In my mother’s mind, there was always room for improvement. Feeling guilty has been a predominant theme in my life. As a child, I learned to feel guilty about eating, ashamed about my body and, for some reason, responsible for my family’s collective happiness. I often felt at fault; just in the wrong somehow. This […]
Just because I made another human, does that mean I’m forced to pretend I love every second of raising him? I’m going to admit something that may seem taboo, but it’s only us, right? Do you promise to keep this secret? OK, here goes: I hate being a parent. I know, right? What is wrong […]
She taught me the secret to living a full life is knowing that you fill the lives of those you love. My kids like Dr. Suess’ Oh, The Places You’ll Go! not for the message but for the illustrations. They like to follow the protagonist through the windy paths and up the rickety steps. They linger […]
For as much as we strive to eliminate bias against our children, we parents also need to prepare our kids for the reality of a world that will not always be kind. My 8-year-old son Bobby has Down syndrome. I spend a lot of time advocating for him to have the same sorts of opportunities […]
This blending shit is not for the faint of heart, folks. Remember being a kid and imagining the kind of person you were going to marry? I do. At 6 years old, I proclaimed proudly that I was going to marry a man named Ken (or maybe it was Kevin) and we were going to […]
When I repeat over and over that anxiety doesn’t make me a bad parent, it’s not because I think you might not believe it, but because I’m not sure I do. Just shy of eight months ago, my partner gave birth to our daughter. She is gorgeous and smart and happy, and I love her […]
Dear Dana is a bi-weekly advice column for humans who engage in romantic relationships. Please send your dilemmas, issues, conundrums, assumptions, conflicts, anxieties, worriments, obstacles, complications, predicaments, queries, questions, and any other synonyms for “problems” to deardana@rolereboot.org. Dear Dana: When my wife and I found out we were pregnant last year, I was thrilled at the […]
Postpartum psychosis is believed to occur in 1 to 2 of every 1,000 women after childbirth. When I clicked on the story about a woman in her late 20s who had stabbed her three small boys to death, before stabbing herself as well, two facts stood out to me. Her brother—the poor man who had found his […]
