Denise Schipani / 6 Comments / discipline, family life, holiday / Mean Moms Rule book /
Who’s afraid of saying “no” to their children? Just this morning, literally five minutes after watching me pack his and his brother’s lunchboxes for school, my seven-year-old asked me, “Can I buy lunch today?” Now, I could have looked at him, and realized in that split second that saying “No, honey, not today, Mommy already […]
Denise Schipani / 1 Comment / discipline, family life, guest posts / gratitude, Monkey Mind book, Phoebe Lee, www.monkeymindbook.com /
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 […]
Denise Schipani / 11 Comments / birthday parties, discipline, family life, humor, kids and food, school /
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 […]
Denise Schipani / 8 Comments / discipline, family life, Mean Mom's Question Time /
This morning, I got to talking to a woman at my gym. Normally, I don’t talk much at the gym (too focused on getting in, working out, and getting out!), but as it happens we were hanging around waiting for a Zumba instructor who never showed up! (Grrr… does she not know that I only […]
Denise Schipani / 7 Comments / discipline, family life, modern families, Moms on moms, other parents, parenting / "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior", Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Wall Street Journal /
Since I wrote my post last week on The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, the parenting memoir by Yale University Law professor and writer Amy Chua, it’s gotten even more press — good, bad, backpedaling, explaining. I’ve read a lot of it, not all of it — but I did read the book, as […]
Denise Schipani / 28 Comments / discipline, young kids and self-esteem / Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Wall Street Journal /
Last week, an article in the Wall Street Journal caused a major stir in the parenting world. Amy Chua, a law professor, author, and mother just published a book called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and the blogosphere is having spasms over her and her stories of forcing her daughters to practice piano for […]
Denise Schipani / 9 Comments / bad parents in fiction, discipline, family life, humor, modern families / CBS TV, sitcoms, The Middle /
You know what’s funny? It’s not most sitcoms (ba-da-bum!). What’s funny is that after the last time I wrote about the CBS TV sitcom “The Middle,” my friend Sally wrote to agree with me, and also to wonder how it was that I even managed to sit down for an 8pm show. Sally and I […]
Denise Schipani / 2 Comments / bullying, discipline, family life, humor, modern families, other parents, parenting, TV Moms (and Dads) /
I’ve now been writing Confessions since May of 2009, when I tapped out my first post, The Birth of a Mean Mom. In reading over random past posts this morning, I felt the urge to re-read a couple of favorites, just to see if I still agree with myself (for those of you who are […]
Denise Schipani / 14 Comments / bullying, discipline, other parents, parenting, school / bullying, Kindergarten, mean girls, mean kids, New York Times, Pamela Paul /
So I was just reading this article in the Sunday NY Times this morning, by Pamela Paul, about the phenomenon of bullying drifting down into younger and younger ages. Like kindergarten. Of course, bullying is a huge topic right now, given the rise in attention paid to the tragic stories of bullying leading to suicide […]
Denise Schipani / 7 Comments / discipline, family life, parenting, parenting research, Uncategorized / Brian Lehrer, Jennifer Senior, New York magazine, parenting and happiness, WNYC.org /
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 […]