Kids Are Brats Sometimes

Kids Are Brats Sometimes

I’m not one to mince words or make excuses. I never have been, and that didn’t change when I became a parent.

This is why I often find it irritating to hear all the ways parents try to avoid blaming their kids for bad behavior. This is aside from the fact that most other parents, and other parents’ children, are irritating to begin with! (No offense, fellow parents. I barely like myself when I’m parenting. It’s not really a good look on anyone.)

Sure, we all make excuses for our kids from time to time, and some of them are warranted – even necessary. Kids are kids. I’m 40, and not only do I struggle to contain my emotions half the time (especially while watching football or when my 5-year-old wakes me up at 2 a.m. by jumping onto my crotch), I also barely know what I’m doing half the time. I certainly don’t expect my children to have a handle on themselves.

But that doesn’t mean they get a pass. That doesn’t mean that every time they misbehave it needs to be rationalized.

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Scarier Than Halloween

Scarier Than Halloween

Halloween stops being scary once you hit a certain age. Unless you’re a woman, then it never stops being scary. For multiple reasons.

As a parent, there are countless things to be afraid of. But monsters and zombies and expensive vinyl outfits that rip as you take them out of their packaging are pretty far down the list. (They didn’t even make my list.)

I made a new list of things that I, as the parent of a six-year-old and a baby, find much scarier than Halloween.
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It Takes a Village Idiot

It Takes a Village Idiot

Parenting is not always easy.

It takes a village to raise a child, they say, and while lately it seems that the villagers are more likely to come at you with pitchforks than to help you raise a barn, there are still benefits to being part of a broader community.

The internet makes it possible to judge with impunity, but it also allows us to witness and praise – or repudiate – countless different parenting techniques (and potentially adopt them as our own). Even better, from time to time, it provides both anonymous solidarity and gleeful Schadenfreude.

Especially if you follow me.

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Problem Solvers

Problem Solvers


Usually when I consider my kids’ futures, it’s in terms of what I want them to accomplish, and what I want them to become.

But sometimes it’s easier to rule certain things out, as I once did half-jokingly, and have done quite seriously as well.

Today I learned about a different way of thinking about it, which centers on making them part of the solution – problem solvers – rather than sitting something out entirely.

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