the beauty of an ordinary life
I made school lunch for the last time, ever. "This is the last time I'm ever going to make lunch for you to take to school," I said to my daughter, as I folded a chicken and rice burrito and wrapped it up tight. "You're free!" she whooped. "Aren't you glad?" Seven years ago, I … Continue reading Something about that list from the working mother battlefield.
In 2016 the Centers for Disease Control released a technical package/toolkit for preventing child abuse and neglect. If you missed that bit of news, back in 2016, as I did, it's probably because 2016 was, in the lightest and most polite description, a crazy year. I'll go on a limb here and suggest something that … Continue reading Something about children.
I was at a party recently to celebrate a friend’s milestone birthday. It was a wonderful, multi-generational gathering of adults and children of all ages, and being with them in person, during this COVID reprieve, was a true joy. One of the guests was a mother who had a toddler with her. The child was … Continue reading Something about impermanence.
I'm working on something for tomorrow, and since I'm still working on it and it's 11:30, and I'm going to go to bed soon, I'm reposting from the archive. What I'm working on, for tomorrow, is about the South and living in the South and leaving the South, which I did when I headed to … Continue reading Something from five years ago that’s still relevant.
When my son was in middle school I went to a workshop/book group for parents of almost-teenagers. The topic, generally speaking, was how to help steer clear of risky behavior. The book we received, handed out the night the group met, was 100 Questions You'd Never Ask Your Parents. We barely discussed the book, which … Continue reading Something kind.
"Parenting" is having a moment. Or, more accurately, it's having another moment. A super-trendy one. While previous waves, such as those led by Dr. Spock, T. Berry Brazelton, and the controversial John Rosemond, to name just three, had a kind of official stamp on them, this wave, dubbed "gentle parenting" is different. as Jessica Winter … Continue reading Creativity and parenting.
"This could be her last Christmas," my daughter said, speaking about the dog -- one of our dogs -- last Christmas, in 2020, the first pandemic Christmas. Another of our dogs had died earlier in the year, in mid-March before everything shut down. He, the one who died, and she, the one who remained behind, … Continue reading Thoughts go astray.
The concept of "parenting" is deeply embedded in our modern human culture and language, beyond the walls of family dwellings. In computing, for example, "parent-child" is a term used starting in the mid-1960s to describe data architecture. The "parent" could be a customer record, for example; the "child" would be a sales order for that … Continue reading Generations, part three.
jenny's lark 