My mom doesn’t like me: parental estrangement and lessons learned
Sometimes, your own best intentions and healthy patterns can’t cancel out the choices your parents make. It isn’t an easy decision to come to, to make, or to act on, but sometimes estrangement is the right choice for you. It was for me. These are the lessons I learned along the way.
There is no right way to handle your child’s unexpected diagnosis
But in parenting a kid with a diagnosis you hadn’t exactly longed for, coming unraveled can be a bumpy part of the road you’re on. Sometimes, just like our kids, we go through a developmental phase of chaos and disintegration before we consolidate new skills. I didn’t enjoy it, but I don’t think I could have skipped that step. It was an important part of my developmental trajectory.
My husband and I are divorcing and sharing custody of the kids, fruiting plants, and the chickens
So on our division of assets list when we thought we were nearly done last night, he asked me if we should list the plants. I said, “Just list fruiting plants and chickens — joint custody.” He looked at me for a moment. We just argued over folding chairs and now I say this? He burst out laughing, and so did his family when we told them.
My brother-in-law is having a baby: how do I nominate myself for Offbeat Auntie of the Year?
My husband’s brother and his wife are having a baby! We are very excited as kids are great and we haven’t had any in the family for about, oh, 15 years now. Unfortunately we’re not super close, but we want to be — how do I initiate becoming an awesome offbeat auntie?
My partner and I stopped sharing a bed after having kids: why I love sleeping alone
Honestly, bed-sharing with my snoring, hard-to-wake husband might inspire more resentment between us, more sleep-deprived fantasies of pillow smothering. I don’t think sharing a bed would save a failing marriage, nor do I think separate beds would destroy a good one. But what do I know? I’ve only been married for 9 years.
How do I support a friend who says she wishes she didn’t have kids?
While the topics we discuss are different now than before kids, most of the time I think we’re getting along alright. Occasionally one of the new parents will make comments about wishing they were childless again, and I don’t know how to respond to these comments. I get blowing off some steam, but at what point is it more than just frustration and something I should be concerned with?
When love becomes thicker than blood
In January of 2012, I chose to become a single mother. I packed what I could I fit into our minivan and left my fiancé of five years, my “son” whom I had raised since he was six-months-old, and an unhealthy partnership. I parked in a parking lot, only blocks from our house and cried. My two sons slept quietly in their car seats.
How I decided to become an egg donor
I had been well aware that IVF was A Thing That Existed. For the longest time, though, I had only thought of it from the families’ perspective. The couple struggling with infertility, the single woman, or the gay couple, had been the faces of IVF.
Recently I saw a mention in an article in which the author, Jen Dziura said she donated her eggs right after she moved to New York. She said it was something that both settled her life and allowed her to work on her career. I recognized myself in that situation.