This ‘Addams Family’ mansion model is monstrously magnificent

This ‘Addams Family’ mansion model is monstrously magnificent

It’s creepy and it’s kooky. Also kind of spooky.

What a faithful, phenomenal, and painstakingly detailed re-creation this is of the Addams Family Mansion, created by Kelly Little-Kuehnert of K&K Custom Miniature Creations.

All of the photos are hers.

Very Smol Addams Family Mansion

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From Damascus to Berlin: A Reuters journalist’s quest for family reunion

From Damascus to Berlin: A Reuters journalist’s quest for family reunion

BERLIN (Reuters) – It was still dark in Damascus as I walked down the stairs, my new life contained in a red suitcase. My mother stood next to the taxi door praying for my safety. My father was silent, certain that he would never see me again.

Ghada Zitouni and Isam Alkousaa pose for a picture near a cafe in the historic quarter of Spandauer Vorstadt in central Berlin, Germany, December 7, 2019. Picture taken December 7, 2019. REUTERS/ Riham Alkousaa

I lowered the taxi window and waved to my parents until they disappeared, grieving over the separation but at the same time grateful to my exhausted old city, which had finally let me go.

I had become one of the 700,000 refugees who have fled Syria and its war without end to Germany, which offered shelter under a grey but generous sky.

Since that morning in September 2014, I’ve told many stories of refugees’ attempts to make Germany more like a home by reuniting with their families here. As a journalist covering the biggest refugee crisis of the 21st century, I’ve reported about the waiting, the loneliness, the maze of the paperwork that torments the family reunification process.

This time, I am telling my story.

A year after I left Syria for Germany at age 23, my parents and I tried in vain to meet in Lebanon, Algeria, Sudan, Iran and Malaysia – some of the countries that still offer visas to Syrians. But as descendants of Palestinian refugees in Syria with no formal Syrian or Palestinian citizenship or national passport, our chances to meet were very slim.

Since the moment I left Syria behind, my life has been a litany of moments meant to be shared: I missed my parents at my graduation from my postgraduate program at Columbia University in New York after President Trump imposed a travel ban on visitors from Syria. I missed them at my engagement party; when I moved to my first apartment in Berlin; and on every Ramadan, Eid, Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

WhatsApp helped to create an illusion of contact and closeness. At the beginning, the first thing I saw on my phone in the morning were missed calls from my mother. Then she learned that she could send me voice messages through the app, and they became our morning routine. She would record them while she was having morning coffee with my father, and I would listen to them on my way to German-language school or to work.

We also cherished our video calls, even though the slow internet in Syria would cut them short. But when the ones you love are seen only on the screens of your laptop or phone, they slowly become unreal, like your favorite childhood TV character: very familiar, but imaginary.

In Arabic, we call it “ghurba,” which has an unsatisfying translation of “being a stranger in a foreign land.” It’s trying to cook all your favorite dishes at once, just to reassure yourself that you can bring home back; it’s the long Netflix evening where tea is made in a cup, not the big pot your mother used to keep ready for you; it’s dreading weekends with their empty hours slowly sneaking in on quiet Friday evenings.

Then I heard about a special resettlement program offered by Berlin’s local government that offers a chance – a minuscule one, but a chance nonetheless – for Syrian and Iraqi families to reunite.

Migration has been one of the most divisive topics in Germany and Europe since Chancellor Angela Merkel decided in 2015 to open borders to more than 1 million people escaping war and persecution in the Middle East and beyond. Concerns about migration have fueled far-right parties across the continent and pushed European governments to shut their borders and seal a controversial deal with Turkey to control illegal migration. The number of asylum- seekers in Germany fell 72.5% between 2016, the year the deal was signed, and 2017.

For Syrians, even obtaining a visitor visa to Germany today is difficult because immigration authorities are sceptical that the travellers will return to the war-torn country. There are no government statistics on how many Syrians have been granted a short-stay visa in recent years because the German Foreign Ministry doesn’t record the citizenship of applicants. But in 2019, the German Embassy in Beirut granted only 7,913 short-term visas, which would include all Lebanese applicants in addition to Syrians.

Only minors with “recognized refugee” status have the right to bring their parents and minor siblings to Germany. I was an adult when I applied for asylum five years ago and didn’t qualify for a regular family reunification process.

But if an adult Syrian refugee – or an employed European Union citizen – promises to take care of all financial expenses of a family member, they can reunite in Germany through a special program for Syrian and Iraqi refugees. The resettlement scheme offers two years’ residence, with a work permit and public health insurance for family members.

