The stress of shared calendars in modern parenting episode artwork

EPISODE · Nov 7, 2025 · 21 MIN

The stress of shared calendars in modern parenting

from The Decibel · host The Globe and Mail

Parents are increasingly relying on elaborate calendar systems to keep track of their families’ activities – from a shared calendar or paper planner to high-end devices that can create a calendar for you by scraping data from your emails. Some parents say it helps them better involve their teen children in scheduling their lives; for others, they feel themselves becoming beholden to their calendars – a draconian digital personal assistant.Zosia Bielski is The Globe’s time use reporter. She joins us to talk about how families are using technology to try to ease the mental load, and what these ever-evolving calendar systems reveal to us about how we value our time.Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [email protected] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Parents are increasingly relying on elaborate calendar systems to keep track of their families’ activities – from a shared calendar or paper planner to high-end devices that can create a calendar for you by scraping data from your emails. Some parents say it helps them better involve their teen children in scheduling their lives; for others, they feel themselves becoming beholden to their calendars – a draconian digital personal assistant. Zosia Bielski is The Globe’s time use reporter. She joins us to talk about how families are using technology to try to ease the mental load, and what these ever-evolving calendar systems reveal to us about how we value our time.

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The stress of shared calendars in modern parenting

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How long is this episode of The Decibel?

This episode is 21 minutes long.

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This episode was published on November 7, 2025.

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Parents are increasingly relying on elaborate calendar systems to keep track of their families’ activities – from a shared calendar or paper planner to high-end devices that can create a calendar for you by scraping data from your emails. Some...

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