I don't think worrying and letting him do his thing are your two alternatives. I imagine that you're going to continue to (kind of) worry-as parents tend to do when their teenage and young adult (and sometimes even older adult) children become involved in something they find weird or don't understand or that just gives them the ick.
Start with being completely honest with yourself: You do want to meddle. I'm not saying it's necessarily wrong to, despite the word's negative connotation. So let's call it, instead, "get involved," which is a bit more neutral. To get involved, begin the conversation at the first rung on the school ladder: with his classroom teacher. (If a regularly scheduled parent/teacher conference is coming up soon, save it for then; if there's nothing on the horizon, contact the teacher and ask for a private meeting.)
The moment I rise in the morning, I check my phone. Bad habit, to be sure. But I know I'm not the only one. There is a message from an editor marked "urgent," there is an email from the school reminding me it's parent-visit morning, and a text from a fellow soccer mom making sure I remembered the time change for Sunday's tournament. (I hadn't). The day had barely started, and I already felt hopelessly behind.
I can't even count the number of thoughts I have every single day, just bouncing around in my head like a ping pong ball. I think every mom feels the same way, which is why when you ask a mom what's on her mind, her response could range from something like "Oh, just thinking about my kid's new soccer team" to "The fall of democracy and the state of the world."
I think my personality definitely leaned Michelangelo, I still think TMNT is one of the greatest movies ever, too. I have two brothers and a sister, and the deal was that we had to be good in church for like a month to be able to go to the theater to see that movie. The last weekend, when we were supposed to go to the movies right after church, one of us got in trouble.
You are trying not to shiver while bundled up in a coat, scarf, hat and mittens. In the meantime, your child is wearing ... shorts. It's shocking. And confusing. And somehow personally upsetting. Jenna Bush Hager and Sheinelle Jones discuss the trend in the fourth hour of TODAY on Jan. 29. "Why is it that middle schoolers wear shorts, even in the bitter cold?" Sheinelle said, introducing a clip of Amy Poehler discussing the topic with actress Claire Danes on her "Good Hang" podcast.
"Your kids are two and four months...this isn't a note to your wife. It's a reminder that your focus is on them, and she needs to keep doing what she's already doing while you're gone and she's doing it solo," added u/Appropriate_Age_627.
A few weeks ago, our son's friend "Derek" came over for a sleepover and during the night somehow my son bruised his nose. We didn't know until he went home the next day and his parents texted us. Of course, we apologized and our son said it was an accident, but his friend's father refused to let him play anymore. Apparently the boy wanted to go home at 3am, but he didn't say so to us. (They were up late playing games).
Your husband did a pretty terrible thing. First, remind him that your mom's making a choice to not wear deodorant. It's an odd, kinda gross one, but it's her choice. Unless your mom is putting your husband in a headlock every time she visits, he has to learn to deal with it. But one way he can't deal with it is to use your 3-year-old child as an insult shield. That's just bad parenting-bad adulting, really.
Now, some parenting experts say that paying kids to do chores is actually counterproductive in some way, and kids should help around the house without the expectation of financial compensation because, obviously, one day, they're going to grow up and have a house of their own. And as we all know, no one is paying us to make our beds when we're grown.
The term "naked mom" sounds like internet bait. In reality, it describes something far less dramatic: a mother moving through her own home without turning every day moments like showering or changing into a performance of modesty. Supporters see it as a way to strip shame from bodies and raise kids who aren't scandalized by anatomy. Critics, meanwhile, worry about boundaries, privacy and where comfort should - and shouldn't - begin inside a family.
I don't use the f word as often. My kids saw me swearing on YouTube videos. That doesn't exactly put me in a strong position at home when it comes to parenting, telling them what to say and what not to say. But if I get really angry, if we're being too 'arrogant' - we need to be confident in our own strength and what we can do, and we know that. But I don't like unnecessary arrogance,
Whether the teen is challenging the parents' authority, doing poorly in school, or experimenting with substances, teenagers can make parents want to pull their hair out. It often feels that the efforts we make to help our kids prepare for their futures are often met with arguments, hostility and/or lack of interest. This can be remarkably frustrating and can cause us to get upset and sometimes lose our tempers. What we may not realize is that teenagers often are just posturing their defiance. They are unsure and uncertain about themselves and their futures.
