How a deceased fantasy writer helped me explain death to my 4-year-old
Death is a scary question. It is the scary question. It’s your first real encounter of the inevitable as a child; the day you realise, because you live, you are going to have to die. Petrifying! I didn’t want to dismiss it with the old Catholic one-liners that I was fed as a child, but I didn’t want to traumatise my child any further with whatever half-baked, uncharted belly flop into the pool of hippy parenting my brain was feverishly trying to piece together.
Do my interactions with strangers shape my toddler’s view of gender?
Three years and a thousand miles away from my graduate program and the endless discussions on what it means to resist dominant discourses of heteronormativity, I find myself tempted to cut the curls I adore. I believe that little boys should be able to have flowing tresses and that rosy cheeks and pink pajamas are not the property of femininity. And yet, I get tired of correcting all the well-meaning strangers who compliment my child with the wrong pronoun. And despite myself, I wonder what message Morgan learns from their confusion.
Why I send my kid outside to a kindergarten in the forest
It’s winter in Georgia. The children waddle into the woods in layers of warm and waterproof clothes, awkward and round. The teachers’ hats are pulled down over their ears and when they stomp their feet and clap their hands along with the songs and poems at morning circle time, they do so with extra motivation.
This is the hardest time of year to send our children outside to kindergarten for the day, and the most important…
How can I have a great big long-distance holiday?
We’re a young military family that anticipates a move soon, so we won’t be going home to visit family this Christmas. This isn’t the first time (nor will it be the last), but this year is different… It’s going to be our daughter’s first Christmas, and we very much want to include our parents. I need some advice about how to have a great big long-distance holiday! Any suggestions would be much appreciated, especially from anyone who’s done this before.
Reflecting on becoming a mother when you’ve lost your own
While my husband and I discuss having a kid, I’ve heavily reflected on how my mother’s life and death will translate into my own experience as a parent, and my relationship with my child. I’ve questioned how I can give my child what my mom gave me as hers. I’ve even feared the potential reality of me having the same fate as her at her age. But with this, I’ve realized two very important things within my concerns…
Dear well-meaning people who see my ring and ask “when are you going to have kids?”
I understand that our society has instilled in you that when a couple gets married the next step in their life together is to try to procreate. I understand that my fiancé and I are in the minority when we declare, completely honestly and without any trace of shame, that we do not want children. But you need to understand that “first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage” is not a universal statement.
How do deal with gift-giving as your families and finances change?
Now that our brothers are over 21, do we still get them presents? And how do we tell them we don’t want them to use their limited funds to get us anything? And can we not get them presents while still buying my younger siblings presents? And what about when our siblings have kids too? We can’t afford to buy 10 kids quality presents as well as all of our other people! Plus, I don’t want our kid coming home with a truckload of gifts. How have other Homies dealt with family gift giving as their families and finances have changed?
“The recipes I loved were giving me the finger”: Adapting to my child’s life-threatening food allergies as a foodie
I am a foodie. I love food. Cooking is rarely a chore for me. Then a year ago, life dropped a bomb smack where it hurts the most for me: My five-year-old suddenly developed a severe life-threatening allergic reaction to eggs. It affected me deeply. Personally. Not just as a concerned mom, but this allergy took one of my greatest passions and prevented me from indulging. So we developed a pact that helped us both get through this together…