Paula’s last child had just gone off to college and Paula was struggling with a deep inner emptiness. While she knew this day was coming, she was not really prepared for the intense hollowness that welled up within. After all, she had a life of her own. Her work as…
In the 18th and 19th centuries, American pioneer women spent months alone on the prairies raising their children, doing endless backbreaking chores, and protecting the homestead from countless sources of danger. Some of these women would go on to develop lifelong mental illnesses resulting from the continued stress and isolation….
For many couples this isn’t a problem at least not at the beginning of the relationship but when children come along difficulties with partners’ families often crop up. Difficult decisions have to be made about parenting and a competition between ‘my family’ and ‘your family’ can arise. Often each of…
Work-at-home jobs aren’t just for moms and retirees anymore. There are plenty of legitimate online jobs available as more employers hire people to fill virtual positions within their companies, both as employees and as freelance contractors. Regardless of why you want to work from home, you’ll need motivation and the…
Moms everywhere are familiar with the scenario: You’re nursing your child through a bout with a bad cold or stomach flu, knowing all the while that within a few days, you’ll be experiencing the same misery yourself. Before you had children, it was probably fairly easy to avoid catching illnesses;…
“What are some of the ways in which you explain to kids that mom and dad need time alone, without feeling guilty about it?” A journalist, writing an article on having time alone and couple time when you have kids, asked me this question. Parents will feel guilty only when…
Some of us imagined that when we had children, we would become a member of a special tribe, a global community of mothers where we’d always be able to find common ground and form strong bonds. Ideally, that is the way it should be, but reality doesn’t always live up…
Stay-at-home moms are no longer just the co-stars from Leave It To Beaver, The Brady Bunch, and other television shows from a bygone era. Taking care of the kids has become the cool thing to do again for women in their 20s and 30s. According to the U.S. Census Bureau,…
The old saying “everything changes once you have kids” is a truth for the ages. There’s no part of life that isn’t touched by the experience of becoming a mom. For the most part, the changes are positive, but sometimes they can be emotionally difficult. When children come into our…
If anyone needs some time for pampering and self-reflection, it’s a single mom. Single motherhood demands so much of a woman that it barely gives her time to sit back, breathe, and enjoy the moment. A partnered mom can ask her spouse to keep an eye on the kids while…