Category Archive

Families

Our sister site Offbeat Mama launched in 2009, became Offbeat Families in 2012, and was merged into Offbeat Home & Life in 2015. This archive contains all the posts ever published on those sites! We believe that while children change your life forever, being around kids doesn’t necessitate abandoning your identity. We believe in supporting and inspiring parents and caregivers who are moving beyond mainstream visions of parenting. We welcome anyone who’s interested in families, whether you’re pre-parental, in the process of becoming a parent, or choosing to live childfree.

How can I deal with my partner’s baby-unfriendly quirk?

My husband hates lotion. He thinks it’s completely disgusting. I can’t even get him to wear sunscreen, despite his history of precancerous moles. Although this is worrisome to me, I’ve always chosen to avoid this battle. Which was fine until we had our baby four months ago.

Should I stay close to home the last few weeks of my pregnancy?

There’s a gig that me and my husband want to go to about a week before my due date next year. The show is in a city that’s about an hour away from us where we live and two hours away from the hospital I’m supposed to be attending to give birth.

We’re beginning our journey as home schoolers

When I was pregnant with my son I felt as though there was an almost innate need for him to be home schooled. I had forgotten about it after I went through a very stressful birth with him. When he was 18 months and in Early Intervention for speech I revisited the idea. When I couldn’t find a curriculum or school system I agreed with in public, charter or Catholic school I ended up walking through this door of infinite possibilities — home schooling! Many people started to emerge and extend their hand towards us, offering trips to conventions, curriculum, catalogs, websites and help.

Do you have tips for creating a baby play group that I’ll actually LIKE?

My highly sociable 15-month-old baby is now at an age where he is intrigued by other kids. He loves playing and constantly wants to interact. This sounds great… but I’ve happily avoided local play groups now for the past 15 months and the idea of going to one fills me with dread.

My ex and I are amicably co-parenting a year after a contentious divorce

Connecticut mandates that all couples with children who are seeking a divorce attend a series of parenting classes (not together, thank GOD.) The classes are intended to offer advice for co-parenting post-divorce. These classes were long. And often boring. And filled with a lot of “Well, duh” information. But I learned a few good tips that I assumed I would never use because I was certain we would never be able to effectively co-parent.

Our life isn’t ready for a baby but I am: let’s talk about dealing with baby fever

I’ve tried to just grin and bear it. I’ve tried crafting things for the future baby in hopes of convincing my brain that we’re moving forward. I originally started all of the over-planning in hopes of combating the Baby Fever but I (obviously) got carried away and it’s so much worse now. Nothing I’ve tried has worked.

We didn’t make it to the hospital in time so our son was accidentally born at home

When my call got answered, it turned out there were no rooms available at my nearby hospital other than the intake rooms (smaller, no gas and air on tap, uncomfortable beds). The midwife offered to ring around the other hospitals in Stockholm (which would later turn out to also be full), but in the end thinking that there was a good few hours left to go I said I’d stay home, take a bath and call back later.

What can I do to balance my Mama self and my teacher self as I go back to work?

I am a preschool teacher getting ready to go back to work full time after a blissful seven months of maternity leave. I love teaching, but at the same time wish I had more time to be at home. I am struggling with all of the feelings that go along with this, anticipating how much I will miss my baby, and being so sad that our special time together is coming to an end.