@oldmom4896 suggested this article in another thread but wasn’t able to post it. I’m definitely going to read it! Should be a gift link.
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I just happened to read this. I don’t know how as a society we think it’s ok to leave families on their own, why don’t we feel an obligation to help. I know how overwhelmed I felt with the minimal amount of caring I do/did for my parents and I’m a grown adult with money. I cannot imagine the stress and long term repercussions for these kids.
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Wow—child caregiving adds a whole world of additional stress and would definitely blight any formal education they could be otherwise trying to get.
I remember the 2 years when I shopped and prepared dinner nearly every night for my family when I was just a young teen. It was tiring. Caregiving would be much more exhausting. I had money from my folks to get the groceries and wasn’t having to provide care. These kids are really doing a ton!
Oh yeah, I also did my homework and helped everyone who needed help with theirs, including typing papers for my mom (who returned to college to get master’s in special ed) and anyone else who needed it, including older sibs who only opened their book at exam time.
At least it wasn’t medical caregiving in addition to cooking and homework help.
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One of my grad students took care of her mom, who was battling breast cancer, when she was in high school. She cared for her elderly grandmother when she was in undergrad. (She lost both family members.) She is an artist whose work reflects her experiences - I remember being overwhelmed viewing her work and talking to her. It’s just so much at such a young age.
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The kids in the article come from working class families. Often all the adults in the house/apartment are disabled, and the kids are young, like 15 or so, and afraid to talk about it much for fear of no longer being able to do this care with terrible consequences for those they are caring for.
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I imagine it was different for my student from the standpoint of being a bit older. But she was from a lower income family, worked, went to school, and cared for her family members. It was incredibly difficult, and I am in awe of her.
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My HS boyfriend had to provide full financial support for his sister & parents when he was only 17. He worked at mcDonald’s, sometimes 80 hrs/week and went from straight As to Fs. life was totally derailed.
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Maybe this is why I can’t get enough of our cabin in the woods. 
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Don’t watch the movie!
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F.D.A. Approves Moderna’s mRNA Flu Vaccine
The agency had initially refused to even review the application but reversed course after a public outcry.
Gift link https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/05/health/mrna-flu-vaccine-moderna.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3VA.7fwZ.ytKvM07jzDLw&smid=url-share
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It’s a man’s world…
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From the article:
Vaccines, however, are typically formally recommended by the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee — called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) — before they are used. But a federal judge has blocked the committee from convening.
Levy said mFlusiva could still be legally prescribed in the U.S. without ACIP’s sign-off.
However, he said, patients most likely would not be able to get insurance coverage, as private insurers generally cover only ACIP-recommended shots, and the public distribution of the vaccine would be severely limited with no official federal guidance on whom the shots should go to.
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Insurers may decide that their best financial interest is served by paying for this vaccine and foregoing expensive treatment including possible hospitalization from influenza. MNRA vaccines’ safety was pretty much settled by Pfizer/Moderna covid vaccines.
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A new version of Hillbilly Elegy by a female. Emilee Hackney - Wikipedia This one really has some twists.
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I’m half Appalachian. All my Mama’s side of the family was from SW Virginia (about 50 miles from Tazewell) from before the Revolutionary War. Still have many cousins there. My Daddy’s side was from more what you’d call the deep south. Never read Hillbilly Elegy and never plan to. I don’t know if I’d like this book either because I take exception to how the Wikipedia article characterizes the book with “she then experienced culture shock and social isolation after moving to Cambridge, Massachusetts to study at Harvard.” I don’t know if that’s really where she’s coming from or if that’s a mischaracterization from the Wikipedia writer, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Appalachian folks are exposed to the same media that everyone else in America is. They don’t all live way back in the hollers with no running water and no contact with the outside world. My mama left home at 16 to go to college 4 states away and traveled all around this country and several others, and her brother traveled the world serving in the Army in WWII and then just traveled for pleasure from time to time throughout the rest of his life. They never spoke of “culture shock”. My mama did miss seeing the mountains when she looked up when she settled in the flatlands.
My favorite Appalachian author is Barbara Kingsolver. She gets it right. There are many other excellent Appalachian authors, too – bell hooks, of course. I’ll save the rest for the best book thread. That line in the Wikipedia article just stuck in my craw.
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I live in Lynchburg and have driven around a lot of SW Virginia and W. Virginia. I certainly have seen pockets of poverty and houses that still looked very much 1920s Appalachia. I easily could see culture shock going to Harvard from there. I got it when I was dating a girl from Mass whose family owned a large private island off the coast and everyone went to a top prep school and Harvard. I was just a lower midclass kid from NJ. The family name you might recognize–Forbes. It was very strange.
This scenario is exactly what’s is happening to a friend whose D serves.
Her career was on a fast track, now it’s not.
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That just sounds like poverty to wealth. I just get tired of all of Appalachia being classified as poor hillbillies
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Does vitriol make you feel special?
We found that the entire website of Reddit has become more negative over time. Moreover, the longer a given community exists, the more negative it becomes — and the longer a comment thread continues, the more negative the thread becomes. This is the first time someone has shown that, so that’s a finding in and of itself.
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Okay, this made me laugh. Yes, Reich is a political guy, but this article is about some of us here … Boomers. I definitely agree with Reich. My friends, family, H, me … none of us can relate to what The Economist is saying about our generation. What To Do with Us Boomers? - Robert Reich
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