by Vivian Diller, Ph.D
by Andrea Lynn
I’ve done it. I’ve put the baby gear up for sale. The Bjorn. The exersaucer. The infant carseat and the bumbo chair. Taken photos, written reassuringly about a pet-free and smoke-free home, and hit “post ad.” The pile of gear, cleaned up for the photo op, now sits in the middle of the dining room awaiting eager buyers, ignored by the 3 year old and used only as a hand-hold by the baby, who toddles by haltingly on the way to her next task, oblivious to the detritus of her infancy. […]
by Julie Donner Andersen
There exists in my neighborhood a gaggle of women who, on the outside, appear as normal as you and I. They lovingly raise children, cook dinners, and support their husbands. They tend to perfectly manicured lawns and rose-covered gardens while wearing strings of pearls and aprons. […]
by Valerie Gillies
September: it was the most beautiful of words, he’d always felt, evoking orange-flowers, swallows, and regret.” Alexander Theroux
Just as I get into the swing of the warmth and long days, reduced to-do list, and sanctioned laziness, the beginning of school looms on the horizon. As much as I think I never want the sultry days of August to end, I start to look forward to the change. It’s not only because I can’t wait to pawn the children off on unsuspecting, captive teachers—really! No, there’s something about the quality of the light in the morning, a feeling in the air of expectancy and starting over, and a bittersweet letting go that I adore. New books, pencils, clothes and shoes. Shopping for things that are kept safely in anticipation of that first, nervous day; the re-setting of life to a familiar, but slightly altered agenda. […]
by Denise Mooney
On a recent family vacation, I had the unfortunate experience of being asked the inevitable question. To my chagrin, it happened a decade or two sooner than I had expected. Drum roll please. “Is that your grand-daughter?” What?! Are you kidding me?! […]
I love Jill Smokler’s blog, Scary Mommy. On any given day, I can laugh along with all of her under-current comments, and look forward to receiving her posts.
Today, I took umbrage with http://www.scarymommy.com/google-analytics, which began with the statement: “People are weird.” And ended with, “I’m 64 and think I’m pregnant. Um, congrats?”
So, I sat with this for a while, and read it again. I reread it a few more times and then privately wrote her. She suggested I post my comments on her site. They are as follows:
Cyma August 11, 2011 at 9:30 am
I usually read your daily posts and chuckle. However, today, your comment about pregnant women @ 64 touched a nerve. As the writer and creator of NURTURE: Stories of New Midlife Mothers, the website http://www.MotheringintheMiddle.com, and several other entities designed to support women choosing motherhood over 40, I wanted to bring more awareness to your comment. Understanding that you are younger than I am and that all comments reflect the writer’s perspective, several of the women in my projects have indeed chosen motherhood in their late 50′s and early 60′s. As a new older mother, I am here to bring societal awareness to women’s ability in the 21st century to make a myriad of life choices (esp. regarding motherhood) irrelevant of age. Thanks for the opportunity to express this point of view!
Perhaps, in 10 years, we will all laugh at the idea of (this group of) new older mothers having/getting children with the same spirit that we laugh at old people needing glasses. Perhaps one will become synonymous with the other. Until that time, […]
By Karen Hug-Nagy
OK, wranglers, we are just under three weeks until school begins. I know you don’t think you’ve had enough time off, but HEAR THIS, get your #2 pencils sharpened and your backpacks loaded up, because it’s time to return to the halls of knowledge!! […]
By Rosemary Lichtman, Ph.D. and Phyllis Goldberg, Ph.D
Parents of Baby Boomers look toward their sixties, seventies and eighties as golden years, with the chance to enjoy the fruits of their labors. But what happens when those days become tarnished gold? What if nothing you or your parents do can restore the shine you all were expecting? This is what faces the Sandwich Generation each year when their parents are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, senile dementia or stroke. […]
by Peg O'Neill
I recently had to do something that is a difficult thing for most doctors, especially pediatricians: I attended the wake of one of my patients. While the death of a child is almost always premature, this was a particularly heart-wrenching story, of a healthy, happy ten year old boy, who died as a result of a tragic drowning accident, the details of which I still don’t know, but what I do know is that he was not wearing a life preserver. Perhaps, on that gorgeous, horrible summer day, if the current of the river on which he was tubing had been just a little gentler, or if the wind had been blowing on a slightly altered path, or if something else had been different, maybe he would be here today, playing baseball, cracking jokes, spending time outside in the neighborhood with his friends, as ten year old boys tend to do in our town when the weather is good. And while no one will ever know whether he would have been ultimately OK if he had been wearing a life preserver, this lingering question will likely forever haunt his family, and the rest of us: if only he had been wearing one, would he still be here? […]
Today, I awoke to find Karen Maezen Miller’s blog, Cheerio Road, in my emailbox. With quiet time, and everyone still in bed, I decided to read it, and scrolled down her “must reads” to find Jena Strong’s I Am Good Enough, with musings about “coming out,” which were breathtaking. Scrolling down her “must reads” I found life coach Tara Sophia Mohr’s “10 Rules for Brilliant Living.” So brilliant, I will be posting them on our site, shortly. […]