Veteran journalist Barbara Falconer Newhall riffs on life as she knows it.
Little girls are superior to little boys. This fact is not written down in black and white anywhere. The popular baby books talk warily around the topic of sex differences. And researchers will make only minor, technical concessions to the superiority of girls. Read more.
You know your kids have turned into grown-ups when they listen to your advice. I don’t mean take your advice. I mean listen – gently and kindly – as you talk away . . . Read more.
Los Angeles is an awful place. It is 469 square miles of bumper to bumper traffic, sinus clogging air pollution, starless nights and unrelenting summer sun . . . Read more.
Christmas has gotten to be a scheduling nightmare. Peter lives in Minnesota. Christina lives in Southern California. Jon and I live in Northern California. That puts 400 miles between us and our daughter and 2,000 miles between us and our son. Not exactly over the river and through the woods. Read more.
Look what reorganizing my stationery drawers turned up: Coupons from my then 13-year-old daughter Christina promising to do chores around the house — including yard work, for heaven’s sake. Read more.
In a little more than twenty-four hours our son Peter would be a married man. But first, he and Jon had to pick up their wedding duds. My outfit was already hanging in the closet. Read more.
The baby books assert that American babies and children are ready to sleep through till morning and grant their parents an undisturbed night’s sleep by the time they are a year or so old. Not so in our household. A story from the Mommy Years. Read more.