My friend sent this photo to me. He was walking by the school and was struck by how much it looks like a prison. There are so many things that are so common in school that they are part of our social vernacular, but they are unique to the school system and prison system and nowhere else: (more…)

This is a guest post from Satya Khan. I met her when she hired me for a coaching session, and I've remained friends with her since then. She has a daily newsletter about her experience raising young children. Her writing in the newsletter is breathtakingly beautiful and wicked smart and you can check it out here.

My husband, who teaches at a private school, is against homeschooling our kids. "That's the path to crazy," he said, when I suggested it for our sons. But he wasn't talking about them. He was referring to me. (more…)

There is a movement, among people who love the idea of locking kids up in school all day, to add deep reading to the national curriculum. Supposedly, kids don't read well enough anymore. The Internet is making kids stupid. Or bad readers. Or lazy. Or all of the above. (more…)

I am at my favorite dance recital ever. There are 260 kids, and there are parents backstage all day to keep everything organized. I am in the boys room, where they all have a DS, and many have something else as well for video games. (more…)

Some of my favorite statistics come from the 70-year Harvard study about what makes people happy. The first thing they found out is that going to Harvard has no bearing on whether someone is happy. Another conclusion the research supports is that kids who have warm relationships with their mother make more money. And kids who have close relationships with their father have less anxiety. (more…)

I remember when I  realized the pre-nup had gone mainstream. I was sitting in Madison, WI, picking the color for my pedicure.

The woman doing the pedicure said, "Oh, that one is No Prenup! Isn't that a great name?" (more…)

In Florida, an 18-year-old girl named Kaitlyn Hunt engaged in a consensual sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl. The parents of the younger girl are pressing charges of statutory rape. Hunt received an offer of a plea bargain that would have made her essentially unable to be with her sisters, who are underage. So she is fighting the case, and risking a 15-year prison sentence. (more…)

I didn't grow up on a farm. And it's striking to me how much the seasons mark the passage of time.

This makes me think about how I marked the passage of time when I lived in the city and one of the first things that comes to mind is school graduation. It's the end of a fall-winter progression. It's the end of a cycle. And everyone graduates. Not for doing anything great. Just because. (more…)

The end of the school year is recital time for cello kids, which means that we can't just go to Chicago twice a week for cello lessons because Zehavi has all different kinds of recitals throughout the month; orchestra recital and chamber music recital and individual recitals and the list goes on.  So we ended up spending four days in a row in a hotel. (more…)

My son outgrew his violin.  It's always a bittersweet time when we move up a size in violins.  I saved his first violin.  The whole thing is the size of an adult hand.  At the time, it looked just right for him and it didn't strike me as particularly small, but the teacher told me, "Save this one.  It will be really precious to you later." (more…)