Category: parents
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The Good Life
To escape the bickering, and whining, and catering to the needs and desires of everyone’s demands, I took our dog, Annie, for a walk on a quiet fire trail near our house. Bright and beautiful out, a sweet sea breeze came over the Oakland Hills with the afternoon sun. The mile and a half dirt…
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The Folly of Perception
I’ve been on the outside looking in since I was a little kid. Failing to assimilate, I worked at cultivating unique and different. After achieving this coveted perception, I no longer wish to possess it. Unique often translates into strange. And as the mother of a 10 and an 8 year old, I do not…
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We Are What We DO
In the car with my 10 yr old daughter the other day, she asked me what Ego meant, one of her vocabulary words for the week. I laughed. “Good question. What do you think it means?” “I wouldn’t ask if I knew, mom.” “Well, use it in a sentence, in context. You’ve heard the word…
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The Terrorist Within
Strong winds shake the plane and rain sheets off the wings and streaks down the small windows as we sit on the runway waiting to take off. The 737 engines ramp to a high pitch roar. My three year old daughter sitting next to me suddenly grabs my hand as our plane accelerates, faster and faster…
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On Being Cool
Had a meltdown on my tween son when he asked, yet again, for an iPad at breakfast this morning. Before the iPad he wanted a laptop. He’d insisted he needed my old HP the moment I purchased my Toshiba, though he could give no reason why he had to have it, since he had a powerful PC…
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The Power of Love
My son’s guitar teacher was freaking out the other day over the impending arrival of his first child. Beyond a healthy birth, he was consumed with anxiety over the care and feeding of an infant, all the way up through guiding his child through their teen years. As a parent of two tweens, I shared…
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Boy Scouts of Faith-Based America
On the short ride home from his Boy Scout meeting, my 11 yr old son was quiet and sullen. I asked him what was up. Had anything happened at the meeting that he wanted to talk about? I saw him looking at me from my rear view mirror, gauging how to tell me disappointing news.…
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Parental ADHD
My husband’s sister has two children. Her oldest, 15, was diagnosed with ADD when he was 9, and has been on Ritalin since. He’s failing out of the private high school he attends in Manhattan. He lies, cheats, and steals when it suits him. He is volatile (way beyond normal teenage angst), and often violent…
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Letting Go of Our Kids
Our son went on a camping trip with his 5th grade class last week. He was gone four days, spent three nights bunking with eight of his classmates and a high school chaperon. They shared a cabin (with heated floors and a private bathroom), one of many scattered around Camp Arroyo, nestled in the eastern…
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