by Dr. Carolyn Schweitzer D.D.S.
One of the many challenges of mothering in midlife is coping with declining hormone levels just as our tween’s hormones are beginning to surge. But there’s another less talked-about health issue that shows up in middle age. As a dentist and mid-life mom myself, I deal with it daily. It’s the fact that our most complex and costly dental problems usually arise after we reach 40. […]
by Dhara Thakar Meghani
Word on the street (and on the web¹, in doctor’s offices, and generally everywhere) is that there is a high chance for pregnancy complications, miscarriage, genetic disorders, and health risks for women who have babies in their mid-thirties and beyond.
On many medical charts, women over 35 have been referred to as “elderly,” “old,” and certainly, “high risk².” The message about the risks of pregnancy after 35 is so strong in fact, that the anxiety it creates could make any woman approaching that age balk at the idea of ever having a baby at all. […]
by Maggie Lamond Simone
This winter, I’ve decided, has been a lot like childbirth.
I don’t mean in the classic sense, obviously, because it hasn’t physically caused me to scream obscenities at complete strangers for hours on end (well, not often, anyway) and it hasn’t lasted nine months (yet), but rather in a more metaphysical sense – in the way that people seem to deal with them both. […]
“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You” – Theodor Geisel
Dear Readers: I knew something was amiss, yesterday, but couldn’t remember what it was. So, here it is. In honor of my daughter’s desire: two recipes for Green Eggs and Ham/Spam/Thank-you Ma’am (that is: anything you choose to use as a substitute). […]
by Mia DeBolt
In the day and age where information is at the tip of our fingers, answers are a “google” away, and “Siri” can find what you want in seconds, it is a very different world in which to grow up.
Children these days don’t remember the days where personal computers didn’t exist, dial-up internet took forever to connect, and cell phones were the size of your forearm. That’s because things have changed so much. And that’s why the way we parent has to change, as well. […]
by Andrea Lynn
The girls and I are just back from Florida, where my mom and dad live three months of the year. Nowhere else are so many generations from so many cultures on display than Florida in wintertime. Our flights were full of families heading south to see Grandma and Grandpa. A few adolescents traveling alone, plenty of babies and toddlers, and in one case three generations visiting the fourth – great-grandma – in West Palm Beach. Everywhere I looked there were bulky boat-like vehicles, often American-made, with out-of-state plates and drivers who fail to signal. […]
by Liz Raptis Picco
When it comes to loving my teenagers, Crazy Loco Love stretches me just shy of breaking point. At times, the connection between our children almost seems hardwired to snap, split, and break away while they reach for adulthood. They seem like strangers when they’re sheathed in snarky self-absorption. The plausibility of body snatching pods intensifies: I’ve stared into their eyes, just in case. […]
by Brant Secunda and Mark Allen
February is American Heart Month. It provides a wonderful opportunity for us to focus on the organ that beats around 3 billion times, nonstop, in the average human lifetime. Your heart keeps you alive. It sends life-giving oxygen, nutrients, and natural medicine through your bloodstream to all parts of your body. That’s what your heart does for you. What have you done for your heart lately? Most women don’t think about heart health, until mid-life. Sometimes, once there, it can be too late. Why not take this month to pay attention to your heart’s health? Here are six ways to do it. […]
by Caren Lissner
Dear Reader: Here’s a great piece in “The Frisky,” on new older mothers:
Magazines seem to love writing about women’s choices, particularly if they can inspire readers to conclude that we’re making the wrong ones. Just before the new year, a much-talked about New Republic cover story focused on women and men becoming parents at an older age. The piece was written by an author who is herself an older mother and was concerned about a steady increase in birth defects and autism in recent years, although it’s been difficult so far to prove a direct correlation.
Meanwhile, one of Boston Magazine’s cover stories that same month was about a growing breed of women who believed that it’s okay to have an “occasional” drink while pregnant. Yes, that was the language — “occasional” 00 yet the subject was so provocative that it warranted top billing. Let’s not forget the May Time cover of the woman breastfeeding her three-year-old son (she didn’t appear to be drinking wine at the time). Soon after came the story in The Atlantic by Anne-Marie Slaughter that blared: “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” (The Atlantic has published at least three stories since 1995 about women facing diminishing marriage and pregnancy prospects if they wait; one of the most famous such pieces, “Marry Him,” from 2008, urged women to settle for “Mr. Good Enough” rather than waiting to have babies.)
To read the rest of the article, please go to:
http://www.thefrisky.com/2013-02-15/the-soapbox-in-defense-of-older-mothers/
By Phyllis Goldberg, Ph.D. & Rosemary Lichtman, Ph.D.
Would you like to spend less time racking up emotional debt and more time receiving dividends from your ‘feeling better’ bank account? Research findings show that the complex demands of family and work can really get you down. When inundated with a myriad of responsibilities, daydreaming about what you would rather be doing is a typical and common pastime. […]