By Phyllis Goldberg, Ph.D. and Rosemary Lichtman, Ph.D.
By now your college student has settled into the dorm and adjusted to campus life. Despite the relief you feel, are you surprised to discover that letting go is more difficult than you imagined? Even with the time constraints and daily pressures that you experience as a member of the Sandwich Generation, are you ambivalent about cutting the apron strings? […]
by Cyma Shapiro
I am an only child. My childhood was spent alone. As the youngest cousin on one side of the family and the very oldest on the other, family gatherings were lonely and unpleasant. In short, I had little interaction with anyone; I quickly learned the skill of self-play and self-containment.
Now, as the mother of four children – two in each generation – I watch their interactions with wonderment and, this year, with joy. I also recently learned a thing or two about love and family. […]
by Cyma Shapiro
During the past few weeks, I’ve read several interesting articles on the 
website http://www.Kveller.com: the inclusion of Santa Claus in the Macy’s Day Parade; the struggle that interfaith relationships (esp. with children) present relative to their respective families (esp. at this time of year); and how the sending of year-end holiday cards presents a predicament if I, as a Jew, choose to celebrate my holiday in the most traditional of manners. […]
by Jane Samuel
Years ago my husband had a colleague by the name of Les Moore. He was a hardworking, quality guy, but he was not a “big man” in physical stature – a geeky engineer for sure. My husband, also a geeky engineer at the time, would always joke about Les and his work ethic and his trim stature by saying this little ditty whenever Les’s name came up in conversation, “Ah, Les Moore – when Les is Moore!” […]
by Peg O'Neill, M.D.
As always, it’s hard to believe that we’ve arrived so quickly at the end of the year, the season of giving thanks for what we’ve received, of giving to others and of reflecting on where we’ve been and where we’re going […]
I attended a class on “how to become a foster and or adoptive parent” this past weekend. The class consisted of me and five couples. Three of the couples said were unable to have children and are considering adoption; two have grown children and want to foster or adopt. As the only single person there, I felt like a freak. But by the end of the first Friday night session, that feeling had subsided. We were all there for one thing only: to have a family. […]
by Cyma Shapiro
I have two sets of kids – a common occurrence for many Midlife Mothers. I have two generations, in two differing decades, with two differing experiences. (The total count of this is four children). One is Gen Y; the other is yet to be named (soon to be called Z or M). One is pre-9/11; the other is post 9/11. One is all about the advent of social media and the importance of the Internet; the other has never lived without all of it. One is the MTV generation, the other is all about the digital age, cell phones (only) and the world of texting. More importantly, one sees the world as basically benign and good, the other as being scary and dangerous and all about the horrors seemingly right outside our front door. These aren’t just man-made horrors; these now include tornados, hurricanes, flash floods, power outages, unhappy out-of-work people, and less money to live as we’d like. […]
by Peg O'Neill, M.D.
I am the queen of making lists. Like many busy working moms, I use lists to help me juggle the myriad of balls that I need to keep in the air on a regular basis: the grocery list, the list of school events, sports and music lessons, not to mention the lists I make at work to remind me to follow up on patients and to take care of the other responsibilities that come with being a partner in a busy pediatric practice. Though they sometimes drive me crazy, lists actually help keep me sane by keeping me at least a little bit organized and by helping to prevent important stuff from falling through the cracks. With the holidays approaching and the myriad of extra things to do, I find myself making even more lists. […]
by Loretta Tayar
I am a verb. I am all action. I make homemade soup for my daughters when they are sick. I jump out of bed in the middle of the night to lend a sympathetic ear to a frightened child and reassure her it was just a bad dream — their mother, father, brother, sister or friend did not get shot to death in their apartment. I write checks for tuition, tutors, cheerleading uniforms, school supplies, clothes (some functionally necessary and some to avert the fashion death that they believe will occur if said clothing wasn’t purchased), food, cell phone charges, doctor visits, gym memberships, family vacations. When my daughters were younger I went to parent-teacher conferences, graduations and plays. I did not go to PTA functions at one daughter’s high school because she didn’t think she could explain having a white parent when she’s black. […]
by Andrea Lynn
In my life, there are many mothers I respect and admire. Friends, family, colleagues, even strangers. Mothers I see in the world doing the right thing with children, showing small kindnesses, endless patience, needed discipline. Moms who have faced huge obstacles, small tragedies, who started their journeys late or in roundabout ways. But heroic mothers? I only know one, and I don’t know her well. She is a midlife mother, in her 50s, and attends the same church as I do. I know her because our congregation has adopted her cause as ours — emergency foster care of the youngest children in our city. […]