Does Parenting Make You Stupid
Over at Salon.com, Aaron Traister has a response, of sorts, to those childless folks (you’ve met some of them here on Motherlode ovREAD MORE
Why Women Wake When a Baby Cries
Illustration by Barry Falls
What sound is most likely to wake a sleeping woman? An infant’s wail — and that is true whether or noREAD MORE
Taking a Daughter to the Men’s Room
A new sign in the women’s locker room of my neighborhood gym tells me “boys over the age of 5 are not permitted.” I am told thereREAD MORE
How to Send Your Son Off to College
Illustration by Barry Falls
1. Realize it is well past time to go shopping. Sit down with him and make a list, vowing to keep it READ MORE
It’s Not Your Mom and Dad’s Parenting
So much of how you parent is shaped by how you were parented. There are things you do in the same way, because you see them as corrREAD MORE
A Baby Graduates
By the end of today (or tomorrow, if it pours all afternoon) my son will be a high school graduate. I will watch kids I have knowREAD MORE
Growing Up Too Fast
Two stories in the Times over the past few days raise the same kinds of questions: How young is too young? When did childhood becomREAD MORE
Do We Blame the Columbine Parents?
Where were their parents?
That was the thought I couldn’t shake ten years ago as news broke from Littleton, Colo., and all camerasREAD MORE
Does Having Children Make You Unhappy?
Children do not bring happiness. In fact more often they seem to bring unhappiness. That is the conclusion of one academic study afREAD MORE
What a Mother Learns in 18 Years
On St. Patrick’s Day, 18 years ago, I became a mother.
I knew nothing about parenting that day. I had held an infant only once befREAD MORE
In Defense of Helicopter Parents
I have helicoptering tendencies. I like to think that awareness of the problem is part of its prevention, but when it comes to my cREAD MORE
Untangling Nature from Nurture
Any parent with more than one child can feel like a lab scientist, unraveling the questions of nature vs. nurture. On the one hand,READ MORE
Employed Dads at Home
A thought to file under “let’s try to find a silver lining.”
Any minute now there may be more women in the workplace than men. As READ MORE
Flying Alone with (Very) Small Kids
Illustration by Barry Falls
It’s wonderful to BE home for the holidays, but not always so wonderful actually GETTING there. This READ MORE
At What Age Would You Let Your Child…
How old is old enough?
The question runs like an invisible thread through most of the conversation here yesterday about how to keeREAD MORE
Looking Back, Moving on
MY first Life’s Work column ran nine years ago, give or take a few weeks. This Life’s Work will be my last regular column.
I staREAD MORE
Welcome to Motherlode
Almost everything I thought parenting would be back before I had children has turned out to be wrong. I thought all those people weREAD MORE
The Pushmipullyu of the Life-Work Conflict
Illustration: Randall Enos
WRITING for a newspaper is like putting your child on the kindergarten bus. You send your words out READ MORE
That Back to School Feeling
Illustration: Randall Enos
AT THIS time of year, nearly every year, I get the feeling that something is left undone. Though it READ MORE
A Day to Clear the View, and Remember
Illustration by Randall Enos
TIME has meaning only because we need it to. Five years is not organically more significant than fREAD MORE
Overly Wired? There’s a Word for That
WAS there gridlock before there were automobiles? Was there jet lag before there were airplanes? Who was the first person to say “IREAD MORE
What a Working Woman Needs: A Wife
Illustration: Randall Enos
DR. CHRISTIANE NÜSSLEIN-VOLHARD, director of the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in TREAD MORE
Envisioning a Career Path with Pit Stops
Illustration: Randall Enos
IN the month of January alone, researchers concluded that high I.Q. diminishes a woman’s chances of READ MORE
Parenting Can Create Better Employees
I REMEMBER the moment I realized that becoming a parent would change me as a reporter.
I was interviewing the family of a mentalREAD MORE
When Caring for the Family Becomes the Job
FIGHTING cancer has become my father’s full-time job. For the whole of his working life he had another job, as an orthodontist, andREAD MORE
Is Banked Cord Blood Worth It?
