Parents have to strive despite our knowledge that we will fail. Living with this cognitive dissonance is one of the hardest lessons of parenting, and one we can only embrace if we talk about our lives with all the doubt, nuance, and contradiction they actually encompass. Last year, in response to an influx of memoirs […]
Your parent friends know we’re boring, trust me, but sometimes we just need someone to look into the delirious tedium of our lives and say, I see you. Since social media took over the world, it’s become inextricable from the way many of us parent – and also from the way we judge each other’s […]
Even though I know I have no business having a baby, it feels like a door closing on my fingers every time I see it happen to someone else. I’ve just learned that friends are expecting in August. Mixed with the rush of joy on their behalf, I feel a pang of envy. Even though […]
I have come to accept that my parenting and/or co-parenting is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I have to do what is best for my son and our family. Parenthood is hard enough without worrying about everyone else’s opinion. Seven years ago when I was going through my divorce, I typed into Google “non-custodial […]
You’ll background-check babysitters when you go anywhere, which you’ll rarely do in the early days. In fact, you’ll refuse to go back to work even part-time in their first two years, because no one can keep them safe like you do. One thing you should know about protecting your kids is that you can’t. When […]
When it comes to parenting decisions, people are going to judge you no matter what you do. My friend was recently parent-shamed by a former sorority sister. Said sorority sister — pregnant with her first child — was explaining how she would be doing elimination training and that her baby would be potty trained by […]
I am conscious of the fleeting nature of life and that can sometimes be a heavy burden to carry. It can also be a blessing. My father once said to me, “Parenting is the toughest job you will ever love.” He could not have been more right. From the moment my 8-year-old son was placed […]
She still comes over and tries to stay for as long as possible. I still have to remind her to leave. It’s a work in progress, and maybe it always will be. I never spent much time worrying about parenting adult children. In the early years, I was too busy navigating the complex demands of […]
Childcare is an accessibility issue. It determines a parent’s – let’s be real, a mother’s – ability to exist in the world and participate in society. Every summer I volunteer for a week at a day camp where girls learn to play music. It’s a beautiful oasis of art and feminism and love and empowerment, […]
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, I think I would like to have a kid someday soonish with my husband, but when I […]
As much as I would appreciate an afternoon off from the physical demands of playing handball with my son, I won’t force the issue. My 10-year-old son, Ryan, is in the fifth grade and has never taken an after-school or weekend enrichment class. Not because we can’t afford it, thankfully. But because he simply doesn’t […]
What is it about this particular milestone that we hold so sacred that we’re humorless about it? Is it because school is the first environment our kids enter without us, and so serves as a proving ground of parenting? If your child is crying, is it because you haven’t done enough to prepare them for […]
