An Exciting Milestone for This Newsletter

An intro for new readers, paid subscriptions, and send me your questions!

Apr 08, 2024

Last week marked a major milestone for The Analog Family! The newsletter surpassed 1,000 subscribers, which is very exciting. Thanks to all of you readers for showing support and enthusiasm for this work that I enjoy so much. Many of you are newer subscribers, so I’d like to introduce myself and explain a bit more about what I do and why.

What I Do

I launched The Analog Family in March 2023. Prior to that, for nearly a decade, I worked as a staff writer and senior editor at Treehugger, a major environmental news website. I wrote nearly 4,000 articles during that time and developed a great interest in the benefits of free-range parenting and prioritizing outdoor play to build independence and resilience in children.

At the same time, I noted the proliferation of digital devices and how these seemed to be undermining opportunities for kids to get outside, be active, engage with each other, and do precisely the kinds of things that kids need to do to develop optimally. Raising my own three kids, I started to notice how smartphones and social media were creating and/or exacerbating social, emotional, and academic problems for their friends.

So, I decided to write a book. Childhood Unplugged: Practical Advice to Get Kids Off Screens and Find Balance came out last July from New Society Publishers—and it couldn’t have been timed better. There was a mass layoff at Treehugger, all staff were cut, and I found myself untethered—just in time to promote the new book and build a new platform (my own!) on Substack.

‘Childhood Unplugged’ at Indigo bookstore—Kitchener ON

The past year has been a blur of book promotion, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. There is something deeply validating about having a book as tangible evidence of my work, rather than thousands of Internet-based articles that, after enjoying fleeting success, simply disappear into the void. The book is doing well; it has had great reviews, been shortlisted for the Foreword Indies Awards 2023 (to be announced in June), and there are several translations in the works. I’ve been doing radio, TV, and podcast interviews, and you can see all of those on the Media page of my website.

After the initial book launch events around Ontario, I’ve found myself, almost inadvertently, on a speaking tour. I’ve spoken to audiences in Toronto, Vancouver, Whistler, Squamish, Collingwood, Barrie, and remotely in Europe. Schools and community groups are reaching out, asking if I’ll give presentations on how to implement digital minimalism.

Now, armed with a couple hefty PowerPoint presentations, I have discovered that I love doing these talks. The Q&As after are particularly interesting, jam-packed with questions and anecdotes from parents and teachers who are at their wits’ end when it comes to dealing with kids and devices.

The takeaway: If you need a speaker, please reach out!

This Newsletter

This newsletter has become a space for me to delve more deeply into the ideas that I first developed in my book. I do believe that something profound is shifting societally and that, thankfully, we are becoming more alarmed about the takeover of kids’ childhoods by devices than we were before. Even in the two years since I wrote the first draft of my manuscript, there is more evidence and research surfacing about the devastating effects of (to quote Jonathan Haidt) replacing a “play-based childhood” with a phone-based one.

The Analog Family strives to educate and inform parents of interesting new research and to offer everyday solutions that are practical and sensible. It aims to show that it is possible to break with the status quo, that you don’t have to do things just because “everyone else is”, and that it’s never too late to initiate a digital reset in your home.

It explores contentious ideas, like “Let the Kids Have Sleepovers,” which I never thought would cause such a flurry of fascinating comments, and “It’s the Adults, Not the Kids,” which has become my top-performing post on the site. Sometimes it goes off in a more whimsical, personal, or philosophical direction, like “Move With Purpose,” on encouraging my kids to use their day more efficiently, and “On Supercharged Socializing,” or why we need high-quality leisure activities.

Writing The Analog Family feels like pure pleasure for me; there’s very little “work” associated with it, and I enjoy mulling over ideas and sitting down at my computer to write them. It’s a fun return to the world of blogging, which is what kicked off my whole writing career. In 2011, shortly after graduating from the University of Toronto, I started a blog called Feisty Red Hair that explored what it meant to be a stay-at-home mother in small-town Ontario. It grew rapidly and, within a year, I was offered a job by Discovery Network’s Parentables website.

Now, back to The Analog Family. On the occasion of reaching 1K+ subscribers, there are a couple things I want to mention.

Paid Subscriptions

The fact that I’ve reached this lovely milestone shows that you readers care about this work, and that means the world to me. I have decided to implement paid subscriptions, as opposed to the pledges that were in place before.

All content will remain free and accessible to anyone who wants (because I think it’s important), but anyone who wishes to offer financial support for my writing can now do so through a monthly, annual, or founding subscription. Amounts are set to CAD$7 per month (the price of one big fancy latte!) or CAD$70 per year. This support is hugely appreciated, so thank you in advance.

You can also show support by buying my book and reviewing it, telling friends and family about it and this newsletter, or hiring me to speak, either in-person or remotely.

Reader Questions

Please send me your questions about how to deal with kids and digital media! I love hearing from readers, who often email me to ask about specific situations and scenarios. I would like to start responding to some of these questions in article format, so that others can read them, too. Send an email in response to this one or to leave a comment; I read all of them.