Category Archive

I’ve got a parenting question!

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.

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.

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.

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.

How do you respond if someone is blatantly racist in front of your kids?

I in turn wanted to share this [now gone] post from Ask Moxie — the topic is powerful and uncomfortable, and definitely needs to be addressed. A (Chinese-American) mother was out with her two kiddos and confronted with blatantly racist comments directed at her

How can I get comfortable with the idea of being pregnant?

I’m TERRIFIED of getting pregnant. Like, it is literally the worst fear I have of everything I could encounter in the world. There’s going to be this parasitic THING inside my body, screwing everything up: squishing my organs, messing with my hormones, and causing me pain, sickness, and constant discomfort.

Can we send a “We aren’t having kids!” announcement to family and friends?

Recently, we got a “we eloped!” announcement from one of his cousins and he said “Wouldn’t it be great if we could send an announcement that we aren’t having kids!” I laughed, all “Yeah right,” but he really liked the idea. He said we could do it in a light-hearted way, but with a serious yet gentle note included that says we know everybody really wanted us to have kids, and we love everybody and thank them for their thoughts and opinions on the matter but we’ve decided that having kids just isn’t for us; we are looking forward to the many years we have to share together, and in sharing those years with everybody else, too.

How do I talk to potential roomies about living with me and my kid?

My soon-to-be ex-husband and I have shared custody of our son, which means he is with me about half of the month. In addition to being a mother, I work full time and am studying full time as well. (Read: I’m poor.) I’m living with a family member at the moment but I’m trying to relocate closer to school and work.