Because sometimes being a parent means doing what’s hard.
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 4th, 2012
A long time ago (let’s call it 1984 for sake of argument, because that’s when it was), when high school students received college acceptances or rejections in the mail (you know, with envelopes and stuff) exclusively, I got an acceptance to the school I really, really wanted to attend. When I’d first applied, I hadn’t [...]
Posted in family life, parenting research, play, summer on Jul 21st, 2011
Last summer, we met our friends Sally and Mike and their kids in a nearby harbor town to let the kids play on a playground, walk around a bit, and get some dinner. Typical late-weekend-afternoon-in-the-summer stuff here on Long Island’s bucolic North Shore. I’d been to this town many times before, but not with my [...]
Posted in education, learning, mom bloggers, school on May 23rd, 2011
A long while ago, I wrote a post about how much more involved parents of my generation are in our kids’ schooling and schools than my parents — well meaning as they were — ever were in mine. As my kids have progressed through more school since then, it’s naturally remained on my mind. Just [...]
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, discipline, other parents, parenting, school on Oct 14th, 2010
So I was just reading this article in the Sunday NY Times this morning, by Pamela Paul, about the phenomenon of bullying drifting down into younger and younger ages. Like kindergarten. Of course, bullying is a huge topic right now, given the rise in attention paid to the tragic stories of bullying leading to suicide [...]
Posted in bullying, family life, Mean Mom's Question Time, parenting, school on Oct 4th, 2010
The story about the young man at Rutgers University who, after he found that a video of him having sex with a male partner had been live-streamed on the Internet, committed suicide, has me heartsick. I’m sick for him, for his family, for all the other teens unsure of how they fit in a world [...]
Posted in kids & snacks, kids and food on Jan 21st, 2010
There’s nothing like being validated, is there? Especially, I have to say, by the New York Times. Just yesterday, a friend of mine sent me a link to a story in the Times about — wait for it — how kids today snack too much. Yeah, been there, said that. The writer, Jennifer Steinhauer, herself [...]
Posted in discipline, family life on Nov 24th, 2009
Did anyone see this article in the New York Times’ Style section the other day? It’s by Alex Williams, it’s titled Becoming the Alpha Dog in Your Own Home, and woo, boy did I get a good laugh over it. In a good way, I assure you! The story is about how some parents today [...]
Have you read this article in the New York Times yet? It’s by writer and psychologist Alison Gopnik, and it’s gotten a bunch of media play in the last few days, because it’s about something supposedly revolutionary: Babies, Gopnik asserts, are quite a bit smarter than we think. I’m pretty sure I knew that already. [...]
Posted in family finances, mothers and work on Jun 1st, 2009
Last year, I wrote an article for American Baby magazine called “Can You Afford to Quit?” It’s a perennial subject for parenting magazines — how-to advice for making a smooth work-to-home transition. I remember when I got the assignment. On the phone, my editor and I batted around the details of what to include, and [...]
