Does Being a Parent Make You Happy?
Okay, here we go again, with another flurry of conversation swirling around the topic of parents, children, and happiness. Specifically: Does becoming a parent increase or decrease happiness? Do kids make you happy? Are parents happier than non-parents? And my personal favorite: Why do we all work so hard at this parenting stuff without it making us happy? AREN’T WE SUPPOSED TO BE HAPPY, FER CHRISSAKES? This has been circulating in old- and new-media circles this muggy month in part thanks to an article in New York magazine, by Jennifer Senior, that has, as they say, gone viral. It’s been …Keep Reading
He is Me: Parenting The Kid Who’s the Most Like Me
My second son, James, is bewildering and bedeviling in shifting measures, like all offspring, but I have been feeling for a while lately that, while he’s as capable as his big brother of winning or crushing my heart, I understand him better. To put it in actorly terms, I have flashes of brilliance and insight, dealing with him, where I can totally see his motivation. Why? Because I am he, and he is me. Replace his penis and dormant male hormones with girl parts, let his hair grow (not a a lot, but a little; at his age my mom …Keep Reading
What’s it Worth To You? Teaching Kids About Money
Tell me something: When you hear your child say things like, “Gosh, that’s so expensive,” or “Mom, when we run out of the other cookies, and you have a coupon, can we get the [fill in the blank]?”, would you pat yourself on the back for getting an important money lesson across to him–or would you feel you’ve perhaps burdened him with too much knowledge of your own and the world’s financial realities? Is a seven-year-old too young to know that you can’t afford to go to Hershey Park (where we’ve never been, but which has been stuck in the …Keep Reading
My Baby’s No Einstein (Or, why I won’t be asking the Baby Einstein Co. for my money back)
So a totally hilarious thing came out recently in the news. Turns out that parents who bought the Baby Einstein videos (originally conceived by chic blonde Colorado mom and entrepreneur Julie Aigner Clark, who was Einstein-smart enough herself to sell out to Disney) can now ask for their money back. Because, you know, turns out the videos and DVDs and music CDs (wait for it…) don’t actually make your kids smarter. Oh, dear God. Read this piece, by Washington Times writer Marybeth Hicks. Hicks describes how the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) has pushed and pressed for several years …Keep Reading
The Non-Helpless Dad: A Father’s Day Shout-Out to My Husband
Let me just say this upfront: My husband is, hands down, the best father I know. (Sorry, Dad.) Here he is, the day we took our first son, Daniel, home from the hospital. (Note the beard growth and dazed expression; that’s what you get after sleeping on one of those hospital recliner chairs for three nights. Not that I looked much better — after two days of labor and a C-section, I wasn’t anyone’s version of a beauty queen. But what I love about this shot is the tenderness in his hands, contrasted with the terror in his eyes. He …Keep Reading
