The Top 5: Young in Ukraine, admitting failure, foster care kids in psychiatric hospitals, Gen Z critiques 9-5 work structures
Plus, catch up on Wear We Are
Welcome to the latest edition of the Top 5 articles we’ve read this week. Each week, we read dozens of articles in the hope we find essays and reporting that speak to big ideas, trends, future looks, and incredible human stories. We hope you enjoy our list, and do always let us know if you have a suggestion or a recommendation!
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The Top 5 articles for your week:
“What It’s Like to Be Young in Ukraine Now” (NYT)
Because this is poignant photo essay from Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Laetitia Vancon details what it’s like to come of age in Ukraine right now. “Young people on the brink of adulthood now bear its costs instead. It hangs like a shadow over their homes and their work, their relationships and their passions.”
“Inside the Psychiatric Hospitals Where Foster Kids Are a ‘Gold Mine’” (Mother Jones)
Because Julia Lurie investigates a troubling connection: “A yearlong Mother Jones investigation shows that thousands of foster kids have been admitted in recent years to UHS’s psychiatric facilities, where they typically stay for weeks or months, sometimes leaving far worse off than when they arrived. Foster children provide a lucrative patient base for the same reasons they’re so vulnerable: There’s rarely an adult on the outside clamoring to get them out, and often, they don’t have anywhere else to go…Over time, a symbiotic relationship has developed between overburdened child welfare agencies, which have too many kids in custody and not enough places to put them, and large, for-profit companies like UHS, with beds to fill and profits to make, says Ronald Davidson, a psychologist and the former director of the Mental Health Policy Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago.”
“Learning from Failure” (Substack
)Because John Inazu examines how we don’t openly discuss failure: “Speaking with the medical professionals at Mayo, I was struck by how countercultural it is in medicine—or law—to highlight failures. Professionals in both settings would much rather project strength and competence than admit that most people, even highly successful people, encounter their share of failures. But this tendency is shortsighted for at least two reasons. First, younger professionals are inculcated into a world that hides or downplays failure rather than one that normalizes it. Second, as most successful professionals will tell you, there is a lot that can be learned from past mistakes.”
“The Tik-Tok Girl is Right: Modernity and the 9-5” (Substack
)Because Kyla Scanlon (originator of the term “vibecession”) has written another highly informative, entertaining post about a viral social media post from a young woman who details how she is disappointed in the structure of her work life as someone new to her career. Many have derided her TikTok video, but Scanlon examines the kernels of truth in the viral video.
“Millions work as content creators. In official records, they barely exist.” (WaPo)
Because Drew Harwell and Taylor Lorenz find that “the U.S. government still has no laws regulating how creators earn a living or flex their power. Without real oversight, the creator economy has ensnared the nation’s attention without a broad understanding of its effects on American society.”
ICYMI on Wear We Are
Episode 85: New Speaker, Mike Pence’s run, and what’s the problem with public polling?
The Morning Five: October 24, 2023