by Andrea Lynn
It is the era of the Bad Mother confessional. Proud recounting of the slacker things we do as moms, the ways in which we defiantly refuse to compete for the Mother of the Year award. Everywhere one turns, it seems, mothers are unashamedly sharing the ways at which they don’t quite meet the needs of their children. […]
by Ilana DeBare
Last month I became a woman.
Four years after my daughter did.
No, this isn’t one of those “I’m my own Grampa” riddles, even though it may sound that way. It’s the story of how I became a midlife Bat Mitzvah at the age of 53, four years after my daughter went through the ritual at the more common age of 13. […]
by Valerie Gillies
“CENTERING: that act which precedes all others on the potter’s wheel. The bringing of the clay into a spinning, unwobbling pivot, which will then be free to take innumerable shapes as potter and clay press against each other. The firm, tender, sensitive pressure which yields as much as it asserts. It is like a handclasp between two living hands, receiving the greeting at the very moment that they give it…” – from “Centering – In Pottery, Poetry, and the Person” by M.C. Richard. […]
by Deatra Haimé Anderson
I got my first brand new car in my twenties. It was a silver Volkswagen Jetta with a dark grey interior and automatic sunroof. I was in love, freed, finally, from a completely unreliable and unwieldy Pontiac Grand Am that guzzled gas and was impossible to parallel park. […]
by Peg O'Neill
Amy Chua’s new book, “Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother” has created an impressive flurry of opinion on parenting. This memoir, written by a Chinese-American mother who rejects “The Western Style of Parenting” in favor of a more stringent method consistent with her traditional Chinese upbringing, has ignited praise, criticism and even indignation. It has been a hot topic of discussion in the media, and among many of the mothers who bring their children to my practice. Thus, it was with a considerable amount of curiosity that I began my read of “Tiger Mother.” […]
by Andrea Lynn
I used to be very plugged in. Up to date. On top — of world events, popular culture, hot debates, best books. There have been times in my life and in my career when I’ve read seven newspapers a day. Later it became about websites and blogs, subscriber sites, email blasts, piles and piles of content and responses. Hard news and soft. Come Oscar time, I’d have seen every movie. I watched all the best TV shows, followed favorite columnists, and plugged myself into at least a dozen daily personal blogs. The Internet and I came of age at the same time so my career has never been without it, and I’ve spent my entire adult life feeling like isolation is impossible, and enjoying that fact. […]
by Cyma Shapiro
I am both a thinker and a seeker. I think about everything and constantly seek answers. I recently wrote a blog post about “What If’s” – those nagging questions we all have about earlier adulthood. However, since writing the post, I find that most of my questions have not been answered. The most fundamental question also remains: As a (new) midlife mother – were I to live my life over again, would I do it the same? […]
by Winter Robinson
Several years ago I wrote my first book on intuition. Looking back, I marvel at my naivety. Why did I think that just because I had a grandmother who was extremely intuitive, an older mother who supported my explorations into the unknown, and a few otherworldly experiences, that I had something of importance to pass on? Yet, in spite of these unanswered questions, I continue to write. Writing helps me put my thoughts, feelings and intuitions in some kind of “order.” Sometimes, it helps me make sense of the world. […]
by Andrea Lynn
I had my first IVF and first daughter in the United States; my second IVF and second daughter in Canada, two years later. There is little cultural divide, fertility-wise, between the two countries. My American reproductive endocrinologist, like my Canadian, was a strange amalgam of cautious aggression and hopeful pessimism, and both men seemed to want to simultaneously scare and reassure me as they prodded and poked my aging eggs. The clinic in Canada had massage chairs and a huge fish tank; the American better magazines and logo. Needless to say, stirrups are stirrups, no matter which side of the border I was on. Obstetrically, my file was stamped “AMA” – Advanced Maternal Age – in both countries, winning me extra ultrasounds and blood tests each time. Neither obstetrician cared whether I dyed my greying hair during the first trimester (I didn’t anyway, a triumph for the alarmist-pregnancy industry). […]
by Rabbi Stephen Fuchs
The fifth of the seven traditional blessings recited at a Jewish wedding proclaims: “May the (Akarah) barren woman rejoice with happiness in the company of her children.” The blessing is an acknowledgement and an affirmation of the recurring theme in the Hebrew Bible of the woman beyond normal child bearing age who has children. While the term Akarah means “barren woman,” it is used exclusively – and in no fewer than seven cases – in the Hebrew Bible to refer to a woman who has children well beyond the normal child bearing age. […]