The program was introduced in 2013 by many German states to resettle families of Syrian refugees whose asylum applications have been approved and already have recognized refugee status in Germany. It’s renewed on an annual basis, and the decision to extend it is made by states’ governments; out of 15 states that offered the program in 2014, only five of them have extended it for 2020.

To be eligible for the program, I had to have a stable job in Germany with long-term employment prospects and a minimum salary to demonstrate that the family member wouldn’t end up being a drain on the system.

With language and skills barriers, meeting those conditions is challenging. In the six years ending in October 2019, only 1,098 people had benefited from the program in the state of Berlin, government data showed. Out of 459 applications submitted in 2019, 173 were approved.

Having a wage of at least of 2,300 euros a month after taxes is among the most challenging conditions.

“It’s is not that easy to earn this amount when one has immigrated here recently,” said Engelhard Mazanke, the head of Berlin’s migration office.

At the beginning of my time in Berlin as an Arabic speaker in a country facing a wave of Arab refugees, I worked with American and German freelance journalists to tell the stories of the newcomers. While translating and talking to people at Berlin’s asylum reception center, I thought that I could tell these stories on my own. But moving from being a “fixer” to a real journalist in a new language and a new country needed much more than I had expected.

It took four years, countless German classes, a master’s degree from an Ivy League school, a few internships and a year-and-half training program until I got a job contract at Reuters and met the program’s conditions.

But one condition was the hardest for me: A choice had to be made.

The Berlin migration official responsible for my case was clear that I must choose between my parents or one of my four siblings for the application. My brothers are still in school in the Syrian city of Homs, so waiting few more years to bring them here made sense. That meant either denying my sisters an opportunity to build a future in Germany or pushing my five-year separation with my parents longer, with no end in sight.

Weeks passed because I couldn’t decide. Then a German friend of mine astounded me with an offer to help.

Pascale Mueller and I had met few years earlier when she needed help translating for a Syrian refugee family for a story for Tagesspiegel newspaper during the 2015 wave of migration. We hadn’t seen each other for more than a year when she said she would act as a guarantor for one of my sisters.

I asked her to take some time before deciding, because the guarantor is financially responsible for the new arrival. If my sister claimed welfare or unemployment benefits, the government would send a bill to Pascale.

“Everyone I spoke with said, ‘I wouldn’t do it,’ but I have a good feeling about this,” Pascale said. A few weeks later we were at Berlin’s migration office signing the papers.

When life decides to give you a break, it makes you feel that the doors that seemed shut might have not been closed in the first place. When another friend of mine, a Briton, heard of Pascale’s unexpected help, he stepped in to guarantee my other sister. We needed to rush through the paperwork before Brexit happened and he was no longer a European Union citizen, but we also had to wait on the pay raise he had been promised. Each delay in Britain’s parliament that pushed its parting from the EU further away gave my sister and me a bigger chance to reunite.

Finally, he was able to sign the papers.

Within weeks, I received an email from the German Embassy in Beirut asking my family for an interview. Because Germany pulled its diplomatic representation in Syria shortly after the uprising there in 2011, Syrians who apply for a German visa must be interviewed in one of the German embassies or consulates in Syria’s neighboring countries. Lebanon was the closest and, theoretically, at least, the easiest to get in.

But like the complicated German sentence structure I have come to know so well, nothing was easy in this process. A simple appointment became a metaphor for the struggles, both bureaucratic and emotional, that the displaced face the world over.

First, my family had to leave Damascus before midnight for an 8: 30 a.m. appointment in Beirut, although the trip only takes 3½ hours by road, because of a complicated entry process for Palestinian-Syrians to Lebanon. Then, at the appointment, they tried to hand over a document they’d been told to bring, but the employee said it wasn’t required.

A few weeks later, the embassy called, asking for that same document. We could either pay a driver a fee that was half my father’s monthly salary as a professor to take it to Lebanon or find someone to take it. We got lucky – the parents of a friend of mine were traveling to the consulate in Lebanon the next day for a visa interview through the same program.

But then our luck ran out again. After waiting a month for word of our application, we were asked to send the passports so “an answer” of yes or no could be stamped on the applications. This time we happily paid for a courier to take them to Beirut.

Then came the next delay: We were told there was a problem with my father’s travel document, but the authorities didn’t say what the problem was, exactly.

