3 mins read

I used to think I was a good mom.

Until my sweet 12-year-old daughter starting surreptitiously videotaping me with her phone. She chooses random, boring daily moments when Im not posing or even paying attention. And then she plays them back to me, her face deadpan, like a lawyer presenting irrefutable evidence to the Supreme Court justices. Me telling her (for the five hundredth time in one night) to brush her teeth before bed. Me explaining why I am, and any self-respecting female …

6 mins read

Taking on Back Talk

Last week, I reread the family diary I kept faithfully years ago when my first two children were little. The entries stop rather abruptly after my third child entered the picture. For ten years, I haven’t had time to look at these notes. Most amusing: examples of the back talk problem I used to have…

4 mins read

How To Raise A Teenager Without Losing Your Mind

Most parents do not relish parenting teenagers. Teaching them to drive is terrifying. Catching them drinking – and puking – for the first time is appalling. The horrors of teenage sexuality. The surliness, the lying, the sleeping until 3 pmDealing with teenagers is a grind, a bore, something to be SURVIVED.But I love being a parent to teenagers, as I recently told Michel Martin on NPRs Tell Me More.There was a parenting roundtable …