Schools are starting to look more like Blockbuster these days – they’re instituting late fees.

Only where a late drop-off is a problem at the video store, a late pick-up is raising the rates for parents at their local elementary schools. Continue reading »

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The new American Girl doll is just like any girl in America – struggling with the economic downturn. In fact Gwen Thompson is homeless.

But don’t expect the average American girl to afford her.

If you want to teach your little darlings about the harsh realities of the world, you’ll have to pay $95 for the honor. Continue reading »

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Despite all the talk about the economy doing better, for many families times are still very difficult. And parents and school counseleors are reporting that it’s really taking its toll on kids. For many adolescents, worries about their family’s financial situation along with fears about other things they feel no control over, like global warming or terrorism, is leading to a generation of very worried kids. Continue reading »

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The “we don’t have a sitter excuse” is gone for parents who were planning to scrimp on the vacation in the tight economy. To boost their numbers, a romantic resort for couples in the picturesque Poconos is offering to pay parents’ sitting bills for the weekend.

The northeastern Pennsylvania area is among the state’s most popular with tourists, but it’s got financial fears to go along with the economy too. Continue reading »

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Times are tough — even Elmo knows it. For many of us, money is really tight, and for those of us that are still lucky enough to be gainfully employed at our usual level of pay, the tanking of the financial markets mean that we’re looking to squeeze more savings for the future out of those paychecks. So any tips for saving money can be really, really helpful.

To that end, Kiplinger’s has a feature on its site listing lots of freebies that are available to all, and better, are often things you might actually want. Continue reading »

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If the economic news is scary for us, imagine how scary it is for our kids. We understand all the reasoning behind why we’re cutting back and worrying a little (or a lot) more about the future. All our kids realize is that their parents are stressed and sad and sometimes a little irritable, and that fun things their familiy used to do aren’t happening anymore.

The lovely people at Sesame Street, along with David Letterman’s production company Worldwide Pants and Lookalike Productions have teamed up to present “Families Stand Together: Feeling Secure in Tough Times.” It’s aimed at families with kids between age two and age eight, and offers Continue reading »

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The recession has made us poorer, and that means we’re less likely to have kids.

That’s the takeaway from new data released by the Center for Health Statistics, and reported on over at HealthNews. After a very, um, productive year for U.S. births in 2007, when more than 4.3 million children were born, the number of births in this country dropped in 2008  to 4,247,000. The fertility rate among women ages 15 to 44 — which had risen from 68.7 per 1,000 in 2006 to 69.2 in 2007 — also fell off last year, landing at 68.4 per 1,000.

Most of the experts cited in the HealthNews piece are convinced that these statistics prove the economic crisis has made people less likely to start families or have more children. Andrew Hacker, a sociologist at Queens College, has no doubt. “It’s the recession,” he says.

Continue reading »

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