Riding the Potty Train
There we sat – crisscross applesauce on a cold kitchen floor – surrounded by a sea of Duplo LEGO blocks. One of us didn’t have pants on. The look on her face was a combination of shock and delight. My…
12 Ways to Give Fun, Not Stuff
Ten years ago this month, our Christmas budget officially blew up. Perhaps your family was hit by the same destructive force: The Great Recession. If I close my eyes, I can still feel the throbbing that overtook my frontal lobe…
Raising Voters
When my youngest daughter turned eighteen last month, my mother asked me if I was going to “drag her to the polls” in November. She remembers when I turned eighteen a long time ago and voting was not exactly top of…
Positive Pregnancy Vibes
When you’re pregnant, a very large share of your energy is expended getting ready for the baby: doing nursery things, choosing a pediatrician, lining up childcare, and maybe – if you have the time and resources – taking classes about…
Let’s Talk About Dads
Do you remember the Huggies Dad Test commercial? People complained, and it was yanked after a few weeks because it portrayed fathers as unable to care for their own babies. This spot I’m thinking about showed a group of dads…
5 Tips for Sports Parenting
Having come of age during the Title IX era, I was a proud participant in the early movement that helped transform every field, court, and sandlot into blank slates on which girls could write all their stories of sports glory.…
So Many Camps, So Little Time
“We turned out okay, didn’t we?” is a thing my husband and I have said out loud and fairly often when doing a cost-benefit analysis of a particular experience for one of our kids. The sleep-away camp is a good example.…
It’s ChristmaKwanzUkkah!
Winter break or Christmas vacation – or whatever you call the beautiful block of school-free time during the holiday season – never falls at the perfect time for families. When my children were little, I took full advantage of every…
The Thing About Middle School
Tell me about middle school. As the parent of three kids, who on the surface at least, appear to have made it through middle school relatively unscathed – or at least without any visible scars – I should be able…
What – Me, Worry?
My youngest daughter, who is sixteen, would make art all day if I left her alone but is not in love with reading. Unfortunately, like her mom, she suffers from chronic and recurring 2-page narcolepsy – accompanied by a tendency…
