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Parenting
Sunbeams
January 2007The family seems to have two predominant functions: to provide warmth and love in time of need and to drive each other insane.
Abuelita
She nodded a greeting to my husband and me, and then her gaze landed on the baby in my lap. Her hands came together in a loud clap that silenced our polite chatter, and she began to chant to my son in rhyming Spanish. He froze, his eyes widening to the size of quarters as she swept him from my arms.
January 2007
The Myth Of Tough Love
Maia Szalavitz On The Epidemic Abuses Of The Teen-Help Industry
The research is very clear: In the vast majority of cases, keeping children within the family and community is far more effective than sending them away. The exception would be a teen with a genuine acute addiction or psychiatric problem — which is not the same as a “behavior problem.” For psychiatric disorders and true addictions, there are professional, licensed treatment centers. Are they accessible to everybody? No. They are expensive, and insurance often won’t cover them. But the same is true of tough-love programs, and if you’re going to spend thousands of dollars on treatment for your child, I recommend you spend it on a program that has demonstrable evidence of its effectiveness, as opposed to one that probably won’t help and may harm.
January 2007
What Are You Waiting For?
You wake to the sound of Dixon’s voice: “I forgot to meet the bus. She’s not there; she’s not here. Do you know where she is?”
January 2007
Infant Pneumonia
She wouldn’t suck. She wouldn’t cuddle. / Her eyes rolled toward me, then away again. / I hugged her to my chest and ran / from the doctor’s office to the X-ray lab.
December 2006You’re In Prison
It’s not like in the movies. That stuff really happens, but it doesn’t all happen in an hour and a half, in three acts that build to a dramatic conclusion, like it does on the big screen. You think it’s going to be exactly like that, especially after you’ve been convicted and sentenced, and you’re still being housed at the county jail, and some guy asks if you’ve ever been to the “pen.”
October 2006
September 2006
My daughter Mara has a suspicious lump in her breast; a biopsy is scheduled for later this week. If the lump turns out to be benign, I can go back to worrying about how far behind I am in my work or about the accelerated pace of global warming.
September 2006Walking In An Old Forest With Our Young Son On My Back, I See The Fates Of My Friends In Every Tree
Little one, do you see how this thin tree grows in the shade / of its father? Don’t do that. Do you see how this trunk / turns around, always looking over its shoulder at the others? / That’s hard.
July 2006Mercy
The children’s puppy was run over at the end of May. Not on the main road, which Pam might have expected, but on the dirt track that formed the western boundary of the farm.
May 2006
The Middle Of The Night
A family of aliens, the Big Dipper, an old wooden gazebo
March 2006
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