Teen Years

On the endless checklist of things to do before my daughter Leeannah left for college last month was to have her permanent retainer taken out and replaced with a removable one. Not exactly the most memorable or exciting of tasks, but one that had to be done. We made the …

As I followed the violence in Charlottesville this weekend, I kept thinking about the parents who are sending their kids to University of Virginia in a few short days—orientation for new students is Aug. 19 and classes start three days later. What must they be thinking? I considered their fear …

For a long time, I was fascinated with the story of Elijah the pack horse—I thought it would make a great children’s book. Elijah was stranded in the snowy Colorado Rockies in the winter of 1956. A pilot flying over the peaks saw the marooned horse, who had gotten lost …

Not 24 hours before Rob Kardashian lost his mind and secured his place in history as a despicable ex-boyfriend, several of us parent types were sitting on a back deck and talking about the very topic of revenge porn. We all have teenagers and this topic—the online humiliation of an …

I am writing this from the sofa in our laundry room. You don’t have a sofa in your laundry room? I didn’t either until about five months ago when I got a new couch for the basement, one that better seats the long-limbed children I am raising and their friends …

Last year, when my son was 13, his father and I learned that he had been part of a “group chat” with other adolescents—a handful or so boys and one girl—via some Smartphone app (yes, I’m a bit of a techno luddite), in which the quote-un-quote chatting eventually devolved into …

My 14-year-old son had a day off from school. It was rainy and cold outside, and I figured he’d want to sleep in, so I refrained from calling him from my office until late morning, around 11. He answered the phone in his new weird low man voice that I …