Family Archives - Page 5 of 25

10Apr

Giveaway: American Girl’s The Body Book for Girls (5 copies)

My daughter turned 10 today and we are entering the dark abyss of what could be tough conversations about her changing body. I want to teach her to make the right dietary choices, explain that growing hair under her armpits, teach her about hygiene and teach her to know what to expect when she's not expecting all these changes to transpire at some point in the next few years. There are also social pressures and situations that could impact her body image and self-esteem and I want her to understand and take them full on when they occur. When I got a Read More

03Apr

A Mother’s Day fashionABLE Gift That Will Change Lives

Posted by The Culture Mom Leave a Comment

A few months ago I read my amazing friend Liz's recount over at Mom-101 of what it was like to watch her mother run a small clothing label out of her attic when she was growing up. She connected the story (beautifully) to a group of women that she met at the non-profit, FashionABLE while visiting Ethiopia. It's a place where all the proceeds on the scarves that they create go towards helping the artisans, not only through wages but with medical care, medicine for TB or HIV, counseling, a housing stipend, educational tools and daycare for their Read More

30Mar

A Meaningful Passover (w/a Bit of Girl Power)

Posted by The Culture Mom 11 Comments

This year Passover took a whole new meaning in my house. For one thing, it's the first time my children have ever kept the holiday's strict dietary rules. In prior years, I felt they were too young for me to change their dietary habits and I couldn't get them to eat enough Passover food to keep them going. This year I decided that at ages 8 and 9, they could survive a week without bread, pasta and rice. For another thing, going to Hebrew School twice a year seems to be paying off. This is the first time they were genuinely excited to sit down at the Read More

26Mar

When it’s Worth the Wait

Posted by The Culture Mom 2 Comments

This past weekend I attended a wedding of an old friend of mine. She’s 42. It’s funny how any age over 40 is considered “old” these days. Personally, I don’t understand that but I have to accept that I, too, am over the hill. Sigh. However, I refuse to believe that it is downhill from here, because it is most certainly not. About three years ago, two very different things happened to my friend at the same time. She suffered a terrible loss when her brother passed away very suddenly and quite tragically. They meant everything to each other. And then Read More

22Mar

Doing Motherhood Together

Posted by The Culture Mom 6 Comments

As the Mommy Wars are heating up again for the umpteenth time this week with Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In movement, Marissa Mayer’s ridiculous telecommuniting policies and the NY Magazine article on the “retro feminist wife,” I know only one thing. I do not judge or blame Kelly Makino, the young woman profiled in this article as a complacent stay-at-home mom who is being compared to Phyllis Schlafly for setting the woman’s movement back. Schlafly is known for her opposition to modern feminism and for her campaign against the proposed Equal Rights Read More

19Mar

Stacy London, Help!

Posted by The Culture Mom Leave a Comment

The other day I was shopping with both of my kids at the Gap. This is not something I do often. Well, shopping is not something I do often. And shopping with both of them at the same time is something I do even less often. Ever since I ventured to Lord & Taylor when they were both toddlers and ran from rack to rack until they decided to camp out, disappearing behind the clothes. That kind of squelched my desire to shop with them at the same time. Fortunately, my daughter is very easy to shop for and I can easily pop into any shop that caters to Read More

02Mar

Falling Through the Cracks

Posted by The Culture Mom 5 Comments

This week I had a lot on my mind, but I didn't really think about the impact of any of it on my family. That was selfish. Until last night as I was putting my daughter to bed, we started to have one of our "private" conversations. She's very into our alone chats lately. As she nears the double digits (she's turning 10 soon), I sense more of a need for this time together. I realized I hadn't been in the moment often enough for her this week and had neglected to have these conversations as often as I should have. And earlier this Read More

27Feb

Skiing at Windham Mountain with the Family

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Last weekend we were faced with ten days ahead of us of no school for the kids, so we decided to pack our bags and head north for a few days of skiing. We headed to Windham Mountain, just 200 miles from NYC (2 hours and 45 minutes by car), in the Catskills. My kids were psyched as we don't ski as a family all that often. My husband and son go regularly, but my daughter and I are lesser skilled and I knew we would require a warm-up before taking off on the slopes. Windham is a very popular slope for New Yorkers, but we were still surprised to see as Read More

24Feb

My Thoughts on Marissa Mayer’s Decree On Working from Home

Posted by The Culture Mom 1 Comment

I've written a lot about my quest for the perfect situation to enable me to both work and take care of my children often on this blog. A few years ago, I posted over on ScaryMommy about the dilemma I faced when I went back to work fulltime after my daughter was born. Faced with a long commute across state lines to the office and raging hormones after just having given birth a few months earlier, I made the decision to leave when my flexible schedule to ease my return to work (3 days in the office, 2 at home) went out the window. I left a job Read More