We called the embassy more than 100 times, with either no answer or a busy line. I tried a different emergency number dedicated for German citizens and was finally forwarded to someone who could answer my question. It turned out that the problem was my father’s passport photo: The glasses he wore made his face unrecognizable. I understood the argument. But why wasn’t this issue flagged when I had applied for the program with copies of the travel documents, or when my father was interviewed and his documents were checked at the embassy six weeks earlier? Why didn’t the embassy simply phone us, asking for a new travel document?

“Due to the very high number of applications in some cases, not all details relevant for any specific applications may stand out at first glance when first filing the application,” the German Foreign Ministry told me in an email.

Slideshow (2 Images)

We hired a driver, Abu Hisham, to take the passports to the embassy again after my mother received a second call few weeks later. But even that trip was fraught with potential disaster. With an empty car on the way back, he stopped to pick a man on the road, thinking that he needed a ride to Damascus. The man asked to stop for two friends of his, and they robbed Abu Hisham of all his money. But they left a brown envelope in the glove compartment that held the stamped passports.

Finally, more than six months after I applied for their resettlement, my parents were ready to fly to Germany. On a winter evening, I was at Berlin Tegel airport waiting for them to arrive. During normal times, a flight from Beirut to Berlin lands there every other evening, and Syrians are easily recognized at the arrivals’ gate: reunions with excessively arranged bouquets, cute boys dressed in black suits and old men openly crying. Even security guards tear up and smile, although they must have seen the reunion scenes many times.

I cried and cried at my father’s shoulder as he walked off the first flight he had ever taken, at age 59. I cried for all my lonely nights in Berlin, for the years that made him an old man while I became stronger, for our family home that had been pounded to ruins, for the life moments we hadn’t spent together. After five years, we were a family once more.

Reporting by Riham Alkousaa, editing by Kari Howard

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Lonely seniors find connection with rented grandkids and VR vacations

Lonely seniors find connection with rented grandkids and VR vacations

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With MyndVR, seniors can explore everything from fall foliage to European cities in virtual reality. 


MyndVR

Eighty-one-year-old Georgina Schuldt isn’t used to being tied down. After retiring from a career in nursing, Schuldt and her husband lived on a boat for eight years, sailing from Canada to Panama. When they returned, they went camping in the Pacific Northwest every summer. 

But Schuldt’s husband passed away last year. Now she uses a walker, unable to go long distances. She has no interest in getting on a plane or being dependent on someone else to push her in a wheelchair. 

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Despite all of this, Schuldt was recently able to explore a European city — in virtual reality. Her Florida assisted living community owns three headsets from MyndVR, a company that creates VR experiences geared toward people age 65 and up. 

“The first time I tried it I saw a city in Spain. We were right in the city square, and there was a tourist who walked right in front of me! I could’ve touched her,” Schuldt said. “I thought that was wonderful.” 

The day we talked, she had just used the headset to visit a forest full of colorful fall leaves. 

“It takes you out of your own environment and puts you somewhere else,” Schuldt said. “It’s very pleasurable to go back and see things that you love but you can’t get to anymore.” 

Virtual reality is one of many technologies that can be used to reduce loneliness and social isolation in senior citizens, which researchers have called an epidemic in and of itself. 

Nearly one-fourth of adults aged 65 and older are considered socially isolated, according to a 2020 study from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Research shows older people who report feeling lonely are more likely to face anxiety, depression, suicide, heart disease, stroke and dementia, a risk rivaling smoking, obesity and physical inactivity. 

“If loneliness is persistent and sufficiently severe, it can and does have negative health consequences,” said Dr. Dilip Jeste, the senior associate dean for healthy aging and senior care and a distinguished professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego. 

The good news? You can make changes to avoid these outcomes, Jeste said. And technology may be one piece of a broader puzzle that gives America’s growing population of seniors a more connected and healthy life. 

A three-hour (virtual) tour

Virtual reality companies focusing exclusively on seniors are finding their way into senior living communities, aiming to provide an escape from the doldrums of everyday life or point of connection with family members. 

Even if seniors live in a community surrounded by others, they may still slowly withdraw and become isolated, MyndVR CEO Chris Brickler said. “As their stimulus diminishes due to age and disease, we have to find other ways to keep them stimulated and engaged,” he said.

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MyndVR

MyndVR’s headset and platform streams more than 200 virtual travel, recreation, music and arts experiences for older adults living in senior communities or at home. These experiences can act as reminiscence therapy by helping them remember parts of their past or as engagement therapy by connecting them with others in their community or family, Brickler said. 

“We see families that are locked into the same conversations week after week, slowly making their visits mind-numbing,” he added. 

Having something new to do together can add some new energy into visits and give seniors a chance to have more substantive conversations, he said. 

