The parenting club nobody wants to join

The first designer-gene baby |

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SUBSCRIBE to TIME Magazine Hello peoples who are trying to raise new peoples, I spent this week putting together a story about parents who have lost kids to school shootings with my colleague Haley Sweetland Edwards. It was a honor to tell their stories, but you had to turn your heart off for a little while. Some of the parents were recently bereaved and some of them had lost their kids almost two decades ago. But the loss was palpable with every one. They came from all walks of life and all political affiliations and they had different views on guns, but when they met each other none of these things were as relevant as that which united them. This terrible loss. So for a while now, every time I do a task that was supposed to be done by an offspring, I remind myself that I'm fortunate to have them there to not do what they were supposed to. You can read these parents stories below (be sure to check out the video) or on the cover of the latest issue of Time. As ever, you can reach me at belinda.luscombe@time.com or @luscombeland on Twitter. P.S. If you like this newsletter, please pass it on to a friend. And if you got it from a friend, sign up here for email delivery each Friday. You know, more or less. roundup The parents who have lost kids in school shootings often meet up with each other at events, and they compare notes: "Rhonda Hart, who lost her daughter at Santa Fe, found she had a lot in common with Parkland parents she met. "They asked, 'At what point did you know what was going on? Was it when they sat you in the little room? Was it when they ordered pizza? Was it when the FBI person came in?' We realized that our experiences were the same." School shootings have become so common, says Hart, "that they have the response down to exact science. 'Who's ordering the pizza?' There's a protocol." These are the details that were so heartbreaking. Read the whole story here: TIME In much happier news, one day soon, the PB&J sandwich may rise again as a staple of school lunch boxes. Especially if this new peanut allergy drug works out. It still needs FDA approval, but early signs are promising. TIME In case you haven't heard, the first designer-genetics babies were born in China. Their genomes were edited while they were embryos using the genetics tool known as CRISPR to make them immune to HIV. While that sounds promising, the guy who did this broke about a gazillion rules in altering children this way; that creaking sound you hear is Pandora's Box opening. The ethics here are incredibly murky, not least in what rights to privacy should be accorded the two new children who are going to be the focus of intense scientific scrutiny. TIME About a year ago, I gave my husband chicken pox. I didn't mean to, but I got shingles and he didn't get vaccinated as a child—the vaccine was not available in his area—and so down he went. It was misery and he didn't really, really recover for months. For a disease that sounds like some kind of joke-condition, it hit him hard. So I read with empathy of the school in North Carolina which had a big chicken pox outbreak, because the school has lot of families who don't vaccinate their children. These children will be fine—but they could unintentionally infect someone who is more immuno-suppressed and have more trouble recovering.Vaccination isn't just for your children, it's for the ones who aren't as strong as they are. TIME A photographer who had a very tough childhood started to see his family in a new way, both literally and figuratively, when he started taking photos of them. "Creating this new picture of us and documenting this present moment in time has helped me control a part of my own dynamic with my family," the photographer, Pat Martin, says. "I recognized that I could have some control over these things." Check out his quietly lovely photo-essay. TIME You have the right to name your child whatever you like, in my opinion. But as with most rights, you must them responsibly. So, while I think it's kind of cool to call your kid Abcde (pronounced Abcity), I also think you cannot pretend to be surprised when people giggle at you, sometimes in public. That's what employees at Southwest did when a mother and child (the aforementioned Abcde) caught a flight recently and an attendant posted the child's boarding pass on social media. I don't think that's the kindest response, but to be honest, I kind of giggled too. People PFFT: Parenting from Famous Types Reese Witherspoon, actor and mother of two "I remember Ava crying in bed in third grade—she was on JV basketball and she was the only kid on the team who didn't score. I said, 'Aves, maybe you're bad at basketball.' She thought that was mean. I said, 'Mean or true? 'Cause, guess what? Your mom's bad at basketball, too." 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