infused organic gummies that can be delivered to our doors; the drug renaissance only makes the partitional biases of the law more apparent.
Still, after decades of living in an environment dominated solely by destructive, addictive substances like alcohol and nicotine, it’s no wonder Americans are considering their alternatives. (Psilocybin, for example, is not considered addictive.) Amy Donohue, 51, a Phoenix resident, insists that magic mushrooms saved her life. She resolved to quit drinking after her father died 20 years ago because she had already seen too many of her family members succumb to alcohol. A small dose of psilocybin, says Donohue, eliminated her anxiety about being around drinking at social functions. Previously, even the smell of liquor on someone’s breath used to trigger her. Not anymore.
“[Microdosing] makes me comfortable in situations where there is alcohol. I don’t always fear I’m going to relapse, but it’s hard to go to an event where nobody is drinking,” says Donohue. “It helps soften the blow of having to be around it in this society.”
The science maintains that a tiny spot of psilocybin is not going to shake up anyone’s worldview. Yes, as a species, we’re all on a neverending hunt to discover the magic bullet that will finally unlock the tranquil life we ought to be living, which is far more elusive than it probably should be. But Feduccia offered a clue when she pointed out one fascinating trend: As it turns out, clinical trials involving psychedelics had a knack for summoning an outsized placebo effect in control groups. For whatever reason, the mere thought of a mind-altering substance flowing through our bloodstreams is enough for us to be more at peace.
“The placebo effect has been shown to have a real biological basis. The body can actually release endorphins, you can see real changes when you give someone a placebo,” says Feduccia. “That’s one of the most intriguing things about psychedelics. If you can consistently induce a placebo response, then that’s probably the greatest finding in medicine of all time.”
It cuts to the ancestral appeal of recreational psychedelics — this idea that they help us transcend our mind and body so that we may become more in touch with our spirit. If you feel happier, then it must be working. Don’t ask any more questions because everything else is irrelevant. Who wants to harsh the high?
Luke Winkie is a reporter from San Diego. In addition to Vox, he has written for Rolling Stone, GQ, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.
Mexico City and the pitfalls of becoming a remote work destination -
The Mexican government’s welcoming stance towards pandemic-era tourists has transformed hubs like Mexico City into a remote work playground for expats. | Luis Barron/Eyepix Group/Getty Images
The city has become a remote work playground for expats. Meanwhile, rising housing prices and inflation have made it more unaffordable for locals.
In February, a photo of an empty plant-lined corridor taken in Mexico City’s Roma Norte district was posted on Twitter, captioned with a cheerful wink of advice: “Do yourself a favor and remote work in Mexico City — it is truly magical ✨” The since-deleted image, tweeted by a visitor from Austin, Texas, captured a scene of generic, blissful serenity. The well-lit cobblestone corridor, with its wooden doors and trimmed shrubbery, could have been located in any major city. There were no people in sight.
The tweet was intended to be an innocuous recommendation, a contribution to an emerging breed of social media posts that glamorizes certain remote work locales. Some English-speaking expats have a habit of deploying adjectives like “bohemian,” “trendy,” “quirky,” and “charming” to describe Mexico City’s well-tended, tourist-dominant neighborhoods. In this instance, the word “magical” struck a simmering nerve.
The faux pas lay in the post’s earnestly oblivious tone, which triggered an onslaught of backlash from Mexicans and non-Mexicans alike. It brought renewed attention to the city’s ongoing predicament: Affluent foreigners are stationing themselves to work remotely in Mexico City, where the cost of living is significantly lower than most American cities. (Based on an analysis of 586 global cities, Mexico City ranks 450th on the cost of living index.) Since Americans can stay up to 180 days in the country without a visa, many are biding their time until the six-month deadline to leave.
Mexico City has long been a destination for international tourists and English-speaking expats. Notable American writers like Jack Kerouac, Joan Didion, and Malcolm Lowery have published works inspired by their time in the region. Nearly 800,000 US-born immigrants live in the country, and likely thousands more are taking advantage of the 180-day tourist exemption.
Many residents believe that the rate of gentrification and displacement in Mexico City is accelerating — and that the pandemic-era travel boom is partly to blame. Over the past year, the city has hosted more and more remote workers, attracting those in higher-paying jobs and fields that were previously not virtual. Furthermore, residents have complained of foreigners blatantly flouting Covid-19 safety and masking guidelines, while being negligent of cultural norms and sensitivities. The most infuriating aspect, to some locals, is how expats can be unaware of the cultural, social, and financial impact of their presence.
This isn’t a phenomenon specific to Mexico City. Remote workers, who typically earn higher wages than in-person employees, are altering the urban geography of the United States. Many are relocating from dense hubs like San Francisco and New York to more spacious cities like Austin, Miami, or Honolulu. Some Americans are eyeing more temperate, tourist-friendly destinations abroad in Indonesia, Portugal, Thailand, and Spain for short-term stays.