The parent or adolescent needs to find a better alternative, and the adult needs to lead and show that way. After all,now is later, an adolescent is just an adult in training, and part of the parental responsibility is modeling and teaching habits of spoken communication that the young person will carry forward into significant relationships to come. Ensuring safe speech means managing unhappy emotional arousal that can betray them into saying what can inflict serious injury.
Which, if you ask me (and you did ask me, right?), is awful of him. Possibly unforgivable. This is your child. At 23, he's still in the process of becoming who he's going to be. Wanting to move back home so that he can finish school doesn't seem to me "entitled" or immature, so unless there's a lot of untold backstory here that supports your husband's convictions ... well, those convictions just seem unfeeling and selfish to me.
Writer-director Angus MacLachlan's "A Little Prayer" is a quiet domestic drama about an older couple in North Carolina, their troubled adult children, the children's significant others, and their struggles to find peace and happiness despite the mistakes they've made and the distress they've caused others. It received respectful national attention and found a theatrical audience, even though it had little promotional money behind it and features just one cast member who's anything close to a household name (ace character actor David Strathairn).
Life has truly been life-ing here in 2026, and the only way any of us moms are going to make it through the darkness is by finding spots of light. And, sometimes, that means we have to be the spot of light for ourselves.
"The smartest women with the happiest relationships are the useless women," Dianna Lee begins in her video. "As you can probably tell, I'm a highly capable woman. I'm capable throughout all areas of my life, through my schooling days, to my career, and I attacked my marriage life in exactly the same way. I just executed. I was fast, efficient, and I knew exactly what needed to get done. And in retrospect, it was so wrong."
My wife and I have two kids, boys aged 4 and 6. I'm very happy with our family as it is. The kids are both out of diapers and in school all day. They're sleeping, we're sleeping. I feel like we've got a handle on this thing. But now my wife is saying she wants another one. She's 40, I'm 45-it's not totally out of the realm of possibility that we could have another one.
Neither my husband nor I ever had hair like my son's, but somehow he has curls that women would pay hundreds for at the salon. I would know, because I've been told so over and over again. His perfectly bouncy ringlets have become his signature look. You know Spencer by his hair. I'm always shocked when I look back at old photos to see how it's grown.
It was on [Dax Shepard's] podcast, and we were doing press ... Somehow the conversation derailed into bathing habits, and then we started talking about how we all don't bathe our children very often, and/or ourselves. Like, I shower every day, but I don't wash my hair every day. I don't find that to be a necessity,
When you fix the "problem," it teaches kids that you don't think they can handle it. Helping a child be flexible-to adapt when things don't happen as they expect or want-builds resilience. Resilience and flexibility are attributes that ultimately make kids happy. I call this the "taping the pretzel" trap: Your child flips out when something unexpected happens and demands you undo it,
First, you have to facilitate through the situation, which means realigning your mindset and asking yourself what you need to do to effect change for the next time you see this behaviour. Once this mindset has been established, there is a sequence of steps we must avoid to be able to effect change. These are as follows: 1. Do not allow your reactions to be based on what your child is saying.
Growing up, the grandparents who raised me were a generation removed from me, and because of it, I never felt like I could go to them with real issues or problems. I hid the deep and dark stuff because children were to be seen and not heard. We did not talk about the big things like sex or drugs. Instead, the warnings were direct and often frightening.
1. A cup holder snack tray converter so you can spend fewer road trips straining your arm while contorting it to hand individual Goldfish crackers from the front seat to the grabby hands in the back. 2. A pair of noise reduction ear muffs that'll cut back on the noise in your little's ears by 23 decibels and help muffle loud travel sounds, whether they're awake or asleep.
Moms, just like anyone else, can make mistakes. Sometimes, the weight of balancing parenting responsibilities, work, and personal life leads to moments of extreme frustration or maybe an accidental harsh word. However, what's important is understanding that apologizing isn't a sign of weakness - it's actually a sign of strength. Apologizing shows your kids that you are not perfect, and that it's okay to own up to mistakes.
Yes, I know your kiddos probably just got far too much from Santa and their grandparents over the holidays. However, there is something to be said for introducing a little something something to keep them busy (and happy!) when they're sick of being stuck indoors (aren't we all?). Honestly, if my kids are content, life is easier. There's no shame in surprising them with something like a K-pop Demon Hunters version of Monopoly Deal, a snowman decorating kit, a fresh pair of Vans sneakers, or
