Denise Schipani / 6 Comments / discipline, family life / Mean Moms Rule book, parental control /
The above is what my younger son, James, said to me yesterday. It wasn’t in response to anything earth-shaking (I wasn’t telling him what instrument to take up in fourth grade, where he must go to college, or whom he should marry). In fact, I forget why he tossed that off, but trust me, it […]
Denise Schipani / 3 Comments / family finances, kids and friendship, summer /
Getting toward the end of the WordCount Blogathon here! I was thinking about my boys starting daycamp again in a week and a half, and I’m already anticipating the Battle of the Concession Stand, wherein I dissaude them from spending their own money on crap food, but also tell them that, no, sorry, I can’t […]
Denise Schipani / 7 Comments / in the news/media, parenting research / Eddie Brummelman, helicopter parents, piano lessons, Utrecht University /
I think I’ve mentioned that my boys both take piano lessons. My big boy started in second grade. A year later, when his brother was in first grade, he started too. It was perhaps a little bit early for him (he got kind of goofy and often his half-hour was cut to 20 minutes, the […]
Denise Schipani / 6 Comments / Photo Friday, summer /
Recently, I’ve been working on a bit of a photo project, and got hold of a disc filled with scans of my family’s old slides. Anyone remember slides? The disc I have contains photos from 1957 (when my dad went into the Army) to 1977 (when we all wore the most head-scratching outfits; I should […]
Denise Schipani / 19 Comments / childcare, Mommy Wars, mothers and work / childcare costs, Daily Worth, work-at-home-moms /
This story I wrote for the financial website Daily Worth more than a year ago popped up on Twitter yesterday, so I went back and read it, and the comments it received, again. Two things came to mind: One, I stand by my assertion that the $80K or so I spent on childcare (this doesn’t […]
Denise Schipani / 3 Comments / family life, guest posts/authors, parenting research / Christine Gross-Loh, Parenting Without Borders /
I am so thrilled to share this Q&A with you. Author and mother of four Christine Gross-Loh is a longtime writer friend/colleague of mine, and I’ve been watching from the sidelines as she worked on this amazing book, a sensible, smart, deeply researched book about how other cultures around the world do parenting differently. Did […]
Denise Schipani / 6 Comments / humor, summer /
When I begin, somewhere around this time of year, to clear my throat in preparation for my annual end-of-school-year, start-to-summer rant, my kids roll their eyes at best (“here she goes again!”) and, at worst, have brief moments of panic that I might cancel summer camp and enroll them in summer school instead. Because for […]
Denise Schipani / 4 Comments / Uncategorized /
Last summer, I did a very important parenting thing: I taught my boys how to play Solitaire. I learned most of what I know about cards from my grandfather, a big player of Solitaire. Watching my sons figure out how the patterns in a deck work was amazing. They more or less abandoned the game […]
Denise Schipani / 11 Comments / education / college reunions, Vassar College /
Just last weekend, I attended my 25th college reunion. It was fun. It was hard, even painful, to contemplate going again, but it was fun. Why hard? Well … college wasn’t my best time in life. I wonder if it really is for anyone, but the way folks talk about their college years — the […]
Denise Schipani / 2 Comments / guest posts / Caren Chesler, New York Times, The Dancing Egg /
Today, Day 12 of the WordCount Blogathon, is a guest-post exchange day, so I’m swapping posts with writer and mom Caren Chesler, who blogs at The Dancing Egg, which is about having conceived her only son, Eddie, in her forties — through IVF and with a donor egg. Here, she writes about her struggle to […]