Parenting right now just feels… different.

We're doing it in the middle of smartphones, social media, and nonstop input. We're thinking about safety, screen time, mental health, cyberbullying… all of it, all at once aaand probably even before 9am.

So this question keeps coming up: is it actually harder to raise kids now, or was it just a different kind of hard back then?

Did previous generations have more freedom because they weren't monitoring devices or even getting pulled into doomscrolling themselves? Or were they carrying a weight we might underestimate? Less support, less language for mental health, less flexibility at work?

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Three Big Conversations:

1. Tweens are grabbing an iced latte to get a hit of belonging. - 7:24
2. Third of Gen Z believe they have "psychic abilities." - 20:10
3. Nearly half of young adults say they'd live in the past if they could. - 33:20

Slang of the Week: "You the birthday." - 1:57

→ Click here to see the video high school in the 90's

→ Click here to listen to our podcast episode Freya India on How to Care for Teen Girls in a Digital Age

In Other News: - 46:14

The Devil Wears Prada 2, which comes out today, is projected to make $180 million on its opening weekend. The original film is a cult classic with younger viewers, and the trailer for this sequel set a record of getting 181 million views within 24 hours. Michael, a movie about pop star Michael Jackson, set its own record for musical biopics with a $97 million opening last weekend. The film, which stars Jackson's nephew, has been criticized for sanitizing parts of the origin story of the one-time King of Pop. Stranger Things: Tales from '85, an animated spinoff series that continues to explore the world of Eleven and Mike in Hawkins, Indiana, is now streaming on Netflix. The music video for Laufey's new single "Madwoman" highlights a lineup of Asian American Gen Alpha favorites, including figure skating gold medalist Alysa Liu, The Summer I Turned Pretty's Lola Tung, and Katseye's Megan Skiendiel. The discontinued iPod has a nostalgic aesthetic and analog-esque appeal, according to several young people interviewed by the New York Times who got the devices second-hand. One summed it up: "I find this modern even though it's really old."

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→ For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

Tweens are grabbing an iced latte to get a hit of belonging, a third of Gen Z believe they have "psychic abilities," and nearly half of young adults say they'd live in the past if they could.

Slang of the Week: "You the birthday."

→Click here to see the video high school in the 90's

→Click here to listen to our podcast episode Freya India on How to Care for Teen Girls in a Digital Age

In Other News:

The Devil Wears Prada 2, which comes out today, is projected to make $180 million on its opening weekend. The original film is a cult classic with younger viewers, and the trailer for this sequel set a record of getting 181 million views within 24 hours. Michael, a movie about pop star Michael Jackson, set its own record for musical biopics with a $97 million opening last weekend. The film, which stars Jackson's nephew, has been criticized for sanitizing parts of the origin story of the one-time King of Pop. Stranger Things: Tales from '85, an animated spinoff series that continues to explore the world of Eleven and Mike in Hawkins, Indiana, is now streaming on Netflix. The music video for Laufey's new single "Madwoman" highlights a lineup of Asian American Gen Alpha favorites, including figure skating gold medalist Alysa Liu, The Summer I Turned Pretty's Lola Tung, and Katseye's Megan Skiendiel. The discontinued iPod has a nostalgic aesthetic and analog-esque appeal, according to several young people interviewed by the New York Times who got the devices second-hand. One summed it up: "I find this modern even though it's really old."

🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect

→ Become a monthly donor today, join the Table.

→ Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel!

→ Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org.

→ For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

Freya is the author of the Substack GIRLS, where she writes about the challenges girls and young women face in the modern world. She's also a staff writer for Jonathan Haidt's newsletter, After Babel. She has contributed to publications including The New Statesman, The Spectator, and The Free Press.

Today, we are going to be discussing her debut book, GIRLS, Generation Z and the commodification of everything, which will be out in the US in May. Her book serves as both an account of her upbringing in the digital age, as well as an inside look for parents and caring adults about what adolescence online is like right now.

🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect

→ Become a monthly donor today, join the Table.

→ Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel!

→ Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org.

