FamilyEducation Blogs

November 3, 2009

"What do we do?"

Suddenly, Porshai began to cry.

Danny and I slept on a mattress in the middle of his uncle’s living room floor, with Porshai, only a few months old, lying between us. [more]

October 28, 2009

A teenage birth

A sharp and unbearable pain suddenly pierced my side.
"OUCH!" I yelled.

It was early in June, starting to feel like summer.

Like any other teenager, I was hanging out at the playground, leaning against a fence.
"What’s wrong," asked my friend, Julie.
"I don’t know," I said, innocently.

I was seventeen years old and nine months pregnant. [more]

January 7, 2009

Let's get real about sex ed

According to the CDC, the most recent birth statistics show that teen births have increased in over half of U.S. states. Mississippi now has the highest teen pregnancy rate – 68.4% versus a U.S. average of 41.9% per 1,000 births – and nine other states have rates over 50%. Isn't it time to provide our kids with more than abstinence-only education? [more]

October 19, 2008

Living off daddy

It was my cousin Dee-Dee who told my grandmother that I was pregnant. I couldn’t tell her myself. I remember my grandmother coming to the door of my bedroom that I shared with my cousin and two sisters and any other family member who needed a place to sleep. She looked at me – her eyes piercing though me – she said nothing, turned around and walked away. [more]

October 13, 2008

Ah ha!

I had an epiphany today. Several, actually.

As I drove down Dudley Street, I saw my mother, wearing a brown jacket and brown hat. Rage flared in me. I can’t do what my mother did to me and my siblings. I can’t do it! I really can’t wait for Porshai and Danny to go away to college. “Why?” Ellen asked. (Here comes an “ah-ha” moment.) Because I want to enjoy life. [more]

October 9, 2008

HELP!

I was ironing and watching TV when the local news set me off. (Not a hard thing to do.) A reporter was “live” in the northern Boston suburb of Gloucester, Massachusetts. [more]

June 25, 2008

Nothing real about this show

I’m the first to admit that I watch too much TV. After long days of work and nights of parenting, I find it easy to melt in front of the boob tube and unwind. I’m not suggesting this is a good thing, by the way. If we were to homeschool K-Man, there’s a good chance he’d be more likely to recite the Survivor winners than the presidents, and he’d probably know the ramble of a Top Chef contestant before he'd know the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. [more]