Because sometimes being a parent means doing what’s hard.
Posted in family life, guest posts, mom bloggers on Apr 20th, 2011
I first “met” writer and mom Meagan Francis on an online forum for writers. She was awaiting the overdue delivery of her fourth son. Since then, we’ve become friends on- and off-board, and have met in person at more than one writer’s conference (which tend to include margaritas at some point in the weekend, which [...]
Posted in family life, modern families, Moms on moms, parenting on Apr 15th, 2011
I’m going to be honest here: I haven’t been having the greatest time lately, as a parent. As a friend of mine has said more than once (and she may have borrowed it from someone else): Parenting isn’t for sissies. My boys are going through tough stages. I don’t know what it is, exactly, but [...]
Posted in family life, humor, kids and sports, modern families on Mar 31st, 2011
My sons don’t do a lot. That is, they don’t do a lot of extra-curricular activities, at least not by today’s standards. Both boys play soccer (using the word “play” loosely here; James may end up being more instinctively athletic, but rest assured no one in this house is going to college on a sports [...]
Posted in discipline, family life, Mean Mom's Question Time on Mar 17th, 2011
This morning, I got to talking to a woman at my gym. Normally, I don’t talk much at the gym (too focused on getting in, working out, and getting out!), but as it happens we were hanging around waiting for a Zumba instructor who never showed up! (Grrr… does she not know that I only [...]
Posted in family finances, family life, guest posts, shopping on Feb 25th, 2011
I hate clutter. I’m constantly weeding through boxes and bins of toys (not that we have many) and throwing out broken parts, mismatched bits, and goodie-bag swag. I keep our crap to a minimum (and I’m grateful that I have family, on both sides, who don’t overwhelm my boys with gifts). Usually when I have [...]
Posted in discipline, family life, modern families, Moms on moms, other parents, parenting on Jan 28th, 2011
Since I wrote my post last week on The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, the parenting memoir by Yale University Law professor and writer Amy Chua, it’s gotten even more press — good, bad, backpedaling, explaining. I’ve read a lot of it, not all of it — but I did read the book, as [...]
Posted in bad parents in fiction, discipline, family life, humor, modern families on Jan 7th, 2011
You know what’s funny? It’s not most sitcoms (ba-da-bum!). What’s funny is that after the last time I wrote about the CBS TV sitcom “The Middle,” my friend Sally wrote to agree with me, and also to wonder how it was that I even managed to sit down for an 8pm show. Sally and I [...]
Posted in bullying, discipline, family life, humor, modern families, other parents, parenting, TV Moms (and Dads) on Dec 23rd, 2010
I’ve now been writing Confessions since May of 2009, when I tapped out my first post, The Birth of a Mean Mom. In reading over random past posts this morning, I felt the urge to re-read a couple of favorites, just to see if I still agree with myself (for those of you who are [...]
Posted in babies, exercise, family life, kids and sports on Dec 2nd, 2010
I never have to wait around for very long, or dig very deep, to find something to be either baffled or outraged about when it comes to modern parenting. Yesterday’s crazy-making dose came in the form of a New York Times article about sports for babies. Yes, I meant to write “babies.” The article opens [...]
Posted in bullying, family life, modern families, other parents, TV Moms (and Dads), Uncategorized on Nov 18th, 2010
So, I was going to write about homework this week, but that will have to wait, because an extraordinary thing happened last night, sometime between 8:00pm and 8:30pm, while I was watching the ABC-TV sitcom, “The Middle.” I say extraordinary because this involved a TV dad, who was not Bill Cosby or Bill Bixby (is [...]
