Category Archive

Offbeat Families in the media

How to Land Your Kids in Therapy

The behavior of the parents described in this piece from The Atlantic mirror things I’ve both seen and that I’ve done — catching my child right after he falls? Yep. Watching with eagle eyes while a kid acts like he’s about to snatch Jasper’s favorite train from him? Totally guilty.

Dust off your fave ’90s dramedies and save them to share with your angsty love-struck teen

Even though I spent a good bit of my time pretending I lived in the ’80s and listening to punk music, I spent most of my reality living in the ’90s and listening to singer-songwriters and what would grow to become know as folk rock. When I met my best friend, she introduced me to a couple of ’90s film gems with my kind of people and music, and the rest is teenage history.

What happens when your family video goes viral

I woke up on Monday to find a ton of emails in my inbox from YouTube letting me know that people were commenting on my video “Leisurely Lunch.” What? The video had over 3,000 hits. Again, what?!

My son has a firetruck: gender-neutral doesn’t mean genderless

I was recently interviewed for an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about gender-neutral parenting. The response to the article included a lot of people fretting about how gender-neutral parenting supposedly “denies” a child from having a gender. Well, here’s why that’s a load of hooey.

Two gay dads + twelve adopted kids = fourteen happy family members

AZ Central recently featured the wonderful story of Steve and Roger Ham, a gay couple raising 12 adopted children in a state not historically known for positive attitudes toward the ideas of gay marriage OR gay adoption.

Stop wasting your time arguing with other mothers

Emma Donoghue, author of the book Room (which I found uplifiting, despite its darkness), has written a wonderful piece for the Guardian about how mothers need to back off from bitching at each other about EVERYTHING.

Painting your son’s toenails and other crimes against society

Thanks to Meg for emailing us about the media debate currently raging over a J. Crew ad showing a designer painting her five-year-old son’s toenails pink.

Are parents happy?

In what seems like a surprising or at least dishonest turn, parents self-report seems to be that they are happy … these studies measured happiness moment-to-moment, a definition that makes sense in a culture that tends to be about the moment-to-moment with focus on products that provide quick fixes and instant pleasures.