Category: Uncategorized
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When she was browsing around her local bookstore, my friend Kathy found herself staring at adorable baby books and plush baby toys. She wanted to scoop them up and send them to her year-old grandniece whose birthday was in a few days. She resisted the scoop. Instead, she took photos of one or two books…
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In a NYT Opinion piece, Jennifer Weiner shared the joys and fears of dropping her younger daughter at college to start her freshman year. Parents of incoming freshmen at every school get versions of the same emails: about scheduling your kid’s move-in time and filling out forms for the health center and making sure to…
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Housing’s a bear for our kids who aren’t homeowners yet. If we offered a little help with the down payment, that might make a mortgage possible. It’s not just housing that’s causing angst. If we helped to pay off a car loan or covered their health insurance, that might ease their anxiety levels. When we…
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Towels with grease stains; jam jars in amusing shapes; books started but never finished. There’s stuff hanging around our closets, basements, and bookshelves that is of questionable use and doesn’t, as Marie Kondo’s KonMari method famously espouses, “spark joy.” And yet there the clutter sits, ready for a new home–be it a gift to our…
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A 20-something in my family texted to check on his great grandparents’ emigration paths: Had my mother come here from Poland and when? How about my dad? Poland or Russia? The flurry of interest had little to do with the tracing of roots. He’s doing what a growing number of Gen Zers are busying themselves…
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A hundred Free Advice buttons arrived in a plastic bag as part of a donation to the thrift store — New4You — where I volunteer. I couldn’t resist adorning myself with a few of them. Surely this was the button message meant for my blog readers. After all, most of us have stored up plenty…
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Here we are again: Looking at an issue we’d probably rather not think about. When it comes to our retirement savings and other accumulations of worldly goods, it’s no longer a given that, once we pass on, our kids and grandkids will be awash in newfound wealth or a modicum of cash. Unless we’re fabulously…
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The older we are — make that the more mature we are — the more likely we are to lean in on the politeness tropes of “please” and “thank you.” Before we travel, some of us even make it a point to learn how to say “por favor” or “takk” or “arigato,” depending on where…
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We walk into our kid’s apartment and, yuck, there’s cat hair covering the sofa, dustballs in the bathroom and greasy fingerprints all over the refrigerator. Are we within our “rights” –are we exercising “good judgment”–so say something. Or, if not say something, do something like ask if we can treat them to a deep clean?…
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They’re back. Damp towels on the floor, dishes in the kitchen sink, eyes trained on iPhones. Our young adult kids are coming home and moving into their old bedrooms or our basements. It’s a trend that’s accelerating.: Nearly half — 44 percent — of U.S. parents with adult children ages 18 to 35 say a…
