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.
Working-Mom Guilt: Why I Don’t Have It, and Why No Mom Should
Last year, I wrote an article for American Baby magazine called “Can You Afford to Quit?” It’s a perennial subject for parenting magazines — how-to advice for making a smooth work-to-home transition. I remember when I got the assignment. On the phone, my editor and I batted around the details of what to include, and […]
Bringing the Kids: Why Expecting Good Behavior Works
My boys and I had quite a day this past Friday. I’d known for months that May 22 would be a big day: my niece, my beautiful Tara, would be graduating from Marymount Manhattan College. I had to be there, no question about it. Tara was born when I was a senior in college, and […]
The Marshmallow Experiment: Does Your Child Know How to Wait?
I read a fascinating article in The New Yorker yesterday. (Which, having read the magazine weekly for years now, is a sentence that pops out of my mouth pretty frequently.) It’s called “Don’t! The Secret of Self Control,” by Jonah Lehrer. The piece opens with a description of an experiment conducted in the late 1960s, […]
Feel like a failure as a parent? You may be doing everything exactly right.
The other day, in the midst of the Worst Head Cold Ever (turned out to be a sinus infection, during which I’ve still shuttled and cleaned and fed my kids — there are no sick days in parenting, but I digress), I interviewed a child psychologist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City for […]
The Cult of Snacking: Are Your Kids Obsessed? Are You?
Let me say this right upfront: I love snacks. I love chips, both potato and chocolate. I love little, picky things, finger food, cheese and crackers, nuts, trail mix… I love the good kind of snacks (baked pita chips dipped in hummus) and the bad kind (day-glo cheez doodles that turn your fingers orange). But. […]
The Lesson of the Lamp: Why Sleep Training is Worth the Effort
Not long ago, someone I know slightly was having a problem with her young son. Seems the darling boy was developing a very unlovely habit of waking, shrieking, at 5 a.m., and the only thing that would calm him was a visit to his crib from Mom or Dad — and all the better if […]
The Birth of a Mean Mom
“I hold their hands in parking lots and when crossing the street, but then let them run ahead.”
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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