#parenting

#parenting

I'm listening to the latest Stephen Spencer song when suddenly I burst into tears. Was it the falsetto vocals? The swirling harmonies? No, it was the lyrics: What did Apple-the-Stoola say? He said I love you' twenty-sixty times. Spencer, you see, has a unique lyrical collaborator: his three-year-old daughter. Over the last four months, he has been posting short songs online based on her stream-of-consciousness stories.

I'm not going to tell you that you can't squish or flush a bug if you can't handle trapping and releasing it (although, full disclosure, I am a trap/release outdoors gal for all except mosquitos and cockroaches), but I'm not sure that persuading your 4-year-old to be cool with killing any living creature (even when it's because it "scares the shit out of" their mother) is your best path forward as a parent.

Twenty years ago, a woman sat opposite me on a train and quoted the first line of the book I was reading to me. We talked and talked about books, architecture, family, relationships and haven't stopped since. I assumed I'd never see her again, but she gave me her number and after texting furiously for a week she invited me to stay with her, and our instant intellectual connection became an intense physical one.

"Morning! We're not. I don't think we were invited to this one ..." I wrote back, unoffended by the lack of invitation. But then, another, more unsettling thought crossed my mind: "Or I missed the invite, which is also very possible," I added. Sure enough, when I typed "Henry" into my inbox search a few moments later, two things came up: an invitation to the party and a reminder to RSVP. I'd missed both.

I have a 14-year-old son, "Tim." About a month ago, I caught Tim on making lewd and disgusting posts in an online forum. Both as punishment and for his own online safety, I cut all internet connection from the house except for my own personal computer. If he needs to go online, he goes through me, under my supervision. He complained, of course.

Kids may say the darndest things, but parents post about them in the funniest ways.

I'd suggest counseling first before looking into possible avenues of having another child at this point in life. Learning and experiencing that your children are growing up as you planned and knowing that active parenting doesn't end at age 18, but continues for many years as your children seek your knowledge and wisdom, helps take the edge off feeling abandoned or no longer needed by your kids. -Robin

The first time I used the Snoo, it freaked me out. My wife and I placed our baby into the high-tech bassinet on her fifth day on this earth, praying the machine would help her sleep, and thus aid us in fighting back the hallucinations brought on by new-parent sleep deprivation. We wrapped her in the approved organic cotton swaddle, clipped her into the sleek oval bed and pressed the glowing button on the side.

My wife, Mabel, leaves a permanent pile of clothes in our bedroom on a chair. I call it the Monster. It feels as if there are thousands of T-shirts, trousers and sweatshirts always stacked there. I hate it. I don't know how she finds anything. Also, it's a pain: the chair is between the bed and my side of the wardrobe, and sometimes the pile is so huge that it stops me from accessing my own clothes.

It sounds like you're trying to avoid potentially awkward or difficult conversations with friends and family. And sometimes that path works out just fine! But as you're learning with your sister, avoidance doesn't work every time. Granted, your niece could simply grow out of her bullying behavior. But it could also become a pattern when your kids are together. Which is a bummer for them, makes the time you all spend with your sister's family a lot more fraught,

On the air, Yesi Ortiz is a warm, flirty host for a popular L.A. hip hop station. Off the air, she's a single mother of six adopted kids. Managing both roles, plus romance, is a challenge. This episode originally aired in 2015. Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus! Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles

Kids and clean cars don't mix. Between snack crumbs, stray toys, and sticky fingerprints, your backseat can feel like a disaster zone. No matter how often you tidy up, the mess always returns. So how to keep the car clean? But a messy car doesn't have to be your reality! With simple systems and quick clean-up habits, you can keep things under control. The key is working with the chaos instead of against it -because kids will always make a mess.

Body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs), like hair pulling, skin picking, and nail biting, can take up a lot of space in a family's life. Not just in bathrooms and bedrooms, but in conversations, emotions, and worries about the future. Parents want to help, kids want relief, and everyone is exhausted by the cycle of noticing, reminding, trying harder, and feeling discouraged.

My first assignment at the 2016 Summer Olympics was to deliver a package. My second was to find a food mart that sold bottled water. I wasn't working the event, though. My "job" was being the parent of an Olympic athlete. My daughter, Gwen Jorgensen, was set to compete in the women's triathlon, and our family had flown from Wisconsin to Rio de Janeiro to support her.

You can't do it all. And early on as a parent, I found that out by burning out completely while trying to be the perfect mother. One of the first things I abandoned to reestablish my sanity? Not trying to cook three from-scratch meals for my family every day while also trying to parent, work, and clean. Let's face it: if you're in the parenting business, you better have a few incredibly easy go-to meals up your sleeve

Kids have been telling their parents they're bored for as long as there have been parents. Nothing new there. But lately, it seems different. Many 21st-century kids, especially bright or neurodivergent kids, report being bored a lot. They're bored at school. They're bored on short car trips. They're bored when they're home and stuck inside without a friend. They're bored outside if there's nobody nearby to play with.

To me, the drama of has a lot of parallels with modern-day parenting. Sure, putting a Paw Patrol Band-Aid on your kid's scraped knee isn't exactly the same as treating a degloved foot (although judging by the screaming, you wouldn't know it). And betting on where a runaway ambulance will end up is higher stakes than betting on which child will crawl into your bed tonight.

My mom died when I was young, so I grew up spending summers with her mom in South Dakota. I loved that time with her, but I often only saw her that one time of year. I lived back in Florida with my dad for the rest of the year. When my grandma was older, she embraced the snowbird lifestyle and spent half the year in Florida to escape the Midwest winters.

"I've had people reach out about name regret with children up to 6 years old," baby name consultant Colleen Slagen tells TODAY.com.

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.)

What these parents don't realize is that today's failure to launch is not always behavioral in nature. It can be due to cognitive constipation (bear with me on the Gastrointestinal metaphor; I am trying to make a point). Yes, that's right. It is those nasty doses of overthinking-the behind-the-scenes fuel-that crank up the hidden anxiety burning in your adult child's brain.

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.