barrel child
n.— «Social worker Ann Peters says those left behind with grandparents or older siblings are profoundly vulnerable to the moral pitfalls of adolescence. They are called “barrel children”—”The parents go abroad and ship back jeans and sneakers and all the bling in barrels,” Peters said. “But the parents are not there for them.”» —“Dancing Against the Beat” by Carol J. Williams in Gouyave, Grenada Los Angeles Times Apr. 10, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Many of us struggled with the Old English poem “Beowulf” in high school. But what if you could actually hear “Beowulf” in the English of today? There’s a new translation by Maria Dahvana Headley that uses contemporary...
It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when people disagreed over the best word to use when answering the phone. Alexander Graham Bell suggested answering with ahoy! but Thomas Edison was partial to hello! A fascinating new book about...