Illustration by Barry Falls
There was a lot of talk on Monday about stem cells. Today let’s talk about cord blood, a source of stREAD MORE
The Opt Out Revolution
The scene in this cozy Atlanta living room would — at first glance — warm an early feminist’s heart. Gathered by the fireplace onREAD MORE
Just Money
In the early days there were the leaflets, thousands of frantically scribbled posters, created of the need to do something. Then thREAD MORE
The Odds of That
When the Miami Police first found Benito Que, he was slumped on a desolate side street, near the empty spot where he had habituallyREAD MORE
Nuclear Stockpiling
I have the pills. At the moment, they are in my kitchen cabinet, where I keep the Tylenol and the Mylanta. I am thinking, though, oREAD MORE
When the Muse Goes on Strike
A MAGAZINE writer’s life is one of ebb and flow, and for many weeks my ideas have not been flowing. I need a story idea and I need READ MORE
Life Without a Father
Hockey equipment spills off the side porch of the stately but welcoming brick house in Pelham Manor, N.Y. There are a football by tREAD MORE
A List and a Photo to Never Forget
ARE we going to remember this time around? Are we going to cling to the lessons we learned last week? We have vowed to do better beREAD MORE
Haunted by Mold
Melinda Ballard parks her cream-colored Jaguar next to her deserted dream house in Dripping Springs, Tex. — a house she fled more READ MORE
Four-Legged Distractions
It is time that I introduce all of you to the newest member of my family. Riley Belkin Gelb is the 7-month-old wheaten terrier puppREAD MORE
The Made-to-Order Savior: Producing a Perfect Baby Sibling
Henry Strongin Goldberg was the first to arrive in Minneapolis. His parents decorated his room on the fourth floor of the Fairview-READ MORE
Your Kids Are Their Problem
Jason Gill is clocking 80 miles an hour in his green Miata convertible, heading north out of San Diego. The 31-year-old computer soREAD MORE
The Grapes of Marital Wrath
ROBIN KLEIN, a senior vice president at Chase Manhattan Bank, is loath to let her husband go grocery shopping. ”I’ve tried, but evREAD MORE
Parents Blaming Parents
On a warm Tuesday night in September, 120 people, nearly all African-American, fill the echoing auditorium at the Masonic Temple inREAD MORE
A Wild Ride on a Swivel Chair
I hear them before I see them — the 8-year-old, followed by the 5-year-old — as they clomp up the stairs that lead to my office. READ MORE
Getting the Girl
There is nothing sleek or high-tech about this third-floor conference room in Fairfax, Va., except, perhaps, the bright red laser pREAD MORE
A Brutal Cure
Operating room No. 5 at University Hospital in Denver is chilled almost to the point of refrigeration, but already the team of surgREAD MORE
How Can We Save the Next Victim?
ON A FRIDAY AFTERNOON LAST SUMMER, tiny Jose Eric Martinez was brought to the outpatient clinic of Hermann Hospital in Houston for READ MORE
Charity Begins at … the Marketing Meeting, the Gala Event, The Product Tie-In
THE 2,100 GUESTS AT THE SUSAN G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation’s charity gala in Dallas in October expected a luncheon. What they READ MORE
Pregnant with Complications
Sophia sits in a booth in a dimly lighted Chinese restaurant, reluctantly talking about the details of her life. She is beyond tireREAD MORE
Death on the CNN Curve
IT WAS FAME that killed Robert O’Donnell, killed him as surely as that shotgun blast he fired into his brain on a dark, dusty, WestREAD MORE
Kill for Life?
THE NEW WOMAN MEDICAL CENTER OF JACKSON, Miss., has not yet opened on this autumn morning, when a pair of dark blue vehicles arriveREAD MORE
There’s No Simple Suicide
By the time the Rev. Ralph Mero arrived at Louise J.’s tiny Seattle apartment, she had already emptied the contents of the sleepingREAD MORE
The High Cost of Living
Dr. David MacDougall was taking a brief, well-earned nap on a couch in the neurosurgery department at Hermann Hospital in Houston wREAD MORE
‘Lace Over Steel’: The Women Mayors of Texas
BETTY TURNER, THE FIRST WOMAN to serve as Mayor of Corpus Christi, Tex., is munching Gulf shrimp and having a minor disagreement wiREAD MORE