The Morning: Bring the kids along

How families travel now.

I'm turning over today's newsletter to my colleague Amy Virshup, The Times's travel editor, to look at how vacation habits are shifting now. See you next Saturday. — Melissa Kirsch

By Amy Virshup

Good morning. We take our children on vacation to expose them to history, novelty and beauty.

María Jesús Contreras

Hit the road

When I was a child, we rarely went on big family trips.

Part of that is generational. I was born in the '60s, when the lives of children and their parents were more separate. Air travel was still special and, in my family, reserved for the adults. But there was something innate, too. I think some people are wanderers, and others are not. We had a vacation house in the same state as our "real" house, and when vacation time rolled around, that's where we went.

In my own life as a parent, I've leaned hard the opposite way. I have a photograph of my son at 2½, peering into a fancy bathtub at a hotel in Paris. Before he was 10 he'd traveled to China. I didn't take an international flight until my junior year of college.

The pandemic put our journeys on hold for a while; our 2020 trip to Japan is now planned for later this year. But it seems as if everyone is on the move and families aren't leaving anyone home with the babysitter. Hotels are ditching "no children" rules. Generations are heading off together, often with grandparents and grandkids sharing their own adventure and leaving parents out of it. That kind of shift in how we vacation inspired me and my colleagues on The Times's travel desk to put together a special package published this week on family travel.

Why take the kids along? I think that those of us who do hope our children will be more curious, more tolerant and better able to negotiate the world. We take our children to museums, hoping our love of culture will rub off; we explore the natural world, hoping to get them to look up and experience the earth's beauty; we mix in some history with the child-centric activities to help them understand the tides that continue to carry us along.

On that trip to France when my son was little, we went to Giverny to see Monet's house and dragged him through the Louvre in a stroller. We also rented a farmhouse in the south of France that was surrounded by vineyards. One morning, a big blue grape-harvesting machine arrived, driving through the rows of vines and pulling the ripe grapes into its maw. My son was enthralled. For him, it was the highlight of the trip.

And who is to say he was wrong?

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THE WEEK IN CULTURE

A scene from "Yellowjackets."Kailey Schwerman/Showtime.
  • "Yellowjackets," whose second season started this past week, presents one of the most sensitive portraits of women on television, Lydia Kiesling writes in The Times Magazine.
  • The creators of "Yellowjackets" said they didn't set out to merely tease the show's most macabre elements.
  • Walter Cole, otherwise known as Darcelle XV, who dazzled as the world's oldest drag performer, died at 92.
  • A Mexican grandmother has become one of the most-watched cooks online.
  • Millions of people in China have lost access to video games like World of Warcraft because of a failed deal between executives at the companies NetEase and Activision Blizzard.
  • The movie "Measures of Men" tells the story of a different German genocide, in what is now Namibia.
  • Adam Sandler has grown up into a more nuanced comedy performer in "Murder Mystery," our critic writes.
  • At 95, the artist Lois Dodd is getting her largest museum show yet at the newly expanded Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Conn.
  • D.M. Thomas, an English novelist who wrote the surprise best seller "The White Hotel," died at 88.
  • Kieran Culkin, a star of the HBO show "Succession," spoke to Esquire about his brother's fame, playing Roman Roy and more.
  • Fashion labels like Burberry revealed new logos.

THE LATEST NEWS

Supporters of Donald Trump outside his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida.Josh Ritchie for The New York Times
  • Donald Trump prepared to surrender in Manhattan next week in the first indictment in the U.S. of a former president, and the police there braced for protests.
  • The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, resurrected the Trump case by converting a skeptic in his office and adding a veteran lawyer to lead the inquiry.
  • Trump's Republican rivals shied away from attacking him.
  • Some previous Trump voters said it was time to move on in seeking a 2024 presidential nominee.
  • A deadly storm system spawned tornadoes throughout the U.S., causing destruction from Wisconsin to Texas. At least six people were killed.
  • Russian troops captured criminals as they withdrew from a Ukrainian city and took some of them on an odyssey through five prisons and five countries.

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CULTURE CALENDAR

🍿 "Tetris" (out now) and "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" (Friday): Just a few weeks past the season finale of HBO's hit series "The Last of Us" and we're crashing into two consecutive weekends of '80s video game adaptations — Apple TV+'s "Tetris" and the highly anticipated big-screen animated version of "It's a me, Mario!" Maybe the industry is finally realizing that because games are many things, their adaptations can be anything (a zombie post-apocalypse series, a Cold War dramedy, a silly family film).

📚 "Finding Me" (Tuesday): This year, Viola Davis became one of the rare artists to notch an EGOT, having won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. She joined the club by winning a Grammy for narrating her best-selling memoir. You can get that audiobook or wait for the paperback, out this week.

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RECIPE OF THE WEEK

Sang An for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Prop Stylist: Paige Hicks.

Huevos Rancheros

I'm a strong advocate of eggs for dinner, especially when they are paired with rich beans and zesty sauce, as they are in classic huevos rancheros. But of course you could make Kay Chun's majorly flavorful version of the dish any time of day, and with remarkable ease.

REAL ESTATE

Dana Gibson, 50, owns a home in Memphis.Whitten Sabbatini for The New York Times

A starter home for retirement: First-time home buyers in the U.S. have never been older.

Peoria, Ill.: A TikToker brought hundreds of transplants to a Midwestern city.

What you get for $2 million: A Tudor Revival house in Seattle; a 2021 home in Santa Fe, N.M.; or a circa 1750 Colonial in Concord, Mass.

The hunt: She wanted a studio in east Manhattan for $600,000. Which home did she choose? Play our game.

Window shopping: The interior décor store KRB in Manhattan is part shop and part workshop for experiments in blending objects of varying quality and provenance.

LIVING

The Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve in California.Stella Kalinina for The New York Times

Super bloom: 10 places to see flowers in the West right now.

Dating: Seeking romance? Try moving abroad.

Avoid the scale: Three ways to find out how fit you are.

Run better: Use your diaphragm to breathe.

Shoulder pads: A resurgence is coming.

ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER

Elevate the Easter basket

Easter morning is just a week away, and if you're gathering goodies for the kids, Wirecutter has ideas. There's candy, of course; we're partial to Cadbury Mini Eggs, Jelly Bellies and seasonal treats from See's. Simple springtime toys like bubbles, sidewalk chalk and jump ropes are classic. We also like anchoring a basket with a special book, stuffed animal or toy — a sweet Folkmanis hand puppet and a white Lego rabbit are new favorites. Searching for a basket? Instead of a junky version that'll end up in the landfill, a cute canvas tote or an inexpensive plastic beach bucket can sub in nicely. — Kalee Thompson

GAME OF THE WEEKEND

Caitlin Clark led Iowa to victory over South Carolina.Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press

Women's N.C.A.A. basketball championship: Iowa upset South Carolina last night, 77-73, ending the Gamecocks' perfect season behind yet another remarkable game from Caitlin Clark, who had 41 points. The Hawkeyes will play Louisiana State, which beat Virginia Tech. The Tigers have made a major turnaround in just two years under Coach Kim Mulkey. It helps to have Angel Reese, a star forward, whose 33 double-doubles this season tied an N.C.A.A. record. 3:30 p.m. Eastern tomorrow on ABC.

NOW TIME TO PLAY

The pangram from yesterday's Spelling Bee was braying. Here is today's puzzle.

Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week's headlines.

Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times.

The Morning Newsletter Logo

Editor: David Leonhardt

Deputy Editor: Amy Fiscus

News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti

News Staff: Lauren Jackson, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu

News Assistant: Lauren Hard

Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch

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