Dating in the digital age

Sexting is riskier than you think: Sending nude pictures and racy texts ups thedanger for teens

Do Houston teens engage in more sexting than their Los Angeles counterparts? A recent study led by Eric Rice of the University of Southern California estimated that one in seven students in LA high schools engage in the technological activity, according to Reuters Health.

Rice feels that the statistic corroborates a study published earlier this summer in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine and led by Dr. Jeff Temple, a psychologist and women's health researcher for the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.

"What they're doing in their offline lives is what they're doing in their online lives."

That local study looked at seven public high schools in southeast Texas, finding that 28 percent of teenagers had texted or emailed nudie pics to other teens.

Seventy-seven percent of the females that sent the racy sexts have had sex, and 82 percent of males engaged in sexting have had sex, but girls in particular were "more likely to engage in risky sex, to have had multiple recent sex partners or to use alcohol and drugs before sex."

Temple estimates that the national picture of teenage sexting falls "somewhere in the middle" of Houston (which surveyed an ethnically-diverse sample) and LA (which looked at primarily Latino subjects).

"Sexting appears to be a reflection or an indication of actual sexual behavior," he told Reuters Health. "What they're doing in their offline lives is what they're doing in their online lives."

income analysis

Texas families need to make this much money for one parent to stay home

Stay at home parents, SmartAsset, income analysis

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

With costs to raise a child soaring over $20,000 a year in Texas, some households might decide to have one parent work while the other stays at home to raise their child.

As the cost of raising a child balloons in major cities like Houston, many families are weighing the choice between paying for child care or having one parent stay home full-time.

A recent analysis from SmartAsset determined the minimum income one parent needs to earn to support their partner staying at home to raise one child in all 50 states. In Texas — not just Houston — that amount is just under $75,000.

The study used the MIT Living Wage Calculator to compare the annual living wages needed for a household with two working adults and one child, and a household with one working adult, a stay-at-home parent, and one child. The study also calculated how much it would cost to raise a child with two working parents based on factors such as "food, housing, childcare, healthcare, transportation, incremental income taxes and other necessities."

A Texas household with one working parent would need to earn $74,734 a year to support a stay-at-home partner and a child, the report found. If two parents worked in the household, necessitating some additional costs like childcare and transportation, it would require an additional $10,504 in annual income to raise their child.

SmartAsset said the cost to raise a child in Texas in a two-working-parent household adds up to $23,587. Raising a child in Houston, however, is somewhat more affordable. A separate SmartAsset study from June 2025 determined it costs $21,868 to raise a child in the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands metro.

In the report's ranking of states with the highest minimum income needed to support a family with one working adult, a stay-at-home parent, and one child, Texas ranked 32nd on the list.

In other states like Massachusetts, where raising a child can cost more than $40,000 a year, the report acknowledges ways families are working to reduce any financial burdens.

"This often includes considerations around who’s going to work in the household, and whether young children will require paid daycare services while parents are occupied," the report said. "With tradeoffs abound, many parents might seek to understand the minimum income needed to keep the family afloat while allowing the other parent to stay home to raise a young child."

The top 10 states with the lowest minimum income threshold to support a three-person family on one income are:

West Virginia – $68,099
Arkansas – $68,141
Mississippi – $70,242
Kentucky – $70,408
North Dakota – $70,949
Oklahoma – $71,718
Ohio – $72,114
South Dakota – $72,218
Alabama – $72,238
Nebraska – $72,966

texas income smartasset family

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