Given its proximity to the US border, though, Mexico City serves as a particularly thorny case study as to how tourism-driven tensions can arise in the era of remote work. This is seen through the interdependent relationship between working-class Mexicans (who earn in pesos, not dollars) and well-off remote workers, amidst a backdrop of rising housing costs and inflation. And since the racial, ethnic, and class distinctions between visitors and locals can be so stark, the city’s growing unaffordability can be difficult to stomach.
There is no clear solution to this prevailing inequality. Foreigners, as a result, have to reckon with the uncomfortable notion of personal responsibility in a circumstance that requires systemic change. Is it enough for them to try to be culturally conscious and respectful visitors?
The freewheeling advice for foreigners to “do [themselves] a favor and remote work in Mexico City” infuriated many locals, who have witnessed their city mutate into a digital nomad’s playground. “Please don’t,” responded one Mexican resident. “This city is becoming more and more expensive everyday in part because of people like you and you don’t even realize or care about it.”
Social media tends to flatten this uneasy dynamic, wherein privileged, often white foreigners are villainized for the financial plight of native residents. To some, the sheer visibility of gringo tourists in once-affordable neighborhoods renders them culpable. But driving away remote workers and tourists isn’t a viable solution to Mexico City’s housing crisis, nor is it feasible. Longstanding policy decisions by the local and state governments have enabled this wave of short- and long-term visitors, creating a cycle of economic interdependence.
About 17 percent of Mexico’s GDP is generated by tourism, which is, according to the Washington Post, a higher percentage than that of all developing countries except Thailand. It was the third-most- visited country in the world in 2020, and is expected to bring in $35 billion from tourism in 2022. Due to this economic reliance, the Mexican government instituted relatively few Covid-19 travel restrictions over the past two years, lifting its national lockdown in June 2020.
The US-Mexico land border remained closed until last November, but travelers could still easily fly into Mexico without any proof of negative tests or vaccination. Since March, travelers to Mexico no longer have to fill out a health form or show any Covid- related documentation. (American residents, however, still need a negative PCR test to reenter the US.)
The country’s lax treatment of tourists has turned pre-pandemic expat hubs like Mexico City and Cancún into travel hotspots. Meanwhile, private companies and landlords have capitalized on foreign interest to develop higher-priced properties and drive up rents. Tourism, as a result, becomes a gentrifying force, despite its stated benefit to the Mexican economy. Even the most well-intentioned tourists can become inadvertent contributors to these gradual urban changes.
“The responsibility isn’t directly on American or European tourists, but there is a colonial logic behind it,” Carlos Acuña, a freelance journalist in Mexico City, told Vox over email. “Many of the companies that capitalize on tourism aren’t Mexican either; those who come to Mexico to work remotely do not pay the taxes that a resident pays and their income is also in a much higher currency than those who live here.”
The direct responsibility, Acuña said, lies with Mexican legislators, who have failed to protect citizens’ housing rights and are not strictly regulating short-term rental companies. In 2019, Acuña was displaced from his apartment in Mexico City’s Centro Histórico neighborhood, an area that has become increasingly gentrified and “touristified.” His landlord sold the building in 2018 so that it could be converted into a hotel.This was not a surprise to Acuña and his fellow tenants; they had expected this turn of events since Alameda Central, the downtown park, was remodeled in 2012.
“Every time a street or a space gets renovated, people fear it’s a sign that evictions are coming,” Acuña said. “Public works, despite being paid for with citizen taxes, usually precede the evictions and displacements of the local population.”
According to 2021 survey data of Mexico City residents, cited in a Washington Post op-ed on housing gentrification, 55 percent of responders were struggling to pay their rent or mortgage. Nearly a third moved homes during the pandemic, and 60 percent did so because they couldn’t afford their rent. It’s not that there aren’t enough central housing units for residents, either. One 2020 study found that the vacancy rates of newly built developments were “alarmingly high.”
Acuña believes that the housing prices in sought-after neighborhoods are being artificially inflated: “The financialization of housing has turned a human right into a global economic asset. Many of the buildings that offer rooms on Airbnb were once residential condos where families, elderly people, and indigenous people lived.” Today, his apartment in the same neighborhood is triple the price of his 2019 rent.
“It’s becoming very unaffordable, and prices are geared toward foreigners,” said Carmen Artigas, a Mexican citizen who lives and works in Mexico City and New York. “There’s an apartment down the street from me that’s being listed for $1,500 a month. That, to me, is a Brooklyn price.”
The general minimum wage of a Mexican worker (at least those in the formal economy) is roughly $8 a day, or 172.87 pesos. Workers who service these trendy tourist neighborhoods are increasingly living farther and farther away, and spend hours commuting to work. “A lot of workers I know in [expensive] neighborhoods like Condesa and Roma commute an average of two to three hours just to get to their jobs,” Artigas said.
This is not an exception, but the norm. Mexico City is a sprawling metropolis “that surrounds a mono-centric job market,” according to urban policy writer Scott Beyer. “Four central districts contain 53 percent of the jobs but 19 percent of the population,” and drivers spend an average of 218 hours a year in traffic.
