Lois M. Collins
Lois M. Collins is a special projects reporter at Deseret News who covers how policy and research shape family life, with an emphasis on parenting, aging and health. Her work focuses on the points where family experiences meet law, technology, institutions and culture, with recurring attention to who holds responsibility and authority over children. She treats these subjects as in-depth national reporting, grounding stories in research, surveys and expert analysis rather than lifestyle advice.
Family policy and parental authority
Collins covers family policy as it is written into laws, regulations and institutional rules, and how those choices affect parents’ ability to direct their children’s lives.
Her recent work includes an examination of a report that draws lines on parental authority, asking who gets to decide in matters involving children and where boundaries between parents and other decision-makers are set.[anchor] Across her portfolio, she follows the impact of policy decisions on families’ day-to-day autonomy, looking at how research findings translate into rules that can either reinforce or erode parental roles. She often frames these stories with clear problem statements and then walks through data, expert perspectives and real-world examples to show how families experience those policies.
Parenting culture, independence and child safety
A significant part of Collins’ work examines parenting culture, especially the tension between keeping children safe and giving them independence. In a feature on the “free-range kid” movement and a parent once branded “America’s worst mom,” she explores how fearful parenting limits children’s unstructured playtime and autonomous activities, and how balancing safety with autonomy builds resilience and problem-solving skills. She also reports on technology’s role in family life, including coverage of what Meta promises to do to protect children on its platforms and how commitments around online child safety are understood in the broader parenting debate.
Taken together, these stories track how cultural narratives, social media, and corporate policies shape parents’ risk calculations and children’s freedom.
Aging, health and the full family lifecycle
Collins does not restrict family coverage to parents and young children; she reports across the full family lifecycle, including marriage, generations, old age and retirement. Her beat description includes aging and health alongside parenting and family policy, and she treats issues like older adulthood, retirement and intergenerational support as integral parts of family reporting rather than separate specialty topics. This breadth allows her to connect stories about children and teens with those about caregiving for older relatives, health systems, and the ways families adjust over time.
She often uses research and expert commentary to show how health and aging trends ripple through households, influencing everything from financial decisions to emotional dynamics.
In-depth reporting and columns on family issues
Collins works as an in-depth reporter on family issues, combining long-form explanatory pieces, special projects and recurring columns.
Her assignment is described as covering family across children, marriage, generations, parenting, old age, retirement, health and young adults, with coverage that includes policy analysis, personal stories and topics that are “in need of illumination.” She writes primarily on family issues for news and national sections and also contributes a regular column, giving her room both to break down complex developments and to return to themes over time.
In her reporting, she frequently incorporates surveys and other research - including statewide data on teens’ emotional communication with parents - to quantify gaps between how families think they are doing and what children report. Her work is distinguished by the combination of this data-driven approach and narrative storytelling about everyday family life.
4 more parenting journalists.
Abigail Shrier
Abigail Shrier is a journalist, columnist at The Free Press, and bestselling author whose work centers on parenting, family relationships, and the cultural forces shaping childhood. She writes the weekly “Tough Love” advice column, where readers send hard personal and family dilemmas and she focuses on concrete situations and practical choices for parents, partners, and adult children. She also publishes essays and reported features on parenting that examine how institutions and professionals influence everyday family life, including criminalization of ordinary parental decisions and therapeutic advice that leads to “no contact” with parents. Her books “Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up” and “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters” extend her reporting on therapy, gender medicine, and youth. She also covers education, gender, speech, activism, and censorship, approaching these subjects as reported arguments.
Alesandra Dubin
Alesandra Dubin uses parenting to examine how travel, independence, and everyday logistics shape family life. She is a digital travel and lifestyle journalist with more than 15 years’ experience covering parenting, travel, food, events, fashion and beauty, entertainment, home, and viral content for consumer and business outlets. Her work has appeared in Insider, Good Housekeeping, Parents, Esquire, Woman’s Day, Prevention, Glamour, Shondaland, AFAR, and TODAY. Her parenting beat centers on family travel, including flights, camps, hotels, destinations, and the ways parents protect their identity and relationships while caring for children. She also covers practical planning, from room layouts and prices to crowds, tickets, transit, pacing, and family-friendly dining. She reports through candid first-person stories, then draws out clear service advice and emotional insights about care, autonomy, stress, and family dynamics.
Alyson Krueger
Alyson Krueger is a freelance journalist who covers how people live, parent, gather and chase status in contemporary culture through reported narratives anchored in specific communities, events and social scenes. She writes for The New York Times and other publications and has contributed to The New York Times since 2013. Her parenting work centers on fatherhood and family rituals, using observed behavior and everyday routines to show changing family roles. She often reports on urban social life and leisure, including how people socialize and find rest in demanding environments, from city winters to shifting ski seasons. Her business and fashion stories examine the social meaning of wellness practices, marketing with superheroes, playful luxury food and gifting. She also covers major events, weddings and fan culture, paying attention to atmosphere, crowds and what draws people together.
Amie Windsor
Amie Windsor links parenting and everyday family life directly to local policy, community crises and governance decisions. She is the Opinion Editor at The Press Democrat and is described by the masthead as the Community Journalism Team Lead, drawing on nearly a decade in community journalism with sustained coverage of city hall and school boards. She writes opinion columns and reported pieces on parenting under democratic stress, wildfire displacement, transportation planning, law enforcement technology and major energy infrastructure decisions. Her parenting work treats raising children as part of civic life under political instability, showing how structural shifts enter routines, emotional labor and family conversations. Her reporting on biking and walking projects, hybrid police cruisers and dam decommissioning keeps policy and infrastructure grounded in specific projects, residents and public processes, emphasizing civic engagement, community resilience and resident-first coverage.