Blogs

This just might be a good time to really think hard about what saying sorry means and have that talk with your child.  This year, we saw so many instances where people were put in positions that required them to apologize for their behavior and things they have said. Some …

Christmas approaches, and I’m wrestling with a question to which I can find no clear and satisfying answer: What of Santa Claus? Our daughter is 2, and we suspect that she is now old enough to develop and enjoy a basic understanding of Santa (the full, supernatural implications may elude …

A friend told me about decorating her Christmas tree last week with her 2 year old and 4 year old. The 2 year old went to bed before all the ornaments were unpacked. When she came downstairs the next morning and saw the finished product, her reaction was, “What a …

Danny woke one Friday morning complaining of a stomach ache, but with a little love, water and food he seemed OK. He didn’t eat as much at breakfast as he normally does, but he also didn’t appear super uncomfortable. We proceeded with our usual Friday routine and occasionally he mentioned …

When my daughter and her friends left for college this fall, there seemed to be a flood of emotion online. Suddenly everyone I knew on Facebook was dropping off children for their first year of college, and everyone was tearful and choked up. Not me. “This doesn’t mean I am …

I just took my son Brendan and his Nigerian buddy to see the movie “Wonder.” It was lovely. The whole movie is about the beauty of kinship, about people retraining their eyes to see with their hearts. On the way out of the theater, 200 people filed past a woman …

Thanksgiving is here and Black Friday is close on its heels. Slick, glossy ads extolling the need to shop showcase the difficult decisions faced by parents of young children. Deciding what to buy, and when to stop buying, can be overwhelming. Children themselves learn to scan the mail for catalogs, …

  Raising children is full of ups and downs. We go from thinking we’re doing a good job to feeling confused and panicked, wondering, “How did we ever get to this place?” We drive our children through life pointing out the beauty of pastoral scenes, stopping to lecture at important …

I was raised with five siblings in a Catholic, Mexican-American family that fostered 24 children and often housed friends and strangers. I was surrounded by family and playmates my entire childhood—and I absolutely loved it. The moments and love that I experienced as a child made me want the same …

An old friend’s recent Facebook post about the anxiety and tears that accompanied her toddler’s first day of daycare was achingly familiar: I felt the same nervous guilt when I first left my own daughter, now 2, at daycare when she was 3 months old. If only I’d known then …