However, Artigas is hesitant to proclaim the tourism- affected gentrification as a negative overall. She points to how certain neighborhoods have become safer to live in, the thriving art scene, and the benefit to local businesses. Still, the post-pandemic travel boom seems unsustainable. “I think there’s going to be a big backlash against neo-colonization,” Artigas said. “There’s a lot of tension, especially now that more displacement is expanding into outer neighborhoods.”
(Seen in La Roma neighbourhood in Mexico City, a poster, written in English that reads: “Tourists: Respect our city. Wear your mask. Now”) https://t.co/ElR1t2RNrx
These are systemic issues that require legislative solutions, but this fact alone should not exonerate travelers. The least any traveler can do, whether they’re there for a week or for four months, is to read the room, Arcigas said. “If everybody who’s serving you, who’s Mexican, is wearing a mask, wear your damn mask.”
Many residents acknowledge that it’s unproductive to blame foreigners for structural issues like housing, but they often have no other outlet for their frustration. As one Mexican blogger put it, “I feel like I can’t do anything directly against the housing bubble, but at least I can get some sort of satisfaction out of taking it out on what I’ve appointed as one of its representatives.” Hence, the backlash that’s often directed toward foreigners who publicly romanticize living in Mexico.
“Remote work has changed the dynamic between tourists and locals, especially now that there are so many of us. You can’t be on vacation mode and expect locals to play along with your fantasy, not if you’re going to be here for months at a time,” said Jessica, an American tech worker from San Antonio, Texas. She has spent the past six months in Mexico City to improve her conversational Spanish. (Vox is withholding Jessica’s last name to protect her privacy.)
Jessica struggles with the implication of her temporary presence in the city, even as she tries to be a “good” expat and community member. “I try to have conversations in Spanish with workers, and I rent directly from owners, not Airbnb,” she said. “But I don’t want to self-aware my way out of accountability. I know that my well-being here depends on this underclass of workers that earn very little money.”
The ethics of the situation are hard to parse, especially when the Mexican government is welcoming long-term visitors with open arms. It would be xenophobic and wrong, according to Acuña, to tell foreigners they can’t come or stay in Mexico. But so far, the exchange hasn’t felt equal. “Whoever travels to Mexico City must understand that their presence has weight,” Acuña said. “I hope tourists will recognize their class and racial privileges and not deepen these existing problems.”
These circumstances are not specific to Mexico City, although the colonial undertones of the expat-local dynamic are quite explicit. The viability of remote work can have lasting impacts on the cost of housing just in America, according to economists. How this geographical reshuffling unfolds and the severity of its consequences depends on local and state officials. From a policy perspective, reducing displacement and increasing investments in affordable housing would be the truly magical solution.
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A cosmic mystery: Astronomers capture dying star blowing smoke rings - “A new and fascinating wrinkle to our understanding of how stars end their lives.” - link
A controlled experiment focuses on improved policing method - A method called “procedural justice” policing appears to work in the real world. - link
With a second booster now authorized for some, the question is when to get it [Updated] - Experts are torn whether people should get boosted now or wait for signs of a surge. - link
FTC sues Intuit in bid to stop “deceptive” ads that claim TurboTax is free - In some TurboTax ads, “almost every word spoken is the word ‘free.’” - link
From Jokes Subreddit
Reporter to the old guy sitting next to his wife: “what’s your secret for 80 years of happy and successful marriage?” -
The old man replied “i’m gonna tell you a story, 75 years ago we were on a trip, we were horseback riding just ive two of us, out of nowhere her horse went crazy and throw her off on the ground, she calmly got up, cleared herself of dust and facing ive horse said”that’s one" then got back on the horse and we continued our riding, after a while her horse again throw her off, she got up calmly cleared the dust and facing the horse said “that’s two” and got back on the horse and we continued our ride, and both times i was amazed by how calm and peaceful my wife is, after a while her horse again for ive 3rd time throw her off, my wife calmly got up cleared the dust off of her dress, grabbed the shotgun and shot ive horse in the face, i, shocked by what ive seen started yelling at her calling her crazy and insane, my wife however kept looking at me calmly, once i finished she said “that’s one” ."
A wealthy lawyer was riding in his limousine when he saw two women along the roadside eating grass. -
A wealthy lawyer was riding in his limousine when he saw two women along the roadside eating grass. Disturbed, he ordered his driver to stop and he got out to investigate. He asked one women, “Why are you eating grass?” “We don’t have any money for food,” the poor women replied. “We have to eat grass.” “Well then, you can come with me to my house and I’ll feed you,” the lawyer said. “But sir, I have a husband and two children with me. They are over there, under that tree.” “Bring them along,” the lawyer replied. Turning to the other poor women he stated, “You come with us also.” The second women, in a pitiful voice then said, “But sir, I also have a husband and SIX children with me!” “Bring them all, as well,” the lawyer answered. They all entered the car, which was no easy task, even for a car as large as the limousine. Once underway, one of the poor fellows turned to the lawyer and said, “Sir, you are too kind. Thank you for taking all of us with you.” The lawyer replied, “Glad to do it. You’ll really love my place; the grass is almost a foot high!”
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