Traditional therapy typically costs between $100 and $200 per session. A single-user license for MyndVR’s platform is less than $1,000 per year, while a multiuser license for community packages average around $5,000 per year, Brickler said. The cost includes the hardware, the library of VR content, and customer and technical support. MyndVR now has tens of thousands of users across 40 states, he added. 

Read more: How families are giving a fantastic trip to loved ones in hospice

Beyond Zoom: Virtual meeting spaces

Some companies, like AARP Innovation Labs, are using VR to keep the elderly connected to their families for a slightly lower cost.

Its latest product is Alcove, a virtual reality house where seniors can meet up with relatives to talk, play games and explore different experiences.

VR offers a sense of presence and immersion that other technologies don’t, said Cezara Windrem, head of VR at AARP Innovation Labs and product lead for Alcove. “It could allow families to come together, overcoming cost, time and mobility constraints,” Windrem said.

AARP Innovation Labs built Alcove in partnership with Rendever, a startup that creates VR experiences for senior living communities. It launched a first version 2019, which is available free on the Oculus Go platform (and will come to Oculus Quest too later this summer). 

Seniors can invite up to four people at a time to join them in a fully immersive virtual chalet in the mountains, surrounded by trees and grass. Explore four different rooms, and even decorate the home with their own photos. 

alcove-travel-room

AlcoveVR from AARP Innovation Labs lets elderly people hang out with their families in a virtual house.


AARP Innovation Labs

The app offers a guided tour of Paris together, practice meditation, or play checkers or chess. You can take older relatives on real-world adventures. It’s free to download and use right now (provided you have an Oculus Go VR headset, which costs $149), with no advertisements. But as more content is added, the company may consider a micro-transactions system for premium VR experiences, so you might pay a few dollars for a top-tier tour.

The virtual element may make hanging out with grandma more attractive to younger people, who can find a connection with them in this new medium, Windrem said. 

“We know how much the young generations are attracted to this new technology,” she said. “It’s wonderful having them find a connection through this new medium and be able to share their love for it with older family members but on their own terms through experiences that everyone can relate to.” 

Family on demand

But what about the elderly who require physical assistance that virtual reality can’t provide — like help with grocery shopping or tasks around the house?

For seniors, one option is Papa, a service that provides “family on demand” to older adults by pairing them with “Papa Pals.” College students who can provide companionship and assistance on tasks like grocery shopping and driving. Plus, those students get paid.

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Papa is a service that connects seniors with college students who can provide companionship and help with tasks like grocery shopping.


Papa

CEO Andrew Parker was inspired to create Papa by his grandfather, who needed help but was isolated. He didn’t drive, but also didn’t require traditional home care services. Papa launched in 2018 and is now available in 25 states and counting. The company has more than 7,000 Papa Pals on the platform, Parker said. 

A majority of members receive Papa as a free benefit via insurance carriers or Medicare Advantage programs. Papa Pals have to go through a background check and vetting process. Fewer than 10% of those who apply are hired, Parker said. But they can make between $12 to $16 an hour, depending on what kind of tasks they are doing. The company is opening applications up beyond college students now, partially because unemployment levels have risen so much as a result of COVID-19.

The company typically signs people up for visits from Papa Pals once or twice a week. Tasks include everything from grocery shopping to driving to doctor appointments to teaching them how to set up technology. One member asked a Papa Pal to accompany her to a wedding, because she didn’t want to be a burden on her family. Another, a former Tour de France competitor, asked his Pal to take him on a bike ride — and quickly outpaced his college-age companion, Parker said. 

Those visits look different now because of coronavirus. Papa Pals are helping with contactless grocery deliveries. And most companionship visits have moved to phone calls or video chats. 

“We’re teaching older adults how to use technology in a way that they probably weren’t willing to do generally before,” Parker said. “The stigma of being alone is less of an issue now that the whole world is isolated.” 

Curing loneliness

Despite the tech industry’s best efforts, there’s no single research-backed cure for loneliness, Jeste said. The solution has to be multi-dimensional and include physical activity, exercise and social connections. Technology can help, but it won’t solve the problem alone, he added. 

“The technology industry has traditionally focused on younger people,” Jeste said. “Older people don’t want something that is cool with a thousand applications. They want something really simple. We need technology that is senior-friendly.” 

Back in Florida, Schuldt agrees. The simplicity of the VR platform was a major factor in why she enjoyed the experience so much, she said. “You just stick it on your head,” Schuldt said. “You don’t have to learn a whole bunch of tricks to get it to go.”

