bad mother

And Down Will Come Baby…

November 26, 2009

Okay, so I threw it out there and I said that the parenting stuff that I tend to feel most guilt around is the stuff that I (almost) never write about here. And then I asked whether that was reasonable, seeing as I advertise myself as a mother who knows no shame, and who believes [...]

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Confessions Of A Bad Mother

November 24, 2009

Yesterday, I took part in a televised discussion about so-called ‘bad parenting,’ shame and confession. I wore a lot of eyeshadow. I never wear eyeshadow, so I was really kind of embarrassed by it. Later, when I asked my husband what he’d thought of the show, he said, ‘you had some really good things to [...]

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Ask Me About My Beaver

November 6, 2009

So we’ve been trying to get Jasper to attach himself to a lovey. Emilia offered the use of hers, but – noting the fact that Toady is, essentially, a giant plush phallus – my husband suggested, in the interest of not setting Jasper up for future discouragement, that she perhaps keep Toady to herself. Instead, [...]

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The Grabbing Hands, Grab All They Can

November 4, 2009

Things are getting desperate around here. Like, really. I can’t remember the last time I slept more than two or three hours at a stretch. I had hoped that my brief trip to Chicago would provide a full night’s sleep, but, alas, I spent that night waking up every hour wondering why I wasn’t being [...]

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Bad Dad, Bad Dad, Whatcha Gonna Google?

October 27, 2009

I’m not sure what is funniest about this recent post at Salon: that Googling ‘bad fathering’ automatically prompts the suggestion that what one really wanted to search for was ‘bad mothering’ (because, as we all know, there are no bad fathers, just bad Google algorithms), or that the first time (ha!) this blog appears on [...]

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Shame And The Mom: A Boob Story

October 7, 2009

Before I had children, I was deeply discomfited by the idea of breastfeeding. Neither pregnancy nor childbirth alarmed me – both would be uncomfortable, I figured, and the latter would involve some extreme measure of pain, but, really, nothing that the ordinary horrors (the monthly bloating and cramping and general misery) of womanhood hadn’t prepared [...]

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This Is Why We Didn’t Send Her To Catholic School

September 18, 2009

I’m not sure what that black hole is towards the bottom of Emilia’s self-portrait. I mean, I’m pretty sure that I didn’t dress her in a fig leaf for her first day of Junior Kindergarten. I think. It’s possible that I just didn’t have enough coffee that morning and mistook some lettuce for a pair [...]

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It’s My Motherhood, And I’ll Celebrate It If I Want To

August 6, 2009

When I saw the headline, I rolled my eyes. “The Case Against Having Kids.” WHATEVER. Haven’t we heard this all before? That children are overrated, that parents have superiority complexes, that motherhood is an epic social scam, that children are more environmentally destructive than SUVs and air travel and Crocs combined, that life is just [...]

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A River Runs Through It

July 23, 2009

My children, yesterday afternoon: I guess they’re doing okay without me.

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Sticks And Stones

June 23, 2009

I have spanked my daughter. There, I said it. I have spanked my daughter – just once, and for as good a reason as I think is possible to imagine for spanking – and I hated myself for doing it. But even though I hated myself for doing it, and even though I hope that [...]

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