Being a geek parent means hiding my dancing Groot in my bedroom so the kids don’t run out the battery. “I’m Wonder Woman,” announced my daughter. “OK,” I said. My daughter, who is 5, is many things. Sometimes a fairy princess. Sometimes a doctor. Sometimes both; I once walked in on her, fully attired in tutu and sparkly […]
In our late 40s, my husband and I adopted two boys. We knew our lives would be different, but we didn’t expect our friendships to change so drastically. I’m not shy but I’m an introvert. I like other humans but I have a limited tolerance for “peopling”—you know, cocktail parties, wedding receptions, any place where […]
My paycheck and the health insurance it includes is my biggest contribution to my family. Don’t marry another academic, people told us. The market is brutal on couples. But in our mid-20s, Jason and I were thinking in romantic, not pragmatic terms. We met in our graduate creative writing program, the faculty of which included […]
Early parenthood is hard. Instead of needing to solve every problem, how about just coping? I’ve always been uptight, and it just got worse when I had kids. So I’ve been working on it, starting with Mardi Gras. One stifling Lenten morning by the sandpit, a woman hiked up her maternity shorts and said, “You […]
Children often have no say in who comes into their life, but are expected to acquiesce to new structures and automatically give equal respect to the new addition to the household; a stranger. My mother and stepmother couldn’t be less alike. My mother is practical, pragmatic, and sturdy. She needed to be. She had two […]
I can’t change our genders or sexual orientations. I can’t change our skin colors. But I can change my children’s perceptions, give them gratitude for their privilege and anger for injustice, and teach them to use those feelings as tools. I am a straight, white parent. I sit in my position of privilege and peer […]
Though he towers eight inches over me, I’ve shielded my oldest son fiercely from the world, but won’t be able to soon. And I am not ready. My 16-year-old, Grant, grew two inches last night. This, after I spent a king’s fortune on a wardrobe at Vineyard Vines, his new brand of choice. It is all washed, hung, […]
No one prepares you for the onslaught of emotion that is tied to joining a family already in progress. My husband looked over at me, as I sat casually in the passenger seat. Our family of five cruised along to our new Friday night ritual—family date night—and said wistfully, “You know he realllllly loves you. […]
