parenting - Everyday Family (Page 3)

The Chore Chart That Didn't End Up in a Drawer

I have bought, made, and laminated approximately six chore charts in my parenting career. Five of them are dead. They

The couch has gravity. Some afternoons it pulls both of my kids in by 3:30 and won't

Spring break has a way of sneaking up and then sitting there, nine empty days long, daring you to fill

The first screen-free night we tried felt like a hostage situation, and I was one of the hostages. The kids

I praised my kids constantly, with the best of intentions, and for years I had no idea it might be

The first time my eleven-year-old walked to the corner store alone, I watched from the porch like a Secret Service

I used to say "share!" roughly four hundred times a day, like a malfunctioning toy, and it accomplished

The parenting books cover the four-month sleep regression and the eventual goodbye to napping, but the transition that wrecked me

My four-year-old once threw himself onto the kitchen floor over a banana that broke in half, and in the middle

For most of my twenties, Valentine's Day was a referendum on my relationship status, and it carried more

There's a specific kind of dread that arrives when the first kid spikes a fever on a Sunday

For years my mornings had a recurring villain, and it was the lunchbox. Somewhere between the toothbrushing and the lost