Shelby Grad
Shelby Grad uses parenting and family stories as an entry point into bigger questions about California power, culture and everyday life. He is deputy managing editor for news at the Los Angeles Times, overseeing the daily report on all platforms while contributing newsletter coverage that blends reported analysis with long-running knowledge of the state’s civic life. His work stands out for taking subjects such as parenting, commuting or local politics and anchoring them in concrete episodes from California’s recent history rather than in generic advice or trend chatter.
1980s L.A. parents and ‘spoiled kids’
In his examination of 1980s Los Angeles parenting, Grad revisits the panic over “spoiled” children and supposedly neglectful parents in affluent neighborhoods. He uses Bret Easton Ellis’ novel “Less Than Zero” and the way it was received to illustrate how wealthy parents were cast as vain, selfish and so consumed by their own needs that they damaged their children, then asks whether that depiction holds up against the facts. The piece traces how places such as Pacific Palisades became national symbols of rich kids out of control after a series of deaths in the late 1980s and how television programs like “60 Minutes” and “20/20” amplified a narrative of parents who let their teenagers do whatever they wanted.
Grad looks back at the period’s reporting and community response to show that many parents did not simply shrug at risk, but organized youth services and tried to set firmer boundaries, complicating the easy story of monstrous adults and victimized kids. He uses that historical lens on parenting to challenge contemporary impulses toward moral judgment and over-involvement, contrasting 1980s fears about checked-out parents with today’s culture of tiger moms, helicopter parenting and digital monitoring.
The result is parenting coverage that treats mothers and fathers not as caricatures but as participants in broader social and political forces, and that tests familiar tropes against archival detail.
California laws, schools and political power
Grad’s newsletter work frequently situates parenting within the state’s evolving legal and political landscape. In a recent piece on new California laws, he frames fresh statutes as a test of whether the state still sets the national agenda, treating legislation not just as policy minutiae but as signals about what kind of future families are being asked to navigate. Earlier, he helped launch a schools and parenting newsletter aimed at parents and guardians trying to manage the return to campus after the pandemic, describing a mission centered on powerful storytelling, useful guides, vital data and personal stories to explain education and equity debates.
His coverage of the mayor’s race in Los Angeles breaks down the contest into digestible dynamics, with newsletters that promise to explain how the race will end and spell out four key things that could decide it, including questions about candidates like Bass and Raman.
Across these pieces he writes in a direct, conversational style, using rhetorical questions and clear headlines to connect political decisions and campaign maneuvering to everyday concerns such as safety, schooling and the cost of living for families. This emphasis on how laws and leadership affect parents and children distinguishes his approach from parenting coverage that focuses narrowly on household routines or child psychology.
Commutes, cars and the ‘dark side of L.A. law’
Grad also uses his own experience of daily life to probe structural issues that shape family routines.
In a newsletter built around his “horrible” commute, described as an unhinged game of Wordle that lasted three decades, he turns long-term travel across the city into a narrative device for examining how infrastructure and work patterns affect residents. In another piece on the “car of the future” designed for Los Angeles drivers and why it never reached them, he digs into ambitious transportation ideas and the reasons they stalled, a format that links technology dreams and policy decisions to practical realities for parents shuttling kids and juggling jobs.
His exploration of the “dark side of L.A. law” raises questions about who is watching for legal abuses, signaling a concern with oversight, accountability and the systems that can either protect or fail families. This cluster of stories shows a reporter who treats commutes, vehicles and legal institutions as part of the fabric of everyday life, rather than as niche topics, and who uses vivid, personal or consumer-facing hooks to open up deeper conversations about power and responsibility.
From city desk reporter to newsroom leader
Grad’s perspective on parenting and local life is shaped by a long career on the California and Metro side of the Times. He started at the paper as a community stringer and went on to report on county government and urban affairs before moving into editing roles. Over the years he worked on the city desk, overseeing coverage of wildfires, earthquakes, heavy rains, droughts, public corruption and celebrity misbehavior, building a broad view of the ways crises and scandals touch ordinary households.
He later served as city editor for about a decade and launched digital initiatives such as L.A.
Now while taking charge of the California and Metro departments as a senior editor. Teams under his leadership have won Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of the San Bernardino terrorist attack, the Bell corruption scandal and the San Diego wildfires, reflecting an ability to marshal reporters around high-stakes stories with direct implications for communities.
As deputy managing editor for news, he now supervises the daily report, managing desks responsible for breaking news, multiplatform editing and front-page and weekend coverage, yet still carves out space to write newsletters that draw on the same deep reservoir of civic reporting. That dual role - running the news operation while occasionally stepping in as a voicey, historically informed guide to parenting, politics and urban life - is what makes his coverage distinctive on the parenting beat.
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.