interesting reading

• Godless parents are doing a better job. Man I hope so.
• America's empty church problem. And even within the white working class, those who don’t regularly attend church are more likely to suffer from divorce, addiction, and financial distress. As Wilcox explains, “Many conservative, Protestant white men who are only nominally attached to a church struggle in today’s world. They have traditional aspirations but often have difficulty holding down a job, getting and staying married, and otherwise forging real and abiding ties in their community. The culture and economy have shifted in ways that have marooned them with traditional aspirations unrealized in their real-world lives.” (Thought I had while reading this: traditionally, women are the ones who do the work of keeping the family together and forging community ties like church and school. If men are unable to stay married, or have never learned how to get along with others in healthy ways, of course those ties are going to come loose. I also detect a huge flavor of entitlement - entitlement to the promise of the "American dream" whereas for immigrants and their children, that dream is mostly aspirational and not guaranteed.)
• You're still fucked under the GOP health plan even if you have insurance through your work.
• Thinx promised a feminist utopia to everyone but its employees. The company’s parental leave policies were also galling, say sources, in light of Thinx’s proudly feminist stance: two weeks leave at full pay plus one week at half pay for the birthing parent, and one week leave at full pay plus one week at half pay for the non-birthing parent. (Side note: loving all the female-oriented spaces doing such awesome journalism lately. Also, this is why people should unionize.)