When our kids were 12 and 14, we spent two weeks traveling around Eastern Europe. We visited the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague, where the sanctuary and adjoining walls are covered with 77,292 hand-painted names of the Czech Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust. In Germany, the Garden of Exile at the Jewish Museum Berlin…
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Parenting
Parenting
My 6-year-old’s beloved trash heap
Egg cartons litter the floor. Milk cartons and cereal boxes sit perched on his dresser and poke out from his toy bin. There is cardboard everywhere. This…
Parenting
Helicopter parenting, snowplow parenting — we’re doing our best
“Helicopter parenting, the practice of hovering anxiously near one’s children, monitoring their every activity, is so 20th century. … [M]others and…
Parenting
The consequences of unwanted advice to new moms
“Before I had kids,” mothers tell me, “I used to judge moms.” “I judged moms for giving their kids an iPad in a restaurant.…
Parenting
Climate change through my daughter's eyes
Our oldest child is 18 and has decided she no longer wants to eat meat. This has less to do with saving animals and more to do with saving the planet. She…
Parenting
I’m an introvert, but my extroverted toddler can’t get enough of me
My youngest child, Harvey, will turn 3 on St. Patrick’s Day. It’s an odd birthday for a Jewish kid with no Irish ancestry, but one that he…
Parenting
My grandma’s chicken soup means the world to me
I have been trying to re-create my grandmother’s chicken soup for more than 15 years. Though my chicken soup is not her chicken soup, I like to think they…
Parenting
Now that my 6-year-old is reading, he can’t get enough
Already in 2019, I’ve taught my son to read. I can’t imagine I’ll accomplish anything that tops that this year. I had help, of course:…
Parenting
Return of the mommy brain: the teenage sequel
My mommy brain is back. I thought that foggy postpartum brain-drain feeling was supposed to go away once my babies started sleeping through the night. But…