Teen Years

I started 2019 wondering if I had to sue my ex-husband or not. Happy new year to me. We have two kids, a son who is in high school and a daughter who is studying at Temple University in Philadelphia. She and her dad, my ex, got into an argument …

The trip starts with snafus, because there always is a karmic, you-just-try-and-relax comeuppance before I attempt to slide away from real life into the magic of vacationland. This time: My 16-year-old son leaves a bag with all of his catcher’s equipment in a rental car that I had driven the …

The numbers tell a story I know too well. The same week as two celebrity suicides last month, the Centers for Disease Control released new data showing that the suicide rate in this country has increased by 30 percent. In 2016 alone, 45,000 lost their lives to suicide. The state …

In college in the early ’90s, I studied for a semester at the University of Nice, one in a group of about 15 students traveling through the University of Maryland, College Park. Most of us barely knew each other – although some of us have remained friends decades later – …

Last year, I attended the senior awards ceremony at my daughter’s high school to see her be honored for serving as class president. It was one of the first awards of the evening — she and the three other girls who had served as officers were called to the stage …

I ended 2017 with nine kid-less days. Nine days, no teens. In odd years, my children travel to Bozeman, Montana, to spend Christmas with their father and his family. My daughter breezed in from college on a Wednesday afternoon and the next day I dropped her and her brother at …

When my daughter and her friends left for college this fall, there seemed to be a flood of emotion online. Suddenly everyone I knew on Facebook was dropping off children for their first year of college, and everyone was tearful and choked up. Not me. “This doesn’t mean I am …

On the endless checklist of things to do before my daughter Leeannah left for college last month was to have her permanent retainer taken out and replaced with a removable one. Not exactly the most memorable or exciting of tasks, but one that had to be done. We made the …

As I followed the violence in Charlottesville this weekend, I kept thinking about the parents who are sending their kids to University of Virginia in a few short days—orientation for new students is Aug. 19 and classes start three days later. What must they be thinking? I considered their fear …

For a long time, I was fascinated with the story of Elijah the pack horse—I thought it would make a great children’s book. Elijah was stranded in the snowy Colorado Rockies in the winter of 1956. A pilot flying over the peaks saw the marooned horse, who had gotten lost …