To be honest, trends are a dime a dozen as I’ve encountered in my scenario planning work. Translating them into something that the rest of the organisation takes seriously — now that’s something I want to read!

With the gap between the rich and everyone else widening, the struggles of public schools, the cost of private schools, and the low pay of teachers in both; a motivated, wealthy family might find it a bargain to hire a real-honest-to-God teacher for their two or three kids. Think about it, you could easily pay 60K for say, three private school tuitions, or you could pay a teacher 45K and give them the luxury of a teeny classload. It is very nineteenth century, like when Laurie gets tutored at home in Little Women.

Plus, mom still goes to work, and if she is paid well enough, it is a bargain. A much better deal than the situation often highlighted by the New York Times of women leaving highly paid jobs to sit at home and take care of the kids.

I share your concern about the absence of “higher ground,” higher order reflection on the deeper meaning of microtrends. Grand unified theories are illusive and I’m not advocating a search for a Grail. But somewhere between individual data points and single-symbol meaning-systems lies a structural understanding that helps make SOME sense of things; at least, a “rolling sense,” a kind of “theory for now” way of looking at unique moments with context. Otherwise, the booming buzzing confusion of the NOW can only be chronicled and cataloged. Your notion of the “reformation” of fundamental personal identifiers seems a reasonable working model for looking at microtrends. I haven’t read the book so I’m unsure what Penn and Zalesne propose in the way of meaning-development. Sounds like another one to add to the reading list.