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Half-brother of man found hanged dies in a deputy-involved shooting

Half-brother of man found hanged dies in a deputy-involved shooting

(CNN)The half-brother of Robert Fuller, the 24-year-old black man who was found dead hanging in the city of Palmdale last week, was killed in a deputy-involved shooting in Kern County on Wednesday, a…
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Rayshard Brooks’ family demand justice after shooting

Rayshard Brooks’ family demand justice after shooting

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Media captionWATCH: ‘Life shouldn’t be this complicated’

The family of an African American man who died after being shot in the back by a police officer in the US state of Georgia are pleading for justice.

Rayshard Brooks was gunned down while fleeing two police officers after a struggle with them in a Wendy’s car park in Atlanta late last week.

The local medical examiner declared his death a homicide on Sunday.

“The trust that we have in the police force is broken,” his niece Tiara Brooks told a news conference.

“The only way to heal some of these wounds is through a conviction and a drastic change in the police department.”

Amid growing outrage, Mr Brooks’ widow asked that protests stay peaceful to keep her husband’s name “positive and great”.

Mr Brooks’ death comes at a time of nationwide reckoning over police violence against African Americans, initially sparked by the death of another black man, George Floyd, who was killed in police custody in Minneapolis.

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Getty Images

Image caption

Mr Brooks’ widow Tomika Miller holds one of their three daughters as family lawyers speak to media on Monday

On Monday morning, hundreds of protesters assembled in Atlanta, calling for criminal justice reforms and demanding justice for Mr Brooks.

Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced a series of executive orders demanding police reforms concerning use of force policies.

What did Mr Brooks family say?

At a press conference on Monday, Mr Brooks’ family described him as a “loving husband and caring brother”, and doting father of three daughters. One of his children, Blessing, had her eighth birthday party on the day her father was killed.

“He was silly, had the biggest smile and the brightest heart,” said his niece Chastity Evans, who decried the death of her uncle “shot and killed like trash for falling asleep at a drive-through”.

Mr Brooks’ shooting comes at a time of nationwide upheaval, with thousands already taking to the street in cities across the country, demanding changes in the use of deadly force by police, particularly of African Americans.

Image copyright
EPA

Image caption

Mr Brooks’ widow called for demonstrators to remain peaceful

On Sunday evening, more than 100 people turned out in the rain at the site of the shooting for a peaceful protest following Mr Brooks’ death. A day earlier, the Wendy’s drive-through restaurant where he was stopped was set on fire.

Speaking to the media, Mr Brooks’ widow, Tomika Miller thanked demonstrators for their support, and asked that the gatherings in his name remain peaceful.

“If you could just keep it as a peaceful protest, that would be wonderful,” she said.

Why this case is different

Analysis by Jessica Lussenhop, BBC News

The swiftness with which a white police officer was fired in the killing of Rayshard Brooks is just the latest sign of how rapidly and dramatically police agencies have shifted strategy when it comes to dealing with deadly force cases.

Historically, not only have police chiefs been reticent to fire officers involved in in-custody deaths until a “full investigation” had taken place, they’ve been quick to defend the officer’s use of force if he or she “reasonably” believed that a person had a deadly weapon or posed immediate danger to the officer.

In this case, video shows that Brooks had taken the officer’s Taser and appears to use it. But not only is the weapon designated as less than lethal, the video shows he was running away and that the shots that killed him entered his back.

If the officer is criminally charged in this case, the question of whether or not a Taser should be considered a deadly weapon will surely come into play, as well as whether the officer had “reasonable” fear of Brooks.

But at this stage, what is already clear is that police departments are not feeling nearly as confident relying on the old strategies and rhetoric that historically have allowed them to slow-play their response to a police-involved killing.

Ms Miller told reporters that she and her husband had been following the protests incited by George Floyd.

“I’ve always said, ‘baby, I don’t want that to be you,'” she said.

What are the details of the Atlanta shooting?

The Georgia Bureau of Investigations (GBI) says officers were called to fast-food restaurant Wendy’s because Mr Brooks had fallen asleep in his car, which was blocking the drive-through lane.

Body camera footage released by the police department shows the two officers administering a sobriety test, with Mr Brooks’ permission.

The two officers then try to handcuff him, at which point their body cams fall off, but security camera video shows them struggling with Mr Brooks on the ground. At the press conference on Monday, a lawyer for Mr Brooks suggested that he may have feared being placed in handcuffs, with the knowledge that George Floyd was handcuffed when he died.

