Aside from love, I think that guilt is probably the strongest, most universal emotion that parents experience. We feel guilty from the time our babies are born, about everything: for not breastfeeding long enough, for leaving them on a Saturday morning to go to the gym, for going back to work, for letting them watch TV, for keeping them in a wet diaper for too long, and on and on and on.
"Spring is nature's way of saying, Let's party!" - Robin Williams
With winter winds still howling and the season’s holidays now over, it’s not uncommon to experience a touch of the winter blues.
Like many of us, you may feel like you are coming out of hibernation, a little sluggish and sleepy-eyed, wondering how to get into the swing of things when mostly what you want is a long nap.
Out of all the women on Bravo’s reality documentary TV program, The Real Housewives of Orange County, Peggy Tanous (who joined the sixth season cast) resonated with me the most.
Maybe it was because I empathized with her postpartum depression struggles and noted her courage to talk about it in a very public forum.
Last year when my son Jonah asked me to be the class mom, I responded “but I’m your mom sweetie, I don’t need to be the class mom." He was temporarily disappointed, but didn’t push the point. This year Jonah was adamant. “Mommy,” he announced at the end of August, “you will be the class mom this year…you MUST.”
Talk to Harris Faulkner for less than a minute, and you will know why she is an award-winning American news anchor for Fox News Channel.
There is a warm, comforting tone to her voice as she delivers an intelligent and witty interplay of words backed by a genuine passion for what she does.
There is a Jewish expression that says: “God could not be there all of the time; therefore he created mothers.”
Oy. I blame the Talmudic scholars for creating the original Super Mom and all of the meshugas that goes along with it.
It’s been more than a dozen years since I had to crank out a term paper at 2 a.m. or cram for a final exam or God forbid had to apply an utterly meaningless mathematical theorem to anything.
But weirdly, I am still haunted by homework and wake up in the middle of the night sweating that I’m about to flunk a test because I forgot to study.
Sales 101.
If such a class exists (which I'm most certain it does) I hope a tiny little five-year-old is teaching it. They have the sales gig down.
Well, it looks like somebody decided to pour some gasoline on the flames in the Mommy Wars.
This past Tuesday, Janine Kovac posted an "open letter" entitled Maybe You Are Ready for Kids, You're Just Not Paying Attention on rolereboot.com.
The lengthy missive is directed at one of Kovac's friends - "Doris" - a woman who has the nerve to be in her 30s and childless.
And it is wildly offensive. To pretty much everyone.
I hear this question a lot from my oldest son, who is kindergarten. He’s been saying it for about a year now. I have tried to recall where he got it from and I’m not sure, potentially from his old daycare but who knows.
