Parenting

Parenting

I am at the end of my tether with my three children. They are eight, 11 and 13 and every morning it is a giant battle to get them up out of bed and ready for school. I have tried everything - I have their clothes laid out, their breakfast on the table, their bags packed and their lunches made.

He kept repeating himself until I finally said, "We are done arguing, just drop it." To which he retorted, "You just drop it!" I then asked him to go anywhere in the house besides the kitchen because he was still talking about it after I asked him to stop. (I couldn't leave, I was helping his sitter get a snack, and doing dishes.) He then yelled at me, "You leave! Why do I have to leave if you're the one with the problem?"

I was delighted when I saw an Evite in my inbox from a mom inviting him to a classmate's 6th birthday party. The little boy's name was Nathan. The event took place at a retro slot-car raceway, where you raced tiny, electric-powered replicas of full-size cars on narrow tracks with "grooves," known as "slots." Neither of us had been to one before, and we were excited to accept the invitation.

I never speak negatively about my body or my appearance in general when talking with my 9-year-old daughter. I am trying to model positive body image, self-esteem, and self-love for her. When I was growing up, my mother was always very self-critical, self-conscious, constantly complaining about her body and her flaws, and I had to work pretty hard to undo her negative programming.

Over my decades of practice, seeing thousands of people who use donor conception to have their children, I have seen a steady increase in people who want to either co‑parent or who plan to use the sperm or eggs of someone they know and plan to call that person "mom" or "dad." While I have seen many of these beautiful arrangements work out well, many have not.

I wanted to help her sleep soundly in her new "big girl" bed. But once she did, I didn't expect my own sleep to continue to be disrupted as well. I woke up at every creak of the house, wondering if it was my daughter roaming around, exploring her newfound freedom. I knew it was incredibly unlikely, but I feared that she would unlock the door and walk outside in the middle of the night.

It's been a theme in letters I've seen this year-adults complaining that children aren't processing the difficult things they go through in the way the adults want them to. 15 is a really hard age for a lot of kids, let alone for those who've seen two fathers exit their lives (to varying degrees). He's processing a ton of changes in his own life, possibly entering high school, and he shouldn't feel responsible for the feelings of his ex-step-grandparents.

They want my husband to act like he did when he was 21, single, and broke, when he was living on their sofa and joining them for partying. They blame me for the change in his priorities rather than realizing he simply grew up, and they often try to put a wedge in our relationship, like they did when they were in town this weekend.

The day before school resumed, Sara spent the afternoon with her daughter, just being together-nothing extravagant, just simple delights: a playdate, a temporary face tattoo (because, why not?), pockets of slow time woven together. On the walk home, the temperature dropped sharply. The subway felt impossibly far. Her daughter said she was too cold, too tired, too done. So they shared a pair of headphones.

We are a white, well-off (not extremely wealthy, but doing fine) family living in a mid- to lower-income neighborhood in a major coastal city. Our first grader goes to a Title I public school and a well-known, national non-profit (we'll call it "the ABC program") runs the school care. Our youngest will start kindergarten this fall. I grew up in a wealthy suburb with very minimal diversity of any kind, and I really appreciate that my children are growing up in a more diverse environment.

We didn't think too much about the economics of having four children, but this aspect of parenting is very, very important

I babysat for a weird family during my early adulthood. They had two kids, 6-ish and 2-ish. They were adamantly anti-screen for the kids, which isn't weird. But this was a relatively wealthy family, both parents were college professors, and most of the kids' toys were like Tupperware bowls full of rocks, things they'd found outside, homemade fabric dolls, etc. Apparently, the dad had grown up in communist Russia and didn't think that kids needed much to become resilient.

When I had kids, I tried pretty hard to stick to their regular nap schedule, because skipping sleep could cause days of chaos. But my mom would always argue that in the 80s, she would always just make naps work whenever and whenever it was convenient. Whether that's really how she did things, or whether she is suffering from a big case of gramnesia, I'm not sure.

Before kids, birthday parties were all about cake, music, and general merriment. After kids, it's about cake, music, and the ever-complicated dynamics of kid friendships and invitation discourse. Who do you invite? Who gets left out? Do you skip the whole party thing and do a "Yes Day" or a trip? There are so many things to consider when it comes to throwing a kid's birthday party, so what do you do when you're also in the midst of a complicated situation as a potential guest?

The Parents of Ireland Survey 2026 gathered responses from 1,878 parents of school-going children nationwide, offering a detailed snapshot of Irish family life

The questions usually come after the lights are off - innocent, unplanned, impossible. It was the night of my 39th birthday, and I was lying in the dark beside my 4-year-old son, watching him as he drifted toward sleep. I know he's close when he rests his right cheek on the pillow, facing away from me, his body finally slowing down.

From clothes and entertainment to snacks and gear, it is mind-boggling how a person who takes up such little space can need so much stuff. And how are you supposed to keep track of it all while on the go, anyway? If you have $10 to throw at the problem, I have a fix that will forever change how you pack for your kiddo.

There is no greater feeling than seeing a child open their birthday gift from you and knowing you TOTALLY nailed it.

It's not just what we say to them directly that they're absorbing; it's how we talk about ourselves and others, what we say to others about them and how we behave, too. We asked experts what sorts of things children pick up on that adults don't always realize they're noticing. This list isn't designed to be judgmental; rather, it's a reminder that we can all bring a little more awareness to our day-to-day interactions.

Leaving my hometown was another part of my letting go of my daughter, a process I began the day that I put her in the arms of her new parents. Seeing 6-month-old Hanna reach for her adoptive mother had helped to convince me that everything was as it should be - as it was supposed to be. Our connection had been severed. It was time for me to move on. We were now both free to live the rest of our lives.

For instance, I was over for dinner in mid-December when Andrew told Lila that his mom had texted him saying she wasn't feeling well and wouldn't be able to come over the next day for Hanukkah. My niece heard, and cried out, "So we won't get our presents? Not fair!" (Mind you, when I came over that night, the first thing the little ones said to me was, "Did you bring us presents?") Lila and Andrew didn't say anything, so I couldn't help saying, "Your grandmother is sick. What's important is for her to get better. I bet she'd love to hear you say you hope she feels better soon!"

While I understand the importance of advocating for your child, there is a time and a place for it. I never forgot that parent and always wondered if her incessant demands of the teacher worked out negatively for her child. To be honest, after witnessing her daily display of entitlement, I never wanted to approach a teacher at dismissal again. I stuck to emails, mostly.

While screens aren't exactly new - I mean, almost everyone's grown up watching television - they're not quite the same as they used to be, either.

"I have absolutely no idea why more people don't just stop at one," she writes. "I wasn't always one and done. I originally wanted 3-4 kids, but actually having my first child made me OAD. I cannot imagine having any more children; being a parent is SO hard."

I gave birth to a baby girl a few weeks ago, and my mom has been coming to help every week for a full day. She's wonderful with my newborn: she changes diapers like a pro, she is great at getting her to stop crying, and she is respectful of rules that were different from when she had her kids (like the fact that babies are supposed to sleep on their backs, without blankets and stuffed animals in the crib).

Every week, we round up funny posts from moms and dads on X, Threads and Bluesky.