No longer is it so important that you learned to cook a new meal every week for a year, but now the focus turns to how many thousands of families you touched by creating healthy cooking videos that were then posted on YouTube and viewed by moms who were previously hardcore fast foodies.

FORBES: Why Bucket Lists Are So Last Year

Figuring out how to do the laundry, cook a basic meal or even wait for a handyman "are not crippling responsibilities" but rather "minor life skills" that can prove useful if the housekeeper cancels.

WSJ: Forget the Old College Try, Ring the Concierge

Eventually a harried housewife or a busy executive will be able to order a ready-to-eat or ready-to-cook gourmet meal for delivery by dinner time (see box).

FORBES: The Anti-Wal-Mart

There was room for only one chair, perhaps to discourage the cook from sitting down with the cook next door for a conversation, and no room at all for a table where she could have a meal.

NEWYORKER: A Fork of One��s Own