This weekend, I called my sister to rehash my love life.
Suddenly I could hear her turning to a small child in the background. “Do you want to tell Aunt Jessie the big news?” she asked. “No!” My five-year-old niece M. replied.
“Tell me, what’s the big news?” I asked my sister, wondering what constitutes “big news” in kindergarten.
“M. lost her first tooth!” my sister said. “The tooth fairy left five dollars last night.”
“FIVE DOLLARS?!?!” I shouted into the phone. Keep reading »
With Father’s Day coming up, we’ve been thinking about father figures. We learned a lot from our biological dads (both good and bad), but there were also other fatherly influences in our lives who provided us with guidance, advice, and helped us understand what it means to be a dad. After the jump, check out the men who have shaped our lives (from brothers to therapists to a certain “Star Trek” captain), and please tell us a bit about your own father figures in the comment section! Keep reading »
Many moons ago, when I went to summer camp, getting ready for the excursion meant a trip to Marshall’s for a new swimsuit. If the New York Times Style section is to be believed (which I am not saying it is: honestly, sometimes this shit is unbelievable) some tweens and teens prep for camp more glamorously: Girls are supposedly waxing their legs, armpits and bikini lines, getting keratin treatments, and even pre-summer camp facials. Keep reading »
It took months of begging, pleading, bribing, and promises to convince my parents to get me my first guinea pig. We lived on a 38-acre farm with dogs, cats, and chickens, but I yearned for a pet of my very own, a pet who would entertain me and understand me, a pet who would impress my friends and make me popular at school. A guinea pig seemed like the obvious choice. When my mom finally drove my brother and I to the pet store a couple towns over, I chose a white-haired girl and named her Snowflake. My brother chose a black-haired boy. He named him Blackie.
When we got home, we carefully placed our pets in their new cage and they started squeaking excitedly. Suddenly my dad appeared in the doorway, eyes locked on the two fur balls. “Look, Dad!” we said. “This is Snowflake, and this is…”
“Guinea pigs,” he muttered. “I hate guinea pigs.” And then, like a bad omen in a horror movie, he disappeared.
Once upon a time, there was girl who went to a tattoo shop with her mom … nope, from page one, this isn’t your typical picture book. Mommy’s New Tattoo: A Bedtime Story For People, by Levi Greenacres, is based on the author’s true story of growing up with a parent who has ink and then deciding, as a grownup, whether to get a tat too. Three tattoo artists from the Pacific Northwest are even featured in the book. Whether you’re trying to explain your own tattoo to a child in your life, or just looking for some quirky bedtime reading, think ink! [$15, BuyOlympia.com]
As if the “mommy wars” need even more ammunition to make women feel bad about themselves: a new Gallup poll found that stay-at-home-moms were more likely to be unhappy than working mothers.
Gallup surveyed nearly 61,000 women between the ages of 18 to 64 who had at least one child under the age of 18. A quarter of SATMs said they felt a lot of sadness “yesterday” and one-fifth said they felt anger, compared with only 16 percent and 14 percent of working mothers, respectively. Gallup said SAHMs were more slightly more likely to say they felt stressed “yesterday” than working moms (50 percent to 48 percent) and more SAHMs said they had been diagnosed with depression as well (28 percent to 17 percent).
What does it all mean? Eh, probably nothing.
Here it is. The latest in the “mommy wars.”
Because everything is a war these days, it seems. Yesterday, we were talking about the “war on obesity.” I even heard that Obama declared “war on marriage.” So “war” means “having a different opinion.” Or possibly “wanting equal rights.” In a moment, it might mean, “Hey, what you lookin’ at? You got a problem?”
But I want to talk about the so-called “mommy wars.” The cycle of articles and news reports and TV interviews and books that argue for the one good way to raise kids, and explain why every other idea is not only terrible, but it will definitely destroy your children’s future.
The mommy wars keep going, and going, and then they’re still going, because they are at their heart about two things that almost everyone cares about intensely: What it means to be a woman, and what is good for children. Keep reading »
Jacob continues to dominate in the land of boy baby names, taking the No. 1 spot for the 13th year in a row. But there’s a new winner in the female category: After twoyears atop the list, Isabella has now been replaced by Sophia. Isabella was downgraded to second place, followed by Emma (which was briefly No. 1), Olivia, and Ava. For boys, Mason was No. 2 (it jumped 10 spots—thanks to the Kardashians?), followed by William, Jayden, and Noah. The AP notes that Michael took 6th, its lowest ranking since 1948. Read more …
We’ve learned a lot of important lessons from our own moms, but we’ve probably learned even more from watching sitcoms (sorry, Mom!). In honor of Mother’s Day, we thought it would be fun to compile some life lessons we’ve learned from TV Moms over the years. After the jump, check out our list, and please feel free to add your own submissions in the comments! Keep reading »
