Adventures in Parenting

My mother-in-law lives with us.
You read it right. My mother-in-law lives with us.
My father-in-law passed away of cancer about 10 years ago, and she has been living with us for about that long now.
What is your reaction when you read this?  People usually think I am either a martyr or a saint.
But the truth is, [...]

Have you noticed that It doesn’t come off well when we tell our girls to dress modestly?
Yes, we’ve been told we are old-fashion, we are too conservative, we don’t know the current styles, we are out of date, everyone else wears it, etc., etc., etc.
Girls basically dress to be attractive to boys, right? What if [...]

The spirit of meanness comes out in the best of us when we can be mean while remaining anonymous.
Just look at ourselves when we drive. We feel little hesitancy in cursing other drivers and giving them dirty looks or gestures, while remaining inside the safety and privacy of our cars,  Most of us wouldn’t be [...]

My husband and I both had parents who owned their own businesses.
So it seemed natural that my husband and I carried on the entrepreneurial spirit.
At the time when I was pregnant with our 3rd child, my husband gave up a stable job in hospital administration and started our real estate business. Just as we opened [...]

Is it always bad to feel bad?
This is the last in a series about how negative situations can in fact be good for our children. Read the first one here, second one here and the third one here.
A 5th grade boy sat across from me with his head down and tears streaming down his [...]

Is it always bad to feel bad?
This is the third in a series about how negative situations can in fact be good for our children. Read the first one here, and the second one here.

“Life has its ups and downs.”
Difficult times will come, even to a child. Whether it’s moving to another city, starting at [...]

Is it always bad to feel bad?
This is the second in a series about how negative situations can in fact be good for our children. Read the first one here.

“Come on guys, let’s go to a party.” Sure!
“Come on guys, let’s go to a funeral.” Silence.
Nobody really enjoys funerals. It’s solemn, it’s sad, and everyone [...]

I admit, we live a sheltered life here in the suburbs.
I’m not complaining. We like the relative peace and tranquility of suburbia. On the other hand, we cannot live with our heads in the sand.
In my zeal after reading about the devastating earthquake in China, I went berserk last night and lectured my 12-year-old about [...]

A caller on the radio talk show had this question:
She was very excited to have landed the lead role in a community theater. The problem is, there is one kiss with the leading man required. Her husband objected to her taking the role. What should she do?
When I heard the dilemma, my first thought [...]

This may surprise you, but I read that most teenagers actually rate their parents high on the list of people they trust to give them accurate information about sex.
Yet, we as parents are often embarrassed to talk about sex with our children, aren’t we?
Honestly, my mother never talked to me specifically about sex. It was [...]