Hacker News with Generative AI: Childhood

Raising Kids to Have an Analog Childhood in a Digital World (joshuakennon.com)
One of the questions I get constantly, both in-person and online, is how we went about arranging our household once we became parents.
"Infantile amnesia" occurs despite babies showing memory activity (arstechnica.com)
For many of us, memories of our childhood have become a bit hazy, if not vanishing entirely. But nobody really remembers much before the age of 4, because nearly all humans experience what's termed "infantile amnesia," in which memories that might have formed before that age seemingly vanish as we move through adolescence. And it's not just us; the phenomenon appears to occur in a number of our fellow mammals.
Small Archives (helloruby.substack.com)
My name is Linda. I write a bi-weekly newsletter about computer science, childhood, and culture.
Childhood and Education #9: School is Hell (thezvi.substack.com)
This complication of tales from the world of school isn’t all negative. I don’t want to overstate the problem. School is not hell for every child all the time. Learning occasionally happens. There are great teachers and classes, and so on. Some kids really enjoy it.
Dangerous Playgrounds of the 1970s: Photos That Prove Safety Wasn't a Priority (rarehistoricalphotos.com)
In the 1970s, before strict safety regulations and cautious parents redefined playgrounds, neighborhood parks were filled with towering jungle gyms, scorching metal slides, and hazardous contraptions that somehow doubled as childhood entertainment.
Drawing Animals with Margaret Mead (psychologytoday.com)
On Saturday, April 13, 1963, the great baseball player Pete Rose, later disgraced for betting on his own team, hit the first of his record 4,256 hits; the USSR launched its Kosmos satellite from Kapustin Yar near Volgograd; the wreckage of the Dutch ship Vergulde Draeck, sunk in 1656, was discovered; chess champion Garry Kasparov was born; and I was 10 years old, drawing animals on napkins with the most famous public intellectual in America.
Having Your Tonsils Out as a Child May Have a Drastic Impact on Your Life (sciencealert.com)
In the US alone, around 300,000 children each year have their tonsils surgically removed to improve breathing while sleeping or reduce recurrent infection.
Kid Pix: The Early Years (red-green-blue.com)
Ben: Dad, what have you been doing upstairs? Dad: Writing a short history of Kid Pix. Ben: Do you really think anyone is going to want to read that?
Why so many families are "drowning in toys" (vox.com)
America is in toy overload, and it might just be ruining fun.
Where Does the Magic Go as We Grow Older? (2020) (medium.com)
It is hard to say when I stopped building blanket forts for my own amusement. It is even harder to pinpoint why I stopped.
We All Scream for Ice Cream (thecookscook.com)
One of the happiest memories of my childhood is hearing the tinkling melody of the Good Humor ice cream truck coming down our block.
The truth about latchkey kids (nevermindgenx.substack.com)
Gen Xers like to boast about being left unsupervised after school. But there was a grim side to it that has left many determined not to repeat the sins of their parents.
Ask HN: What book had a big impact on you as a child or teenager? (ycombinator.com)
I grew up in a house full of books that shaped my interests. I have two young children and I'm building up a library for them. I'm curious to know what books stood out in your childhoods?
Being Raised by the Internet (jimmyhmiller.github.io)
I grew up relatively poor. I was fortunate enough to have a roof over my head, clean water, electricity, a computer, internet, and cable tv. But food was often harder to come by. This may seem like a contradiction, but when your mom has left to marry her uncle and your dad has schizophrenia, you aren’t really in charge of how the money is spent.
Early Scenes: Remembering a Childhood in the South Bronx (newyorker.com)
Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood (croatiaweek.com)
What adults lost when kids stopped playing in the street (theatlantic.com)
Centuries of Childhood (resobscura.substack.com)
Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood (afterbabel.com)
The British elite is haunted by childhood demons (bloomberg.com)
Nearsightedness is at epidemic levels – and the problem begins in childhood (theconversation.com)