Throwback Thursday: Congratulations to Our Sister Mag beijingkids, Celebrating a Decade in the Biz!
Throwback Thursday takes a look back into Beijing's past, using our nine-year-strong blog archives as the source for a glance at the weird and wonderful of yesteryear.
We’d like to take this Throwback Thursday opportunity to do something a little different, and instead of highlighting the often weird and ever-so-slightly tweaked nature of Beijing, we’ll congratulate the ongoing existence of something more grounded and wholesome. Yes, that’s right folks, this month marks the 10th year running for our sister magazine beijingkids, a go-to for expat families in Beijing who may have slowed down a little from their days of fake booze, which in turn may be the reason why they popped out a kid in the first place.
Since its first issue in March 2007, beijingkids has striven to provide information to the capital’s parents about education, events, and good health practices for them and their children, something that we know is difficult enough for adults in this lovely (but dirty) smog hole.
More recently, the beijingkids website underwent a major facelift last July and now publishes three articles a day about raising kids in Beijing. While most of the the Beijinger's readers don't have kids, you should occasionally pop over because they also often have great recipes and travel guides for all ages via their blog.
Having built such a loyal following over the years and honed its voice as a respected and informed publication among Beijing’s expat families, beijingkids went out on a limb for their most recent issue and tackled a topic that unfortunately still remains a dark spot in teaching both at home and in schools; that of sex education, child abuse, sexual harassment, and cyber bullying.
Talking to Vanessa Jencks, managing editor of beijingkids, she had this to say about how their February issue was received among parents: “This year we’re most proud of our sex education issue. The feedback that we got from it was really great and it was the first issue where we covered this topic for both beijingkids and Jingkids (our Chinese language family magazine) and so this was a huge project for us – it was really bold for me and really bold for the brand. We’re really thankful to have shared with so many parents and educators the importance of this topic.”
“The divisiveness of the subject only really existed before the issue was published – when I would approach the issue with people, a few of them would snicker and say, “we don’t want anything to do with that.” But I think by explaining the importance of the issue with a story of my own, and explaining as a parent why it is so important to me, we haven’t received any negative feedback whatsoever, which is groundbreaking for us.”
In here editor’s note for the same edition, Jencks states, “I’m sure any parents can understand my current fears of something like this [sexual abuse] happening to my own children, but it’s not just my own children that I want to protect. Every child and teen deserves proper protection and advocacy from their parents and schools. Therefore, this issue is meant to educate and help parents, teachers, and administrators do just that.”
It’s by tackling serious topics like these that beijingkids has established itself as a necessary English language publication for our community and we here at the Beijinger wish it another brilliant 10 years.
Now if only they’d keep the noise down in the office and stop looking like they’re having so much fun.
More stories by this author here.
Email: tomarnstein@thebeijinger.com
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Image: beijingkids
