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✅ Today's Checklist:
The screen time mistake that isn't your fault Why your health shouldn't be something you have to earn Recipe of the week: Sheet Pan Steak Gyros with Feta Tzatziki Sauce
🤔 Trivia: What long running sitcom follows employees working at a Pennsylvania paper company? Find out.
👀 See all of the April 2026 Wellness Wednesday Trivias.
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The Screen Time Parenting Mistake That Isn’t Your Fault
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We've all done it.
You've had back-to-back meetings since 8am. Your kids are revved up. Dinner isn't made. And you hand over the iPad just to get a moment to breathe.
It works. Until it doesn't.
The same woman who manages a team of twelve, navigates executive politics, and holds everything together at work comes home and finds herself completely outmaneuvered by an 8-year-old and an algorithm.
That's product design doing exactly what it was built to do. It's a system failure, not a parenting failure.
I recently spoke on a panel at the Boston Globe Working Mothers Summit about this: what interactive screens are actually doing to kids' developing brains, why the usual parenting strategies don't work, and what does.
One thing I said at the summit that I want every working mom to hear:
Nobody has more access to your kids than you. You don't have to wait for big tech to change, or for government policy to catch up. You are more powerful than you think.
It starts with something simpler than you'd expect.
Tonight, when you walk in the door, find a parking spot for your phone. Set it down. Be fully present with your kids.
What we do speaks louder than what we say. When you put your phone down, you're showing them that tech is something they pick up and put down on their own terms.
That's the shift. In this panel discussion, we talk about how to make this change, including what to do when you genuinely need the screen as a babysitter, because sometimes you do, and that can be okay too.
On May 12 and 13, I'm hosting a free two-day virtual summit, Parenting in the Digital Age, with five other expert moms who have spent decades on the front lines of this issue: a family physician, an adolescent therapist, a former social media executive, and two of the country's top tech-safety experts.
We're going to show you exactly what's happening to your child as a result of interactive screen time, and what actually works to repair the damage and reclaim your family.
It's free. It streams online. You can watch between meetings, during lunch, listen on your drive home, or after the kids are in bed.
Register here.
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Dr. Carrie Mackensen is a clinical psychologist with 25 years of experience working with children and families, and the author of the forthcoming book Digitally Dysregulated. She is also a working mom of two boys.
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The Graduation Gift That Won't End Up in a Drawer
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You've sat through enough gift openings to know the difference between "oh wow, thank you" and oh wow, thank you. Most graduation gifts are thoughtful in theory and forgotten by July. The picture frame. The monogrammed journal. The thing that was perfect for who they were, not who they're becoming.
Apple Gift Card lets them decide what they actually need once real life starts:
Apps for the new job Music for the new commute iCloud storage for a phone full of graduation photos Apple TV for the first night in a new apartment Subscriptions like Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple Fitness+, and even third-party subscriptions Products and accessories whenever they're ready
It works for right now and six months from now.
Available from $15 to $200 in physical and digital formats.
👉 Click here to find the perfect graduation gift.
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Your Healthcare Shouldn't Be a Right You Have to Earn
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In honor of World Health Month, I wanted to write something relevant. But to be honest, I didn't even know what World Health Month was actually celebrating or advocating for.
Turns out, it's the global observance of health as a human right. A reminder that from healthcare professionals to policymakers, to individuals and families, we all have a role to play in our personal health and the well-being of those around us. The World Health Organization uses this day to release its annual World Health Statistics Report, covering everything from newborn and child health to environmental risks, and tracking the progress of universal health coverage, which remains the WHO's number one goal.
I'm going to stand on a soapbox for a second, because I'm lucky enough to have a platform and a voice, and I think I have a responsibility to use it.
Regardless of your political affiliation, access to healthcare should be a human right.
Offering anything less is truly inhumane. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, clearly states that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for their health and well-being, including medical care. That's a 77-year-old promise we still haven't kept.
Something is ROYALLY broken. I don't have to convince you of that. But here's what the numbers say: the US spends more per capita on healthcare than any other nation, yet preventable deaths continue to rise and life expectancy has declined. Meanwhile, the WHO estimates healthcare costs push about 100 million people into extreme poverty each year through out-of-pocket spending alone.
As a woman, the inequities are even harder to stomach. It's absurd how much money we pay to give birth. It's insane that "women's wellness exams" barely became mandatory coverage. It's wild that if you get cancer and can't work, you could lose your house to pay medical bills. It's maddening that employers have been legally permitted to refuse coverage for reproductive health based on their own religious beliefs. A human right cannot be conditional on someone else's beliefs.
The consequences of our broken system don't stop at doctor's offices. More than 85% of homelessness in the US is triggered by prior crises, including medical debt. A 2024 Johns Hopkins study found that adults carrying medical debt were significantly more likely to face eviction or foreclosure the following year. KFF research found that medical debt tanks credit scores so badly that people are literally locked out of housing. One respondent said plainly: "I became homeless because my debt has hurt my credit score." In 2024, over 38 million Americans, including children and the elderly, were uninsured. These are our neighbors.
My aim isn't to convince you we have a problem. My aim is to convince you to vote for policies and candidates in upcoming elections that support universal healthcare.
Wouldn't it be great if we had a medical system that was easy to navigate? Wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to choose between paying rent and filling a prescription? Wouldn't it be great if non-profits didn't have to carry the weight of our struggling citizens? Wouldn't it be great if healthcare providers weren't strangled by the complexities of a system designed around profit instead of people? Wouldn't it be great if we actually had control over our own healthcare decisions, and could afford them?
As of late 2024, 62% of Americans, the highest in over a decade, say it's the government's responsibility to ensure everyone has coverage. The majority is already with us.
Your health is a human right. You deserve to live in a country that treats it that way. Please consider voting like your life depends on it, because for millions of us, it does.
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The First Probiotic I've Been Excited to Reorder
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I'd been reading about Seed for weeks before I finally ordered. The timing was almost too good: it landed on my doorstep right after I shook the last capsule out of my old probiotic.
Most probiotics don't actually survive the trip from your mouth to your colon. Stomach acid breaks down the strains before they reach the part of your gut that does the work. The bottle ends up at the back of the cabinet, and nothing changes.
Seed's ViaCap delivery is a capsule-inside-a-capsule design that protects the strains until they reach your colon alive. Paired with the prebiotic baked into the same capsule (the food those bacteria need to thrive), it's actually doing the work most probiotics promise.
A few details that sealed it for me:
Refillable glass jar — compostable refill pouches after the first order, way less plastic. Travel vial that holds about a week's worth of capsules. Designed by gastroenterologists, validated in the largest probiotic clinical trial on bloating and gas, and clinically shown to support regularity, boost gut barrier strength by 22%, and increase Lactobacillus levels 17-fold within weeks.
👉 Read more about DS-01® and see if it's worth a switch.
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Stuff We’re Loving This Week
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Here’s how to update your preferences in just a few quick steps:
Click the link below and on the “Update Your Preferences” page, click the “Email me a link” button. Open the email with the subject line “The Assist Subscribers: Update Profile” and click the link inside. Choose the weekly email newsletters you’d like to receive from us (Tues, Wed, Thurs, Sat). Click “Update Preferences” to save your changes—and you’re all set!
👉 Update my subscriber preferences here.
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