I had mostly succeeded at scrubbing my vocabulary of curse words when my oldest child became sentient, but lately they've crept back into my head. And also my speech. Apparently dropping an F-bomb here or there releases endorphins, which is probably why these words keep rising to my lips unbidden. There is a serious lack [...]
Waking up to a whole day without any outings or childcare can be pretty daunting. Especially since we're going on week 8 -- or is it 8,938? -- over here. As much as I love my kids, there is a law of diminishing returns when it comes to spending time with them. The longer we're [...]
From Marilynne Robinson's Gilead : "For me writing has always felt like praying, even when I wasn't writing prayers, as I was often enough. You feel that you are with someone. I feel I am with you now, whatever that can mean . . . Well, but how deeply I regret any sadness you have [...]
I keep thinking of this line from Spanglish. Yes, the 2004 Adam Sandler rom-com which netted only 53% on rotten tomatoes. That one. We've brought you Dorothy Sayers, C.S. Lewis, and now . . . Spanglish. Bear with me. Let’s be friends: Join our email list Mid-way through the film,Tea Leoni’s character cheats on her long-suffering [...]
Anyone else having a tough time orienting to Holy Week? Or to time itself? I admit I'd mostly forgotten about Maundy Thursday until I saw Kate Bowler's reflection on Instagram. If you don't know Kate Bowler, she's a Duke professor of theology who's lived through the uncertainty of a terminal cancer diagnosis, an experience which [...]
I listen to a lot of female-hosted self-care podcasts, and LAWL, do those women love to reframe a narrative. It's a therapy-adjacent phrase that reminds us to change our perspective on a problem to view it in a more positive light. And I find it helpful most of the time. For instance, I've been trying [...]
As someone who's been thoroughly churched her whole life, I have a pretty robust philosophy on hardship and how it should be born. And when it stays in the theoretical realm, hardship always seems saintly. Martyr-ish. Noble. But when a particular problem arises, it feels a lot less beatific. I wasn't expecting this particular puddle [...]
This morning I set out to write something inspiring for parents stuck at home during the quarantine. I'm positive that it would have been very profound and beautiful, too, if the ABC Mouse app my son was using hadn't abruptly stopped working as soon as I opened my laptop. Then my daughter, who only seconds [...]
I know I'm not the only parent wringing her hands about The Miseducation of the American Boy. After all the progress we've made, Peggy Orenstein's article exposed an underbelly of stubborn toxic masculinity that still pervades locker rooms, frat houses, and athletic teams. The TL;DR version is that while feminism has opened up multiple avenues [...]
I get the questions from other moms a lot. “So how tall were you when you were her age?” “How big are your feet now?” “What age did you stop growing?” They’re mothers of daughters who are growing up tall, and they’re scared. “She’s already FIVE TEN,” they tell me in hushed tones. I get [...]