Image copyright
EPA

Image caption

Rayshard Brooks (undated photo)

He then grabs an officer’s Taser (electric stun gun), appears to punch one of them and breaks free from the officers, running away. As he is chased, Mr Brooks is seen turning around and pointing the Taser before continuing to run and being shot.

According to the Fulton County medical examiner, the manner of death of Rayshard Brooks was “homicide”. He suffered two gunshots to the back that caused organ injuries and blood loss.

The Atlanta chief of police has since quit, and the police officer suspected of shooting Mr Brooks has been fired.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionThe Wendy’s drive-through restaurant was set on fire over Mr Brooks’ shooting

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard told CNN that three charges could apply against sacked police officer Garrett Rolfe: murder, felony murder and aggravated assault.

A decision by his office following their investigation could come by midweek.

“We look forward to the District Attorney’s findings,” said L. Chris Stewart on Monday, an attorney for the Brooks family.

What did the Atlanta mayor say?

Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Monday announced a series of administrative orders asking calling for reforms to the Atlanta police department’s use of force policies.

The reforms, complying with state law, demand that officers only use “the amount of objectively reasonable force necessary” to protect themselves and others, and require de-escalation by officers, particularly before the use of deadly force.

Ms Bottoms also introduced a “duty to intervene”, rendering police officers who witness other officers using unnecessary force “duty bound to intercede” and prevent that use of force.

“It’s very clear that our police officers are to be guardians and not warriors within our communities,” she said.

The mayor last week announced the creation of a task force on police reforms, meant to provide recommendations to the city in two weeks.

But she said Mr Brooks’ murder makes “clear that we do not have another day, another minute, another hour to waste”.

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How to Talk to Your Kids About Job Loss

How to Talk to Your Kids About Job Loss

If you’re among the tens of millions of Americans who became unemployed during the pandemic, you have likely been dealing with more stress than just lockdowns, remote learning and social distancing have brought (and that was enough to begin with). It can be tricky to know whether—or how—to approach the topic of job loss with your kids; you don’t want to burden them or add more worry to an already difficult year.

But chances are, they already know something is wrong. And there are ways you can talk to them about it that is honest and candid without being alarming.

Don’t try to hide it

Unless they’re very young, if you previously worked out of the home and you’re no longer leaving for work at 8 a.m. sharp every morning, they’re going to notice that something is up. And even if you worked from home, you’re likely not spending eight straight hours in front of the computer anymore, and they’re going to notice that, too.

But even if you’ve managed to lie away the changes in your schedule, kids are very adept at picking up on the emotional temperature of the room—that is, if you’re stressed out, there’s a good chance they already know you’re stressed out. And if they don’t know why you’re stressed, kids also have a tendency to invent their own scenarios; and in lieu of another explanation, they often assume that they are the underlying cause.

You don’t want to lay your adult burden on their little shoulders but you do want to acknowledge that you’re although you’re going through a difficult time, you have a plan and the family will be okay.

Talk to them with “hopeful realism”

If you have a partner, sit down with them first to discuss how you’ll talk to the kids about your job loss; you’ll need to be on the same page. Also choose a time to talk to the kids when you are feeling calm—not immediately after you receive the news or before you’ve really processed what happened.

They will largely take their cue on how to react by your demeanor, so try to talk to them in a way that is “hopefully realistic,” as psychotherapist Amy Morin writes for Very Well Family:

Your first instinct might be to sugarcoat the situation so it doesn’t sound so bad, but minimizing the seriousness of the situation too much is a mistake.

You don’t want to go overboard with the dramatics. So, find a good middle ground by being hopefully realistic about what the job loss means for your family.

Your tone really is the most important thing here; the actual words you use will depend on your family’s financial situation and your child’s age. If your family is financially secure and you can weather several weeks or months without your income, tell them that. If this means things are tight and some extras they’re used to, like the weekly pizza delivery, need to be paused while you look for a new job, you can tell them that, too. And make sure to point out all the supportive people in your lives, such as their grandparents or other loved ones, who will help, if needed.

Younger, elementary-age kids probably won’t need too many details. You can tell them the reason for the job loss, but keep it simple—the company shut down or they don’t need as many employees now as they did before because they’re not as busy. And they’ll probably want to know how it will directly impact them (will they still be able to attend summer camp?).

Tweens and teens may want to dig a little deeper and better understand the family’s financial picture. Talk about your plans going forward, whether it’s looking for a new job, doing some freelance work or side jobs, or going back to school for a career change. You can’t know that everything will happen according to plan, but it will be comforting for them to know that you’ve got some next steps in the works.

