Hannah Bruck is the Campaign Director for the Family Success Project at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, where she specializes in family policy research and quantitative assessments of legislative effectiveness in the Texas Legislature. She is passionate about advancing policies that strengthen families and foster thriving communities.
I recently had to explain Apple Pay to my parents. They love it now, but getting there required patience, repetition and a fair amount of starting over. We ended the way those sessions usually end, with them saying: “That’s so easy, I had no idea it was so simple.” The thing is, it was not...
I was a pretty smart kid. Why can’t I figure this social media thing out? It’s 11:45 pm and I’ve been scrolling on my phone for hours. This is not an experience that is unique, and I imagine many of you have the same experience. Despite feeling tired, my mind is racing, stimulated by the...
Recently, I was out with friends and I met a guy. Nothing serious, just a little flirting. He was cute, I’m single, and as I said goodbye, he handed me his phone with a new contact open. I typed in my number. Fifteen minutes later, while I was driving home, he texted. Something vague and...
I live in an increasingly sexless city. We all do. When I sit with that reality, my mind goes to Sex and the City. Not nostalgically, exactly, but instructively. The show debuted in 1998 and spent six seasons refusing to look away from the full spectrum of female experience in romance. Perhaps that’s why it has...
I have been thinking about “Mama Mia.” Not the ABBA songs, but the premise. In the movie musical, the character Donna raised her daughter alone on a Greek island for 20 years. The movie is warm and funny about it. But underneath the charm is a quiet arithmetic: one person carrying the full weight of...
Your type isn’t a person anymore. It’s a product. Timothée Chalamet is a rat boy. That’s why women loved him. “Loved,” because, like many leading men who rise quickly in public attention, his cultural moment has cooled. What’s a rat boy, you may ask? It’s a boy who has angular features, expressive eyes, a certain...
Sometimes I forget how remarkable my mother is. She holds two degrees in different fields, built a successful professional career, and then, by choice, became a homeschool mom to me and my three siblings until we each left for college. Without her attention and dedication, I would not be who I am today. She patiently...
Every night at dinner, my three siblings and I would ask my dad how many students he had yelled at that day. It was a joke—as a high school history teacher, he managed unruly classrooms, but he led with respect and clear expectations. He brought that same presence home. We ate dinner together every night...
I recently learned the story of a 70-year-old woman who had spent her entire life in public housing. She was one of several generations in her family to live entirely in government housing. When someone can spend a lifetime in the same poverty-based system, “compassion” begins to look less like true help and more like...
The mean girls are at it again. The ladies of “The View” reacted this week to a clip of Isabel Brown speaking in favor of marriage and children at the Conservative Political Action Conference. In the clip, Isabel says, “It is these choices, like deleting our dating apps, quitting birth control pills, and saying ‘I...
You should break up with your boyfriend. Not your real, human boyfriend—your AI boyfriend. Recent media coverage and cultural moments have brought renewed attention to how people are forming relationships with artificial intelligence, and how we ought to think about these rapidly developing technologies. A recent Prime Video series, “Scarpetta,” offers a striking fictional example....
Is this the newest form of indoctrination shaping the minds of our kids? Some people say letting children chat with AI is no different than letting them write in a diary. It’s private. It’s reflective. It’s simply a place to sort out thoughts on a page. But a diary doesn’t talk back. In “Harry Potter...