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Category Archive: Parenting Challenges

Learning to make my mother’s holiday cookies again

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I ignored her recipe for many years as a way to avoid the loss. By Marcia Kester Doyle

December 12, 2019 Parenting Challenges

When your sister has a miscarriage

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After bursting into tears, you text your brother-in-law: “Sorry, this is awkward, but make sure she doesn’t use a tampon for the bleeding.” By Lorren Lemmons

December 10, 2019 Family, Parenting Challenges

Perspective | Why I don’t use positive adoption language

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“Birth mom” does not make me feel like a baby machine without feelings, but it does clarify my role in her life. By Adrian Collins

November 25, 2019 Family, Parenting Challenges

The importance of tending to friendships

little girl watering small tree with a watering can
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As parents of older kids, socializing with other moms was apparently no longer part of the job description. By Anne Helena

October 30, 2019 Culture, Parenting Challenges

Seven sneaky signs your teen might be using drugs

teen boy with backpack walking down street with head down
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Did my son really need a backpack every time he left the house? By Sherri Sacconaghi

October 24, 2019 Family, Parenting Challenges

When early menopause and life events strike at the same time

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I said goodbye to two decades’ worth of resources and relationships. It seemed perfectly appropriate for my emotions to go haywire. By Nicole Melanson

October 22, 2019 Parenting Challenges

Helping my son grieve the loss of a friend

Blue dragonfly on a green leaf
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How exactly could I break this news to a kid who already went to bed every night scared of death to the point of tears? By Tanya Mozias Slavin

October 10, 2019 Parenting Challenges

The friends I made in the waiting room

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We don’t want our boys to be “cured.” There is no cure; autism is a chronic state, like arthritis, or love. By Elizabeth Michaelson Monaghan

October 7, 2019 Parenting Challenges

First day of school, first miscarriage

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Hearing “nonviable” is heartbreaking. Having to ignore that in front of 32 smiling second graders is even harder. By Caitlin Cherry

September 10, 2019 Parenting Challenges

How to give love as a mother when you are an unloved daughter

Silhouette of a woman hugging herself against a pink and purple sunset
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“Why is she like that?” my son asks. I hesitate. There’s no denying my mother’s passive aggressive disdain towards me. By Elizabeth Maria Naranjo

September 4, 2019 Parenting Challenges

How siblings help my son with autism thrive the most

One boy looking on as another kid hangs on to a swing with arms with autumn leaves on the ground
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Is there any better teacher of life for a kid on the spectrum than a brother or sister? By Marya Markovich

August 29, 2019 Parenting Challenges

Helping my five-year-old navigate friendship

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How do I deal with my child’s social issues when I still haven’t worked through my own? By Amy Kline

August 20, 2019 Parenting Challenges

Poetry | Housewife

Close up of pink peonies in a vase, with focus on one opening stalk
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“You’re a different person,” my husband said. This was years ago now. Thank god he was right. By Samantha Shanley

August 13, 2019 Parenting Challenges

What my frozen embryos mean to me

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They are part of my life’s topography. Tiny specks on my map of choices, loves and losses, hurts and heartbreak. By Jordan Namerow

July 31, 2019 Family, Parenting Challenges

We live as we dream, alone

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“I built it myself. What do you think?” My father didn’t look up, he just took a drink from his bottle and kept staring at the television. By John Graham

July 30, 2019 Parenting Challenges

Seeing my daughter in a new light at the preschool dance show

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There’s Cooper, she’s at least a full head shorter than every other child on stage. This causes both attention and confusion. By Carina McLaughlin

July 25, 2019 Parenting Challenges

How to find resilience after losing your mom

Close up of a white weathered weather vane with an arrow on top with blue sky and clouds in the background
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Losing my mother, especially at a young age, was like losing my compass. By Gina Luongo

July 23, 2019 Parenting Challenges

The day I helped my mother pick out a wig

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My mom took off her scarf and revealed her bald head. We all braced ourselves, but the woman at the shop didn’t flinch. By Kandace Chapple

July 16, 2019 Parenting Challenges

The night my daughter was born

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I always thought depression came like a fog. Postpartum depression came on differently, like an 18-wheel truck slamming into a cement wall. By Laura Cline

June 25, 2019 Parenting Challenges

How to help kids with grief when an adult relationship ends

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I didn’t have my therapist hat on when my son went through his grief—I was just his mom, muddling through it alongside him. By Lori Gottlieb

June 19, 2019 Books, Parenting Challenges

To my absent dad on Father’s Day, with love

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My father was an every-other-weekend dad, then a once-a-summer dad and, finally, a phone-it-in dad. Then we lost touch. By Stephen J. Lyons

June 12, 2019 Parenting Challenges

My grandson tells me he doesn’t like the color of his skin

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In the summer, I put my sunbaked arm down next to his hoping he will notice it’s not so different. By Adrienne Sciutto

June 10, 2019 Culture, Parenting Challenges

It’s possible to stay too long at the fair

Titled shot of the top of a red and gold carousel with a vintage-like filter.
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These words by Joan Didion summed up my twenties, but they also capture the predicament of my current midlife crisis. By Elizabeth Newdom

May 20, 2019 Parenting Challenges

What is your biggest parenting challenge right now?

Close up of hands covered with blue, yellow and gray paint
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We asked, you answered. In three words.

May 9, 2019 Family, Parenting Challenges

Finding the breath in the day-to-day routine of parenthood

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As parents sometimes it’s a struggle to carve out even a few minutes to breathe. By Steph Auteri

April 30, 2019 Family, Parenting Challenges

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