You may also want to talk about how private you want the family to be about the job loss, particularly with kids who are on social media. Just be careful not to imply that there is any shame in your situation; this isn’t a secret, but it may be something you prefer to keep private within the family or within your immediate social circle, and that’s okay.

Allow room for their reactions

Depending on your child’s age or temperament, they may display any number of emotional reactions to your news: indifference, anger, sadness, confusion. And don’t be surprised if their main reaction is about how the job loss may directly affect their lifestyle. As clinical psychologist Wendy Mogel writes for the New York Times, it’s helpful for parents to remember that heartbreak can often sound like entitlement:

You’re likely to hear some version of:

“THIS ISN’T HAPPENING! … No way! Not fair! You promised! … Where am I supposed to go all summer? … WHAT do I tell my friends?”

As challenging as it may be, try to respect your children’s disappointment without defensiveness. Of course the pandemic wasn’t your fault, but your children may lash out at you. Take it as a good sign. It means that they heard you and trust that you are sturdy enough to be able to absorb their feelings.

Give them space to ask questions and answer them as calmly and candidly as you can. And remember that they need time to process this, just like you did. This shouldn’t be a one-time conversation; like all big parenting talks, this is something that you can—and should—discuss from time to time as you check in with how they’re feeling or update them with any new developments.

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Rayshard Brooks was killed a day before he planned to celebrate his daughter’s birthday

Rayshard Brooks was killed a day before he planned to celebrate his daughter’s birthday

Rayshard Brooks was killed a day before he planned to celebrate his daughter’s birthday
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A family holiday, no matter what

A family holiday, no matter what

March 23 is an important holiday to the Zaraysky family: It’s the day Susanna, her sister and her parents left the former Soviet Union for the United States. This past March marked the 40th anniversary of their departure from modern-day Russia, as well as her parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, and the family planned to celebrate.

“Before the lock down, my mom had me call different restaurants to figure out their menus and see if they had a room that could house 35 people,” says Susanna, who today is a content strategist for Google’s Material Design division. “But then, because of COVID-19, the restrictions kept coming.” Soon, Susanna and her family realized a party would be impossible. 

“But we thought, ‘wait, this is a really big deal.’” 

Finding a workaround wouldn’t be easy. Both of Susanna’s parents are hard of hearing, and primarily speak Russian. Susanna’s father is also in a nursing home, which wasn’t allowing visitors in. The family would stand outside, separated by a glass door, which there was little to no chance her father would be able to hear them through. “We knew that we weren’t even going to be able to bring food in and sit with him and eat and visit.” 

A tool that Susanna had demoed at Google I/O last year proved to be the solution. “I had volunteered to work in the accessibility booth, and I did demos of Live Transcribe,” she remembers. Live Transcribe is a free, real-time speech-to-text transcription app for Android that works in more than 80 languages. “If someone had an accent, I would ask what language they spoke and asked them to speak in their native tongue and showed them the transcriptions in their language. It was amazing to see; people’s eyes would open up and their jaws would drop! They would say ‘oh I can use this with my parents and friends.’” After the launch, Susanna began using Live Transcribe with her father. During doctor’s visits,  Live Transcribe allowed her father to read what the doctor was saying in real time, while family members helped clarify important information and ensure caption accuracy.  Her parents had even visited Google’s campus to meet Dimitri Kanevsky, one of the creators of Live Transcribe, who also left the former Soviet Union, and communicated with him in Russian using the app. 

“My parents and Dimitri communicated in Russian using Live Transcribe,” Susanna remembers. “People with disabilities in the former Soviet Union were not given many opportunities to excel. So to see someone like Dimitri, who is deaf, from your origin country create a life-changing, revolutionary technology…I think my parents are really proud that I work for a company that makes technology to help people with disabilities, especially because of my own background.”

Susanna was born with strabismus (crossed eyes) and placed in a Soviet preschool for the developmentally disabled, even though she had no developmental issues. “I know about limitations for the visually impaired first-hand.”

Susanna sees Live Transcribe as an assistive technology that helps everyone, regardless of whether or not they have an impairment. “The curb cut on the sidewalk is just as important to the grandmother in the wheelchair, as it is to the grandson wheeling it,” she explains. “That’s what makes it easier to maneuver the wheelchair across the street.” As more and more people use Live Transcribe, it builds social awareness about how we can, and why we should, integrate assistive tools into modern life. 

