By: Shannon Ralph A couple of months ago, I published an article entitled 20 Reasons My Daughter Isn’t Speaking to Me. Since that time, in true tween fashion, my nine-year-old daughter has continued her embittered vow of silence. Okay, lets’ be honest. The silence part isn’t so bad. It’s a nice break from the eye-popping, […]
By: Shannon Ralph I am the proud parent of a lovely—though occasionally smelly—young man. At 12 years old, my son is on the cusp of puberty. And we all know where puberty leads—yep, manhood. Ahhh…manhood. That oft-revered state of autonomy and self-reliance that all boys dream of achieving. The point in time when a boy […]
By: Shannon Ralph I adore my son. I love him with all my heart. I do, however, find myself sometimes marveling at the unparalleled anomaly that is a 12-year-old boy. Not yet a teen. No longer a little kid. My son is taller than me. Hairier. His feet are huge. His socks smell. He’s opinionated. […]
By: Shannon Ralph Homework is the bane of my existence. It’s not that I am necessarily anti-homework. I get it. I see the value of the concept—the otherworldly, ethereal, high level, metaphysical abstraction of it. I understand the need for homework to reinforce the tiny shreds of algebraic knowledge my son’s harried teacher is able […]
By: Rob Watson Jasmyn Smith committed suicide. According to her family and friends, she had endured “a year and a half of being heavily bullied, both at school and online”. She was…eleven. I cannot stand that this happened. I cannot stand that she was only a year older than my sons. I am sure that […]
By Shannon Ralph I am a nag. I don’t want to be a nag, but I can’t seem to help myself. When Lucas was younger, I thought he could do no wrong. Of course, he had his naughty moments like all children. But for the most part, I thought everything he did and said […]
