In Case You Missed It: Our Best Articles from 2017
The first day of the new year is always a good time for a little nostalgia. Today, we looked back through all of the articles we published in 2017 and collected the best of the best here for your easy

The first day of the new year is always a good time for a little nostalgia. Today, we looked back through all of the articles we published in 2017 and collected the best of the best here for your easy perusal (and so you can at least look like you’re working). From education, to entertainment; from the Blue Whale Game, to coding; from sex, to abortion, we tried to cover the issues our readers and the world grappled with in real time. Here they are below — the best of The Swaddle 2017.
The Swaddle’s best articles of 2017
We busted the myth that birth method affects a baby’s microbiome permanently. (And looked into whether probiotics are good for kids once they get a little older.)
We asked and answered why kids ask so many questions in this exploration of the role of the question in kids’ development. We looked into the difference between growth and fixed mindsets, and explained how to use praise as a tool to build growth mindset in kids. And we broke down teen developmental milestones to understand what might make risky ‘games’ like the Blue Whale Game appealing.
We turned the microscope on ourselves, looking into how parenting is different, for better or worse, in an era when kids must compete with technology for our attention.
We walked on the cutting edge of pedagogy to find out what education might look like in the not-too-distant future. (And figured out, in the meantime, how to spot what’s actually educational amid the sea of digital media for kids.)
We made the case for divorce in India, finding access to easy divorce really is better for society by any number of indicators.
We talked sexual values with the founder of MakeLoveNotPorn.tv; learned what to do when you (inevitably and awkwardly) catch your kid watching porn; answered all your questions about the ins and outs of pregnancy sex; and explored India’s muddled and misleading field of sex therapy.
We looked into what time-out is, what it’s not, and how to introduce it to your kid effectively.
Anwesh Sahoo had some suggestions about what to do if you think your child is gay. And Tanya Vasunya explored what it means to be a supportive parent to an LGBTQ child in a country where gay love is illegal.
We explored the growing relationship between motherhood and wine and asked whether it’s empowering or simply covering up a bigger problem.
Kiran Kumbhar probed India’s desperate need for more abortion providers and called for policies that would enable easier and safer access to abortion. He also looked into the rising C-section rate and called for a more effective approach to curbing it than ‘naming and shaming’ doctors.
We reported on the little-known reading gender gap that leaves boy students behind, looked into whether it’s as essential for kids to learn coding as everyone seems to think, and asked our network of experts whether inclusive education can really benefit all children.
We shook our fists over the fact that damaging gender norms (like the ones that lead to quantifiable differences in the amounts of time men and women spend on housework and child care) are, across the world, ingrained in kids by age 10.
We interviewed music crushes Parekh & Singh about how their childhoods in Kolkata influenced their music and videos. And we introduced The Buzz Cut, our collection of all of the celebrity and/or intellectual gossip shared amongst our team each week.
Finally, we weighed Facebook’s new Messenger for Kids and found it wanting.
Happy new year, readers. We couldn’t do this without you!