Vicki Larson's OMG Chronicles

When the news broke this week about why Kate Perry and Russell Brand’s 14-month marriage ended last year — Brand, at age 37, was eager to start a family and Perry, 27, wasn’t ready — I was reminded of my first marriage. It was clear that the singer and the comedian didn’t have the conversation […]

Read Full Post »

For Father’s Day, I sent my dad — who lives in a nursing home in Florida, some 2,500 miles away — the obligatory card and called him. In the two-plus years since he fell, hit his head, got emergency brain surgery, almost died and miraculously recouped, I have a lot of time to reflect back […]

Read Full Post »

My son’s high school graduation last week was a sea of faces filled with a mix of joy, exhaustion, sadness and uncertainty — not just the 18-year-olds but their parents as well. As I looked around me, I wondered how many married couples, a good portion about to be empty-nesters, would still be married for […]

Read Full Post »

I consider myself pretty lucky that when I divorced, my former spouse and I were civil enough — or maybe just too cheap! — to mediate and avoid lawyers and stay out of family court.  And, we agreed that we would coparent 50-50, one week on, one week off. It hasn’t always been easy for any […]

Read Full Post »

I enjoyed reading Barbara Risman’s take on the whole Mommy Wars thing, allegedly reignited by the Hilary Rosen-Ann Romney flap. Risman, the head of the sociology department at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Council on Contemporary Families’ executive officer, called it a bunch of silliness, while acknowledging a truth (emphasis mine): (T)here […]

Read Full Post »

Mothers are back in the news again, thanks to Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen whose comment about stay-at-home-mom of five Ann Romney, wife of presidential candidate Mitt Romney, as a woman who “has actually never worked a day in her life” reignited the so-called Mommy Wars. No one really knows what to do with the state […]

Read Full Post »

This Mother’s Day, I’m working with Clever Girls in support of Macy’s Heart of Haiti  to shine a light on the “trade, not aid” program, which provides sustainable income to Haitian artisans struggling to rebuild their lives and support their families after the 2010 earthquake. ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈ My mother liked to give advice. Well, it was […]

Read Full Post »

He’s the son of an alcoholic, she’s the daughter of a Holocaust survivor — can this marriage be saved? In my case, no, but why should our familial backgrounds even matter? Because they do, a lot. Infidelity, abuse, addiction, drug abuse — those of frequently cited as issues that lead to divorce. Never mind all […]

Read Full Post »

As you probably know if you’ve seen my writing on Huffington Post, Facebook,  Twitter or this blog, Susan Pease Gadoua and I are collaborating on a book about reimaging marriage, which we’re calling, The New I Do: Reshaping Marriage for Skeptics, Realists and Rebels. So, of course, I have been researching marriage and thinking about […]

Read Full Post »

I had the pleasure of interviewing Eve Ensler last week. She’s heading to town for an event this week, a conversation with Isabel Allende at Dominican University. An award-winning author and playwright (The Vagina Monologues, The Good Body) and creator of V-Day, which has raised some $70 million to fight violence against girls and women […]

Read Full Post »