For some people the problem isn’t tolerating conflict; its learning to avoid conflict that’s the challenge! Conflict is part of life, but its important not to allow unneeded and unproductive conflict to become a regular part of life either. Even when it’s necessary and productive, it’s not fun! As a rule, if the conflict is triggered by your emotional state (I’m crabby) or an emotional … Continue reading Learning to avoid conflict
Note: A few years back I did some writing for a now defunct Christian magazine. I never put these articles up here because the magazine owns the rights to them, but now that they are defunct, well, I’m going to share! In the early ‘90s Salt-n-Peppa famously sang “Let’s talk about sex, baby” and boy, oh boy do we take their exhortations to heart. Sex … Continue reading Let’s talk about sex, baby!
This afternoon, I strapped Olivia into her stroller and headed out the door for a nice, long walk. I was going to fetch the dog to come with us, but my darling Hobbes had somehow managed to escape off his non pull dog harness where I had left him to pee and bark at deer 20 minutes earlier. Again. Not to worry he wasn’t lost. He’s … Continue reading My Dog’s an A-hole
The more kids, the harder it is to keep the house clean. When you live in areas with Western levels of prosperity, there’s a lot of crap for kids to make a mess with! So to have more than a couple of kids, either you have to be a super organizer or you have a very high tolerance for mess. Or I suppose you could … Continue reading The real reason prosperous humans have fewer kids
Want to drive yourself crazy? Do what I do: have a set of kids, wait 5 or 6 years and have another set. Try to figure out if you screwed up the first set so you can better parent the second set. It’s a terrible pastime, really; going back and revisiting every parenting decision you made along the way to try to judge the outcomes. … Continue reading Mom’s Going Crazy Recipe
Here’s a question for you parents: your kid does something boneheaded. It wasn’t necessarily intentional, but it was entirely preventable. You discuss with him what went wrong and what needs to be done about it. At the end of the conversation the kid asks, “are you angry with me?” What’s your answer? Is there a place in parenting for holding anger over our kid’s head? … Continue reading Question for Parents: “Are you angry?”
It’s a very long story how it all came to be this way, but I am having the odd experience of raising a 16 year old and a 1 year old at the same time. I say odd not so much because it’s that unusual. But often I feel like I’m starting to get a sense of what sort of person my oldest son is turning out to be and … Continue reading Is it my fault he smells like cumin? Thoughts on parenthood
In his wonderful book The Happiness Hypothesis Jonathan Haidt talks about the difference between situational ethics and an ethic built on internal character. Situational ethics is pretty much what it sounds like: looking at a situation and trying to apply ethical thinking to it. It says, “in this situation, what is the right thing to do.” He then compares this to an older sort of … Continue reading Raising a bunch of characters
For the 3 of you who do not know, The Pioneer Woman is Ree Drummond, a homeschooling mother of 4 who lives with her husband on a working ranch. She has an enormously popular blog, is a talented photographer, cook and writer. She is beautiful and stylish and has great taste. Her kids and her house are comfortably imperfect, but are never so out of … Continue reading I am not the Pioneer Woman –
I’m about to go all theological on ya here . . . So, I don’t know why, but I was thinking last night about how the bible says that the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is head of the church. (Why, what do you think about as you’re drifting off to sleep if it’s not random bible verses? LOL) Aside from … Continue reading Heads or Tails?
The Upside Down World 