Join the Mamas 

Learn outside. At least that’s the suggestion coming from a growing group of activists and educators referencing best practices from alternative Forest Schools, yes, schools that take place in the forest, to the way school is resuming in Italy, Denmark and how it has been taught in less developed countries around the globe, pandemic or not.

Much like everything else the federal government has shared with us, the possibility or actual directive to “shelter-in-place” has several interpretations that vary state by state.

I’m glad to see an uptick in thoughtful articles that bring boys into discussions around consent and sex, something we can’t have in a vacuum with girls alone. Author Peggy Orenstein, author of “Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent and Navigating the New Masculinity,” penned this interesting Op-Ed in the New York Times that asks this essential question: “Will We Ever Figure Out How to Talk to Boys about Sex?”

According to a study cited by The Atlantic, over 90% of parents claim a top priority for their kids is to be caring. But when asked what the parents want for their kids, 81% of kids said it’s achievement and personal happiness over caring for others. So where's the disconnect?

I appreciate how this write-up emphasizes the verb “respond,” rather than, say, react, blow up, give up or give in.

While I liked and even, at times, loved school, I always, always feared and loathed math. I liked money, lol, but math, not so much. Multiplication in particular stumped me until one day my late father Phil, RIP, suggested a spirited round of ping pong. It was summer break, we were in Monterey, CA, and as we rallied a tiny ball back and forth reciting numbers ad nauseam I finally, miraculously learned my times tables. How did you learn? Did you enjoy it? 

Do you have mixed feelings about Instagram too? I like sharing things about my day that I love or find interesting, and I like seeing updates from my friends and personalties-slash-brands I "like." But I could only imagine how my 13-year-old self would feel in a world where everything is either worthy of a post or not—where every outfit, mood or experience is deemed likable or shareable and, if it's not, then what would that mean?

What are you doing this summer? Scheduling multiple activities and/or care for your kids? Scheduling the activity or caregiver’s schedule on top of that?

Jill Kargman (creator and lead in Odd Mom Out) is one of the funniest writers out there who I had the pleasure of sitting next to at an otherwise super dull dinner party many years ago.

What’s your motivating style? Mine is more of the coerce and bribe variety which I know isn’t ideal but is honestly all I often can do in a heated moment of exchange.

Apparently, yes. The first-person experience of being in the moment is altogether different than watching your experience on a screen after the fact and through the lens, literally, of someone else.

The other day I was searching "O" for Octonauts on Netflix and had to shield my son's eyes from a dizzying array of images and promos for shows his barely-four-year-old self can neither process nor understand.