All parents can be embarrassing, but perhaps none more of late than Ike Lochte, mother of Olympian swimmer Ryan Lochte. Poor Ike set off a media firestorm last week when, while trying to explain that her 28-year-old son is too busy to have a girlfriend, said that he “goes out on one-night stands.” Well, that’s […]
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In a few weeks I will become an empty-nester. Like most parents, I have a lot of emotions about that. My boys, a freshman and a junior, are on their way to being fully independent; it’s what we parents have been teaching our kids how to do from Day 1. We hope we’ve laid the […]
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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 […]
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Posted in Family, Men, Sex, Women on Jun 4th, 2012
We’ve been hearing about better male birth control for years now, but in recent weeks two new promising options have come to light: RISUG (reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance), being developed by an Indian scientist, Sujoy Guh, and the discovery of a gene, Katnal1, critical for sperm production; if scientists can tweak the gene […]
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Of the many conversations couples need to have before they get married — or move in together — comes another one: What role will the Internet play in their relationship and how transparent are they going to be about that? At least that’s the opinion of Beatriz Avila Mileham, who interviewed married people who used […]
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Posted in Divorce, Family, Men, Mothers, Parenting, Women on May 14th, 2012
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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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Posted in Expectations, Family, Marriage, Men, Women on Apr 9th, 2012
It’s been a tumultuous weekend, to say the least. One of my kids is angry at me, my BF and I had a huge fight and when I went to go cry it all out at my mother’s grave, I discovered that the rocks and other things I’d left on her tombstone were gone — removed, […]
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Because of the book project I’m working on The New I Do, I had heard from Melissa of The Long Haul Project, a young couple who, “on a journey to save our marriage,” have been meeting married couples around the globe and recording their secrets to marital happiness. So I read through their blog and […]
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