Good morning. Millennial parents, a more online generation, are worried about allowing their children to have sleepovers while others say the positives outweigh the risks. More on the controversial rite of passage, plus Donald Trump’s tariff updates and fallout from Canada’s rush to address bird flu.
Today’s headlines
- Donald Trump condemns U.S. air traffic management and diverse hiring practices after the deadliest day in U.S. aviation in 15 years
- Nearly 400,000 people have signed up to vote in Liberal leadership race, Jaime Battiste has dropped out and Mark Carney has promised to scrap carbon pricing
- B.C.’s Education Minister fired the entire Greater Victoria School Board over the decision to end the police liaison officer program
- More immigrants to Quebec want to learn French. But cuts to public classes put their fluency in jeopardy
President Donald Trump speaks at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 30.Alex Brandon/The Associated Press
Trade
The U.S. presses ahead with tariffs
Donald Trump said he will impose 25-per-cent tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico on Saturday – however, Canadian oil might be exempt.
Canada is the top foreign supplier of oil to the United States, representing about 60 per cent of its imports. But the levies threaten to deliver massive economic shocks to two of America’s biggest trading partners. The President said the tariffs may rise over time.
Trump said there were “a number of reasons” to announce tariffs, mentioning illegal migration, the smuggling of fentanyl into the U.S, and imbalances in trade.
Ottawa is weighing the appointment of a federal border czar to address U.S. security concerns, but it is clear Trump has not been convinced by Canada’s December announcement that it would spend $1.3-billion more on border security measures over six years. Meanwhile, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is proposing Canada deepen collaboration with the U.S. on Arctic security.
Also read
- Canadian pancake-mix and snack-bar makers are considering moving to U.S. as tariffs loom
- Dragons’ Den star Wes Hall calls on corporate leaders to speak up on Trump tariffs
- The CEO of CIBC calls for government supports for businesses and consumers potentially affected by tariffs
- Opinion: Where are our friends in Canada’s fight against Trump’s tariffs?
Melanie Lacob says that she is hesitant to send her kids on sleepovers.Jimmy Jeong/The Globe and Mail
Parenting
Saying ‘no’ to sleepovers
Hoooooo boy, the comments.
I’m Ann Hui, the Globe’s generations reporter. I wrote a story on the growing unease – particularly among millennial parents – around sending their children to sleepovers. Once considered a rite of passage, parents are increasingly reconsidering sleepovers, citing a range of concerns from the dangers of unsupervised internet access, to the potential for bullying and abuse.
The responses, from many readers, have been illuminating. “This woman is stealing her children’s childhood,” one wrote, about a mom in the story.
“Millennial parents are sucking the joy out of childhood,” another wrote. Others still dismissed the concerns as “paranoid helicopter parenting.”
This much is clear: When it comes to parenting, there’s a very real generational divide. Many of the most scathing commenters refer to parenting in a “simpler time,” of today’s “whippersnapper parents” who “mollycoddle” their kids.
And we can all blame the internet. Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes before you judge them, they used to say. Or maybe just spend an hour in their timeline.
Kate Thibault, a 37-year-old millennial mom I interviewed for the story, put it this way: “My mom didn’t have a Facebook mom group.” What she meant was that her own mother was not subject to the same overwhelming assault of advice and information that she gets online, on a constant basis.
“They didn’t have all the blogs, all of the extra education around sleep training, ‘Fed is Best’ – all these other conversations that we’re constantly having,” said Thibault.
As a millennial parent myself, I can relate. I try to base my own decisions off of a range of influences: friends and family, parenting books, common sense, and, yes, voices on social media. When it comes to the latter, I try to follow only credentialed experts: child psychiatrists, child development specialists, pediatricians, and the like. They have master’s degrees, PhDs, and decades if not centuries of experience among them.
But even on my own relatively curated timeline, there’s rarely ever consensus. On anything.
Specifically on sleepovers, there’s no data in Canada on whether they’re safe. The same is true in the U.S. Even Emily Oster, the New York Times best-selling parenting author who has made a living out of mining data to provide evidence-based advice, tells parents to simply go with their gut on this one. “There is no concrete data to point you in either direction,” she wrote in 2023, “You’ve got to make your own mind up.”
But how to make up our own minds, when there are so many voices? And they’re so loud? And, often, terrifying?
Here’s just a small sample, pulled from my own timeline:
This TikTok, from a criminal defense attorney in the U.S., who says, matter-of-factly, “While you may feel you know the parents really well, and you feel you know them and trust them really well, that’s exactly who’s committing [abuse]”. It’s been viewed over a million times.
And there’s this Instagram Reel, from a neurodevelopmental pediatrician, saying she’d never allow her child to attend a sleepover.
And then, on the other hand, there are the many parents who argue online that sleepovers were vital in their own childhoods, or that they help children grow socially. Some experts even suggest sleepovers as a treatment for kids struggling with separation anxiety.
Of course, much of what you see is dependent on your own algorithm. If you’re the type of parent who’s more likely to search, “Are sleepovers safe?”, you’re more likely to see horrifying videos. And if you’d never before seen such content, you might never think to look.
It’s the reason why parenting in the digital age is so fraught. There’s more information available than ever before. Which makes it more difficult to make decisions. And the fact that our own digital consumption backs us further and further into our own corners – where we’re not even being exposed to the same set of facts – means we’re less likely to find common ground.
“Every generation is different, and as parents, we need to evolve,” Brenda Weeks, a 54-year-old mom from Vancouver told me for the story.
“What worked for one generation doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for the next.”
The Shot
‘I can’t imagine looking a healthy animal in the eye, then killing it.’
Karen Espersen, the co-owner of the Universal Ostrich Farms, shares a moment with her ostriches during feeding time in Edgewood, B.C.Aaron Hemens/The Globe and Mail
Canada’s race to curb bird flu means sentencing 400 ostriches to death at a B.C. farm, despite the owners’ outcry. It’s another signal of the existential stakes for the country’s ranchers and farmers, as the highly contagious virus continues metastasizing and leapfrogging into new species.
The Wrap
What else we’re following
At home: NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has again pledged to defeat the government as the Liberals ask for a lifeline to strike pharmacare deals.
Abroad: Uganda’s healthy ministry has confirmed an Ebola outbreak in the capital Kampala with the first confirmed death.
For the courts: Quebec has distanced itself from Canadian multiculturalism in a new bill that outlines a “common culture” that newcomers must embrace.
For health: A new report reveals the extent to which essential and child-friendly medications for tuberculosis are difficult to obtain in Canada.
For happiness: Reporter Erin Anderssen responded to reader questions about the “happiest people in Canada” and how we can be happy in the face of adversity