Category: Family Bonding
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Sins of the father: Making peace with my dad’s anger
I read an article this morning in The New York Times that blew my mind. It’s about how environmental factors in fathers’ lives — nutrition, stress, chemical exposure, emotional trauma (whoa!) — can activate or de-activate genetic information in their offspring. The kicker: These environmental exposures can happen long before child-bearing years and still affect…
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Faking my way through motherhood as best I can
Dear Mom, If I can be half the mother you were/are to me, I’ll consider myself a raging success. Motherhood is not something I always wear like a second skin — unlike you, who has always been a natural momma, through and through. Here are some things you taught me: Take it one day at…
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Marriage? No thanks. I already ate.
Right now I’m laying on bed with my head propped up on some pillows and my laptop perched right on top of the old ovaries. Now a little while ago, I wouldn’t have been in this position because I wouldn’t want all that WiFi jizz floating around in the air so close to all the…
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Daddy issues
I grew up in a house with a man who didn’t know how to love me. Then I grew up and I married another one. Daddy issues are no joke. Today I put my darling little Benjamin in a barn jacket to take him to daycare. My dad used to have a coat like that,…
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Get on the board
It’s a rainy, quiet Sunday morning and I’m all cozied up in the camper with the kidsters at the shore. Stealing a quick few minutes to write before B wakes up (enjoying this time but really, really hoping that he’s not dead — he never sleeps this late). What a difference a year makes. That is quite…
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A mermaid in mom’s clothing
I was walking out of the grocery store the other day behind someone who was wearing a Mermaid Bar and Lounge T-shirt. And I thought … One day I’m gonna open up a dive bar and I’m gonna call it The Mermaid. I’ll be about 150 years old and I’ll have badly dyed strawberry blond hair,…