Mean Moms Rule: The Blog
Observations on parenting in the tween and teen years.
This blog was born in 2009 as Confessions of a Mean Mommy, and gave rise to the book you see over on the right. Since I began blogging, my sons morphed from 5- and 7-year olds who looked to me for just about everything, to 11- and 13-year olds who have perfected their eye rolls and have one foot out the door. This parenting thing just got real.
Fighting a Rising Tide of Candy: What’s a Mean Mom to Do?
I got a letter from a reader recently that I want to share: Hi Denise, I love your blog. My only child, my son, is 5, and you certainly present an interesting take on many issues that I’ve faced as a mom. I was wondering whether you had an opinion on the candy culture […]
No Holding Back! The Argument for Sending Four Year Olds to Kindergarten (a.k.a. No “Red-Shirting”)
After reading this article in Sunday’s New York Times the other day, by Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt, about “redshirting” kindergarteners (that is, keeping them back a year if their birth date falls near the cut-off date, leaving them “young” for their class), I did one of those silent victory-arm-pump things in my kitchen: I […]
Plain Vanilla, Please: No “Schweddy Balls” in Our Ice Cream!
And now for something a little lighter: ice cream. Specifically, how a new flavor of ice cream is creating a bit of a firestorm among the sort of moms who would like to keep their (and, presumably, our) children’s worlds completely free of anything offensive (their definition of, I guess), immoral (ditto), scary (says who?) […]
9/11, Remembered, Explained
A couple of weeks ago, I took my boys to a local park in our town — it’s a big park, with a handsome art museum on the grounds, a couple of nice playgrounds, tennis courts, duck ponds (populated by geese mostly — which means much of our time spent there is punctuated by me […]
Can School Start Now, Please?
Those of you who know me won’t be surprised to hear that I’ve entered my usual, hair-tearing, mid-to-late-August, why-is-summer-vacation-so-long phase of the summer. We’ve actually had a nice summer this year, even given that last year included our Disney vacation and this year we’re not doing much in the way of leaving town. The boys […]
Regret Having Kids? Never! (Well, Maybe Sometimes…) TV Show Opportunity!
At the end of this post, you’ll see a link to a new TV show’s website. It’s called Lifechangers, and it’s with Dr. Drew Pinsky, and I’m writing this post because I was asked, by the show’s producers, to help them find a mom willing to come on the show and talk — honestly — […]
Are Our Kids Bored By Playgrounds?
Last summer, we met our friends Sally and Mike and their kids in a nearby harbor town to let the kids play on a playground, walk around a bit, and get some dinner. Typical late-weekend-afternoon-in-the-summer stuff here on Long Island’s bucolic North Shore. I’d been to this town many times before, but not with my […]
The Connection Between the Casey Anthony Case and “Teen Mom” Shows
Since the Casey Anthony “not guilty” verdict came in from Central Florida yesterday afternoon, my Facebook wall and Twitter feed have been clogged with “no way!” and “disgraceful!” and “No justice for Caylee!”, to the point where I want to go back in time to an era when social media didn’t dominate. I also […]
Guest Post: Author Phoebe Lee on Raising a More Grateful Child
One major thing I struggle with is teaching my sons to be grateful for what they have. It’s not easy — as I’m sure many of you would agree with. It’s hard to just say “be grateful!” Reminds me of a story my mother used to tell about how her own mom would prod […]
Confessions of an Impatient Mother
Well, the title says it, eh? I’m confessing: I’m horribly impatient. (Those of you who know me are, I realize, sitting there rolling your eyes, like, duh.) I want to be started with things, and then I want things done. When I wanted to become pregnant, I wanted it to happen pronto, and quickly […]
My name is Denise, and I’m a Mean Mom.
That’s the very first line of my book, Mean Moms Rule. Let me explain the “mean” for you, in case you were under the impression that I never hug my boys (I possibly do this too much, as evidenced by the fact that they routinely try to wiggle away from my embraces and especially my sloppy kisses, the urchins), or that I advocate for children to work in coal mines (it’s illegal! Plus, no coal mines in my area!). I say “mean” because my approach often bucks the prevailing parenting trend, which you could call helicopter-y or indulgent (I prefer my own technical term, “squishy”). It’s mean because it’s not easy. Because it’s focused on the end game, not the here-and-now (and anyone who has kids’ll tell you, they are all about the here and now).
Grab a copy from your favorite bookseller:
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