→ For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

Three Big Conversations:

1. Teens are birdwatching - 13:12

2. Posting on Snapchat - 26:50

3. Learning to slow down from John Mark Comer - 41:34

Song of the Week: "drop dead" by Olivia Rodrigo - 2:08

→ Click here to read the lyrics (language).

→ Click here to watch The Conversation Starter on Offline Hobbies.

In other news: - 58:36

1. Young people are speedrunning their Bachelor's or Master's degrees, finishing them in as quickly as three months, as less traditional forms of University attendance become more popular.

2. Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is the newest game in Nintendo's oddest series, which plays as a mix between The Sims and Animal Crossing, and its brand of social engineering makes for a lot of internet hilarity.

3. Coachella continued into its second weekend, highlighted by Justin Bieber inviting Billie Eilish on stage, Madonna joining Sabrina Carpenter, and Karol G as the first Latina artist to headline.

4. Some trendspotters are calling rainbow flip-flops the "shoe of the summer," as young people continue to reclaim 90s fashion.

5. The meteoric rise of the band Geese has led some to wonder if there's some conspiracy behind their popularity. To be fair, social media marketing can sometimes feel more CIA than Don Draper, and streaming numbers are often manipulated.

🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect

→ Become a monthly donor today, join the Table.

→ Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel!

→ Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org.

→ For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

Teens are birdwatching, posting on Snapchat, and learning to slow down from John Mark Comer.

Song of the Week: "drop dead" by Olivia Rodrigo

→ Click here to read the lyrics (language).

In other news:

1. Young people are speedrunning their Bachelor's or Master's degrees, finishing them in as quickly as three months, as less traditional forms of University attendance become more popular.

2. Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is the newest game in Nintendo's oddest series, which plays as a mix between The Sims and Animal Crossing, and its brand of social engineering makes for a lot of internet hilarity.

3. Coachella continued into its second weekend, highlighted by Justin Bieber inviting Billie Eilish on stage, Madonna joining Sabrina Carpenter, and Karol G as the first Latina artist to headline.

4. Some trendspotters are calling rainbow flip-flops the "shoe of the summer," as young people continue to reclaim 90s fashion.

5. The meteoric rise of the band Geese has led some to wonder if there's some conspiracy behind their popularity. To be fair, social media marketing can sometimes feel more CIA than Don Draper, and streaming numbers are often manipulated.

🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect

→ Become a monthly donor today, join the Table.

→ Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel!

→ Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org.

→ For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

This week, we're taking a break from the Axis Conversations podcast—including the Roundtable, Ask Axis, and our interview series. We are meeting with members of our Axis community to dream and pray together about this upcoming year and beyond. We appreciate your support, and we're excited to see you back here next Thursday and Friday, when our regular schedule will resume—including the CT Audio Podcast and the Culture Translator Roundtable! See you then! - The Axis Team

🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect

→ Become a monthly donor today, join the Table.

→ Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel!

→ Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org.

→ For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

People are paying to talk to an AI avatar of Jesus, texts from teens make perfect emo songs, and Justin Bieber reminds everyone of why he became a pop star in the first place. But first:

Resource of the Week - Parent Guide to Gen Alpha

Check out our YouTube Episode → What Christians Are Missing About Gen Alpha

In Other News:

In a strange TikTok trend (as opposed to a normal one), young men are seeing how far they can run into Scientology centers for social media clout as they film themselves dodging security and sprinting deep into the buildings of the secretive pseudoreligion. The Drama, starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, is on track to become the fifth A24 title to cross the $100 million mark, according to IMDB. Sunrise on the Reaping, the latest Hunger Games movie installment, just dropped its official trailer. The film will be released on November 20, 2026. Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord, a new Star Wars animated series on Disney+, appears to be resonating with viewers. The show's four episodes have already earned a 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes—better, even, than the finale of the original trilogy, Return of the Jedi. For several of the Artemis II astronauts, outer space was a religious experience. Pilot Victor Glover emphasized how special life on Earth really is in an Easter message sent from the craft, saying, "In all of this emptiness — this is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the universe — you have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist (in) together."

🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect

→ Become a monthly donor today, join the Table.

→ Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel!

→ Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org.

→ For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.