by Barb Depree
I get occasional questions about erotic use of various household objects. I am, after all, long trained as a physician, so safety and hygiene are among my first concerns. And, since starting MiddlesexMD, I’ve seen some very well designed vibrators, dilators, and dildos that I know are safe, easy to clean, and designed specifically for older women’s pleasure. […]
by Rosemary Lichtman Ph.D., and Phyllis Goldberg Ph.D
The thought of sleep-away camp may stir up anxiety and ambivalence for you and your kids. As in any new situation there are unknowns, and it’s easy to let them get the best of you. Yet camp can be a great opportunity for kids to develop their interests, inner strengths, and independence. […]
by Elizabeth Gregory
Like quite a few people I know, I had my first child in my late thirties–39 to be exact. My maternal grandmother had a child at 39, too, but that girl was her eighth baby and her last.
This difference summed up for me the change that had occurred in two generations, when I started writing a book about the new later motherhood–its causes and effects, personal and social. Where 1 in 12 first babies these days is born to a mom 35 or over, it was 1 in 100 in 1970. Add in the adoptive moms, and you’ve got a big group. […]
by Jane Samuel
The arrival of summer and the unleashing of cooped-up young bodies always bring me back to my child-rearing-roots. Only a few days have passed since the carpool line, the packing of lunches, and the buzzing of early alarm clocks stopped and I am already thinking, “How can I keep them away from the TV and feed their bodies and minds?” With sensory smart activities of course! […]
by Rosemary Lichtman, Ph.D., and Phyllis Goldberg, Ph.D
The “Sandwich Generation” is a term that has now made it into the dictionary. It fits an increasing number of Boomer women whose reality includes being squeezed between the demands of growing children and the needs of aging parents. […]
by Andrea Lynn
My Mother’s Day this year was a wonderful one. I had a dinner party playdate – three of my Single Mothers by Choice friends and their three children joined my girls and I for dinner and play, under the blue skies and leafy green canopy of my back deck. There is nothing like spending this particular day among women who almost didn’t get to be mothers to make it all the more special. […]
by Peg O'Neill, M.D.
Mother’s Day was a little different for me this year. During my past decade-plus of Mother’s Days, my general approach, similar to that of many of us who wear these shoes, has been that this is a day for my children and husband to appreciate me. But this year, I decided that I needed to mix it up a little bit. […]
This provocative photo illustration was deemed the best magazine cover of the year.
It is an image and story that stands out: a naked woman of an undetermined age — with gray hair and wrinkles — covering her breast and cradling her pregnant belly. “Is She Just Too Old For This?” — an article looking at the social and scientific issues around parents having children past their 40s and 50s — appeared in the October 3, 2011 issue of New York Magazine and then went viral, internationally.
The American Society of Magazine Editors took notice, naming it the Cover of the Year in its 2012 Best Cover Contest. ASME gave its reasoning for the win in a press release:
The editors deliberately chose a model representing the story at its most extreme and photographed her in the pose made iconic by Demi Moore on the cover of Vanity Fair. Her belly was plumped with a prosthetic pillow, then carefully retouched to look real. The over-the-top poster-like cover was meant to stop consumers in their tracks — and it did.
The article was just as engaging. Read the New York Magazine cover story that won the 2012 ASME Best Cover Contest here.
by Valerie Gillies
“The life of a mother is the life of a child: you are two blossoms on a single branch” – Karen Maezen Miller, Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood
I’m heading out on a road trip tomorrow—a real, week-long one that will take me halfway across this country. Never have done anything like this before. But there’s the matter of this dress, and this young woman who needs to get her car to Houston, and her compulsive mom who has an obsession with putting things in order before she lets go of them. This is hard stuff, much more difficult than I could have imagined, yet somehow exhilarating. Like jumping of a cliff. […]
by Cyma Shapiro
Dear Reader: This is another reprint of a previously posted essay. Nearly every year I read or rerun it, simply to get perspective on my life. During this month of Mother’s Day, I hope it provides something for you, too!
When I began my first midlife mother’s project – the art gallery show NURTURE: Stories of New Midlife Mothers – and then began writing about related topics, I was grappling with my truths: about coming into motherhood at a much later age; about my impending middle age; about the “Change of Life” and all that it brings; and about reinventing oneself and all that it means, especially once I’d gone past the century mark (sssshhhhh). […]