This weekend Husband and I had some old friends and some new acquaintances over for drinks. As I was making small talk with a gentleman I had just met, he said, “So, Kristen, Husband tells me that you’re a writer.” Now, as Husband had informed me after meeting him a few weeks ago, this guy [...]
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The news cycle leading up to the Academy Awards and its focus on the year’s top movie performances got me thinking about the roles we all play in our own lives. In many of my relationships, I play a leading role. I am my parents’ only daughter and my brothers’ only sister. I am Husband’s [...]
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A recent article in the New York Times captured my attention, not only for its subject matter, but also for the comments that it drew. In “How to Speak Nanny”, Hilary Stout explored the uneasy relationships that exist between many working mothers and the women they hire to care for their children. According to Stout: [...]
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On Friday, Big Little Wolf posted a passionate and provocative piece about the value – both monetary and metaphysical – of parenting. Both the post and a comment by my buddy Jane – about an article she had read attaching a dollar value to the job a mother does – buzzed around my brain for [...]
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As I have mentioned before, Tiny Baby is not a fan of tummy time. Put him on his tummy and he becomes irritated. Ornery. Sometimes he’ll push up and roll over as quickly as he can. Other times, he’ll surrender to gravity, burying his face in the blanket, admitting defeat. Not surprisingly, Tiny Baby’s aversion [...]
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Sorting through piles of past-their-prime periodicals, I happened upon a back issue of the Teach for America alumni magazine, One Day. Since finishing my stint with Teach for America ten years ago and putting my teaching career on hold three years ago, I haven’t given as much thought to issues of education policy as I [...]
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At my last teaching job, I was also the coach of the varsity girls’ basketball team. I hated every minute of it. I hated the time it took away from my teaching and from Husband. I hated the unreasonable expectations placed on me and my players by their parents. But most of all I hated [...]
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Have you ever played the Game of Life? My older brother and I played constantly, both of us longing to land on one of the squares at the beginning of the game that entitled us to a career as a lawyer or a doctor (and the $50,000 annual salary that went with it – I [...]
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Want an example of a working mom successfully compromising to make her marriage work? Then check out Jodi Kantor’s long portrait of Barack and Michelle Obama in yesterday’s New York Times magazine section. What is so refreshing about this article – or really, what’s refreshing about Michelle Obama in general – is how open it [...]
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