I grew up in a tight-knit neighborhood in the city of Pittsburgh. I walked to school starting at 11. On school vacations, I chaperoned my six younger cousins to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, where we’d spend the day. Now the sight of seven unattended children in a museum would …
Read More »Elizabeth Bastos
Sailing Short Hair in A Sea of Manes
I have short hair. Buzzcut short. I used the #4 clippers. Buzzfeed’s listicle fierce women with shaved heads was my inspiration. Also, my daughter, who is nine and already well into the performance of feminino-normative. She wears her hair long. Of course. She’s a girly-girl. In an effort at frugality I …
Read More »Getting my nature newbies to go outside
The weather is warm and beautiful and unseasonable. Birdsong fills the air. The daffodils are up. I want my kids to go outside and take it in. This is the beauty of their planet in the spring. What they want to do is to stay inside and watch their devices. …
Read More »Plug the Summer Brain Drain
Every parent of a school-age child knows the “summer backslide,” “summer brain” and “sun-head.” How did Joey forget algebra in six weeks? Call it what you will, in academic research circles it is known as summer learning loss, “the phenomenon where young people lose academic skills over the summer.” According to the Johns Hopkins School of Education’s Why …
Read More »Are you singing the Middle Grades Blues? You’re not alone.
Last month NPR posted the story, Being A Mom To A Middle-Schooler Can Be The Toughest Gig of All. I nodded my head. Finally, the research is in. Finally, the science backs me up: Parenting tweens is the worst. As a mother you’re supposed to be a cheerful Hallmark card bestowing boo-boo healing, kisses and …
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