This much was obvious for her family this past March. “One of the nurses wheeled my dad in his wheelchair to the glass doors of the nursing home,” she says. Her father wasn’t expecting to see her, or his grandchildren, standing outside. Holding her tablet up to the door, Susanna, her sister and her niece and nephew spoke and Live Transcribe typed out their words in real time in Russian and English on the screen, so her father could read them. They heard his spoken responses through the glass door and most importantly were touched by his smile when he read his granddaughter saying “We miss you and we love you” on the tablet screen. “We could not have ‘spoken’ to my dad in real time without the app,” Susanna says. Her family left food for him, chatted for a bit with the help of the app and took a few photos. While it wasn’t the big party at a nice restaurant they’d originally planned, that moment was a way to recognize a meaningful time for their family. 

Because her mother is high risk, she couldn’t be at the nursing home for the celebration. And now, due to a COVID-19 outbreak at the facility, quarantine procedures are even more strict and the family can no longer visit in person at all. It was a challenge figuring out how to have a virtual call with Russian captions that would have the same simple “glass door” experience, but eventually they found a way using a smartphone and video chat. “We held the tablet by our chest, so he could see us and the text on the screen at the same time,” Susanna says. The phone propped up on the table essentially became their new “glass door.”

Susanna says there’s an “irony” to commemorating her family’s freedom during a quarantine that’s separated them. When they left the Soviet Union, she remembers waving goodbye to her cousin and uncle through the glass doors of the Leningrad Airport. Forty years later, here they were, using assistive technology to feel closer despite the glass between them. “The fact that we used this technology to celebrate our family’s departure from a country that didn’t allow people to communicate…” Susanna says. “For me, there’s a significance beyond communicating with my dad through a glass door.”

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Put a Bulletin Board Under a Puzzle to Make it Easier to Move

Put a Bulletin Board Under a Puzzle to Make it Easier to Move

Illustration for article titled Put a Bulletin Board Under a Puzzle to Make it Easier to Move

Photo: Elizabeh Yuko’s Very Smart Friend

Along with the companies that make hand sanitizer and toilet paper, puzzle manufacturers and sellers have been doing a brisk business lately. With everyone confined to their homes for the past few months, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve had more time for slower-paced activities. If your family has hopped on the puzzle bandwagon and either ordered some new ones or broke out the puzzles hidden in the back of the closet, have we got the tiny hack for you. Here’s what you need to know.

Find a bulletin board

If you don’t have a dedicated table for doing puzzles (which I’m guessing applies to most people), you may struggle with where to put the puzzle while you’re working on it. You don’t just want to leave it on the floor for people to trip over, but if you try to pick it up to move it, there’s a good chance you’ll ruin all the hard work you’ve already put into the project. Sure, you could use your kitchen or dining room table, but you’ll probably need those surfaces for other activities, like eating. So what’s a puzzle-lover to do?

Illustration for article titled Put a Bulletin Board Under a Puzzle to Make it Easier to Move

Photo: Courtesy of Elizabeth Yuko

For easy moving, do your puzzle on top of a bulletin board—that way you can just pick it up and transport it to any spot in the house without breaking it. This tiny hack comes courtesy of a very smart friend of mine who posted a photo on Instagram of her two daughters putting a puzzle together on top of a bulletin board. When a commenter inquired about the method, my friend informed her that it was to make the puzzle easier to move. Genius!

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And this isn’t something she thought up during the pandemic—it’s a technique she’s been using for years. If the kids want to work on the puzzle, she can move it into a corner, so they’re not right in the middle of the room. And if they’re working on it at night, they can put it in front of a light. So many options!

Why a bulletin board?

If you’re wondering what makes a bulletin board so ideal for this use, let us break it down. While you may be familiar with a similar strategy involving doing a puzzle on top of a piece of cardboard, you should know that the bulletin board method is superior. First, if you’ve ever tried doing this with cardboard, you know how slippery that sucker can get. And, if you’re using a deconstructed box, the cardboard may be creased, so the surface isn’t completely flat. The smooth (and potentially uneven) surface may cause the puzzle to slide all over the place (including off the cardboard completely).

Illustration for article titled Put a Bulletin Board Under a Puzzle to Make it Easier to Move

Photo: Courtesy of Elizabeth Yuko

But a bulletin board isn’t quite as smooth as cardboard, making the puzzle pieces stay put. On top of that—and this is key—bulletin boards usually come with some sort of built-in frame. This way, even if your puzzle does slide around a bit, it won’t slide off the board completely (unless you deliberately dump it). The frame also makes it easier to pick the bulletin board up and move it around your home. You’re welcome.

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