Today is my anniversary of motherhood, otherwise known as my older child’s birthday. I’ve been thinking a lot about parenthood recently. The following warning has already been delivered to the relevant people: You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved […]
Family
A Parent’s Job: Parents’ and a Count’s Thoughts
Fifteen years ago, I attended my mother’s retirement party. For thirty years, my mother worked in various staff roles at a large public university. She was a generous mentor to many junior colleagues, and she was a trusted confidante to academic administrators. At the party, people had the chance to say a few words about […]
What’s Important to You is Important to Me. That’s Love.
A childhood friend posted a 40-minute video of a rebbetzin giving a public lecture about love. Let’s break down that sentence. Childhood friend = good. 40-minute video = not good! rebbetzin = what is that? The friend is an Orthodox Jew. Rebbetzin sounds religious. This is NOT going to be for me. public lecture = […]
Peggy Noonan’s Advice for Gentlepeople
I don’t study issues of gender, but I do think about them. Lately, I’ve had a new opportunity for thinking about gender and leadership because, for the first time in thirty years, my boss is a woman. Hers was an internal promotion, so she had been a peer. It’s been fascinating for me to observe […]
Versatile Shirley Jackson
Did you read the short story “The Lottery” in school? The story takes place in a small town, at an unstated time. Palpable excitement builds over a cherished town tradition. Which tradition, exactly, is revealed to the reader in pieces. We finally learn that one town member, chosen by lottery, is to be stoned to […]
Thanksgiving in the Desert
Home from Thanksgiving travel. My family has a decades-long tradition of spending Thanksgiving in Palm Springs. If you know me from elementary school, or summer camp, or college, or any other time, you may know about this tradition. My family likes traditions. There are traditional parts of our tradition (duh?), like three, or in some […]
Countdown to Halloween: I’m a Tiger
Our sons make our job very hard. You know, the job of all parents: to embarrass their children. Our sons seem to be immune to embarrassment. Four years ago, when our older son was a freshman in college, the President of his college came to Boulder for a parent and alumni event. Here are Jim […]
Countdown to Halloween: I’m a Zebra
Halloween is next week! I love Halloween. I always have. One of my favorite Halloween memories is creating the three-person purple dragon costume with twin friends. Here’s another memory I like, starring one of my sons. When our son was two, he declared he wanted to be a hot dog for Halloween. See picture below. […]
Elastigirl
In honor of Father’s Day and the Wonder Woman movie, I am writing about my ultimate parental superhero: Elastigirl. Elastigirl doesn’t have the glamour or renown of Wonder Woman. That’s because she is too busy packing lunches, finding babysitters, and saving the world to work on her make-up and her publicity. In other words, she […]
I Hope This is the Day I Love You Least
My husband and I attended the wedding of a young couple. The groom had been my undergraduate student years before. I had met his wife, before they were even a couple, because he had sent her my way for help with her job search. She was a lovely, spunky young lady. She did improv, which […]