FamilyEducation Blogs

I did an interesting exercise with my students yesterday. We had just finished reading a short essay by Amy Tan--a memoir piece recounting a childhood experience about feeling different, out of place. As the daughter of immigrant parents from China, Tan writes often of her childhood experiences growing up and feeling different from her peers. I asked my students to think a little about a time in which they too felt different, and to write about it. One student claimed she couldn't think of a single time in her childhood or adolescence when she had felt different from her peers. [more]

At the pool this past weekend we met an interesting couple who also live in the neighborhood (thanks to T., who ended up joined at the hips with their two kids--the same ones who were frog hunting with her the other day). We've been meeting a lot of interesting people at the pool lately--people we click with immediately and have engaging conversations with. This couple appeared in deck chairs last weekend, as if blown in by the breeze, leaving us to wonder where on earth they were last summer, these interesting people, because it would have been nice to have known them then. [more]

A favorite blogger friend of mine wrote the other day about a recent study out there claiming that parenthood does not, in fact, bring joy and fulfillment,  that children are a source of misery and stress, and that raising them is a "lifelong challenge to your mental health." Where the data for this study came from is anyone's guess, actually, but I thought a lot about it yester [more]

Last night I had a long and involved and very detailed dream about being pregnant again. In my dream I was not only pregnant, but pregnant with twin boys. My dream took me through the positive pregnancy test and the discovery, via ultrasound, of the fact that I was carrying twins. It was all so realistic--right down to the numb shock, mixed with creeping delight, at the thought of a new pregnancy. I think, though, that the numb shock won out in the end. [more]

We moved into our current home and neighborhood just over a year ago. We truly love it here, and nothing brings this fact home to me more than when I walk the dog around the now familiar streets and down through the woods and back up again, past the houses lit up at dusk, cozy and warm and inviting. [more]