More in ‘parenting’

I have a fatal nut allergy. I’ve gone into anaphylactic shock twice, once as a 2-year-old after my mom gave me a pecan muffin, and once as a twentysomething after a bored waitress told me that no, there were no walnuts in the pesto.
These days I carry EpiPens. I bypass fancy pastries, since they often ...

CREDIT: Leela Corman
For lunch today I ate a pastrami sandwich on white bread with mayonnaise, and it was delicious. I can already hear you—and my dead grandmother—groaning: oy, what a goyishe deli sandwich. To be honest, it wasn’t my fault. I did it in solidarity with my kids.
Children can do that to a person. One ...

In the spirit of Choose Your Own Adventure, the classic (and newly reissued) series from our childhood in which a single misstep could mean death by yeti, ghost, or Royal Bengal tiger, join us on this expedition of horror. At the bottom of each page, you’ll find several choices. Click on the one that appeals ...

“Mom! Max is trying to put a booger on me!”
“Mom! Josie won’t let me play fairies with her!”
And so it goes. I’d like to tell you that time off from school means time spent baking gluten-free organic muffins and jamming joyfully with our family bluegrass band. But not so much. Intensive togetherness in our house ...

I’ve been writing about parenting for eight years. And for eight years I’ve joked that if you want to make readers crazy, you only need two words: “vaccines” and “breastfeeding.” So I shouldn’t have been struck by the passionate rantings on Facebook following my colleague Allison Hoffman’s story on how anti-vaccine fears caused a ...

My seven-year-old was recently telling me about a third-grade power play. At lunch in the cafeteria last week, one little Queen Bee (let’s call her Girl X) imitated a less-popular girl’s speech impediment. After mocking her for a while, Girl X asked Girl Y, “Why don’t you talk right?” Girl X’s best bud snickered appreciatively.
“And ...

Earlier this year Ayelet Waldman extended her resume of confessional writings with the publication of Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace. Now her husband, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon, takes a whirl into the world of intimate revelation with Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of ...

Last year at this time, Josie’s teacher made her write a letter of apology for slapping a frenemy. This week I made Josie write a letter of apology to her bubbe. (I’m not going to share her sin here. She behaved abominably; she’s mortified; and at seven, she’s old enough to have veto power on my writing about her specific crimes.) I’m moderately sure Josie doesn’t ramp up her vileness right before the High Holidays just to give me column fodder. But she does seem to be more on a hair trigger around this time of year. Our New Year falls just as kids are experiencing stressful new beginnings—the end of summer, the stress of school starting.

Like many parents, I am driven up a tree by my children’s food preferences. I want to be that self-satisfied Mom who airily says, “Oh, Maxine simply adores dal! Josie loves nothing more than a steaming bowl of tom ka gai!” But no: I’m the patsy who still dishes up pasta with butter, the loser ...

We’re in a bad mommy moment. There are blogs including Her Bad Mother (tagline: “Bad is the new good”); Bad Mom (tagline: “Embrace Badness”); Bad Mutha Blogger (featuring a photo of a baby in a onesie reading “Mutha Sucka”); and Bad Mummy, No Cookie (tagline: “Tough chick with kick-ass kid making it up as I ...