Ah-yup. When I was about this age I was playing driver in a parked car in my driveway, which just happened to be on a steep incline, while my dad ran inside for 'just a minute' to grab something leaving all four kids loose in the car. I scrambled into the drivers seat and in quick secession managed to A) lock the…

From the report I read, they are charging her under the "willful abandonment" clause...because, you know, letting a nine year old play at the park while you're at work is pretty much the exact same thing as leaving an infant in a basket somewhere with a note pinned to the blanket while you go off to live the rest of…

Honestly, the first few months are a total blur now. There were days I could barely feed myself I was so focused on taking care of the baby and nights I fell asleep fully clothed with the lights on after lying down with the baby because I didn't have to energy get back up again. It got better. We have a routine that…

Thank you. When it became clear that I'd be doing this on my own, I went looking online for positive stories about single parents who kicked ass. Holy hell they are hard to find, at least in the dominant media narrative of single parenthood, so anytime someone shares their personal story of "successful single…

My insurance plan from work includes a number of free visits to an employee counseling service for just this kind of thing. When you're pregnant the decision to stay home, go back to work, or figure out a part-time combo deal is a Major Life Decision you have to make and it can be really stressful for some people.…

It's hard not to fall in that reverse-shaming trap sometimes! I live in Hippy Central and the sizing-up of other mothers is pretty constant. (Do they vaccinate? Do they Unschool/homeschool? Do they co-sleep/breastfeed? JUST HOW CRUNCHY ARE YOU WOMAN?!) Mostly the underlying motive seems to be trying to figure out…

Amen to that. As a single parent I had to go back to work full time to support myself and the pup. (Though I was lucky enough to have paid maternity leave for the first three months.) Before the baby was born I joined the local Facebook parenting groups for 'emotional support' but man, oh man, did I drop them fast…

Umm, yeah, we actually do have a well-regulated militia. It's called the National Guard. If you really want to be a citizen soldier trained to defend your home community, join that. Don't buy a machine gun off the internet and pretend that your magically protecting your community just by owning it.

Yeeeaaah...toddlers and grocery store lines are the worst. After a few unpleasant episodes with mine I've just started making the deli case my last stop in the store before checkout. The pup (19 months) gets a small handful of potato wedges (we call them jo-jos but that might be a regional thing) and into line we get.…

Um, do you spend a lot of time around four year olds? 'Cause personal experience tells me that four year olds are often little jerks who never listen and generally have poor control over their bodies and impulses. You can tell them ten billion times not to pull the cat's leg and yet...boom, there they go. It's a…

FYI: There's been an update. The four year old boy has mild autism. That may help explain why the cat was so very protective. The update also says the dog will be put down and addresses the "where was the mom? why didn't she pick him up?" questions that keep being posted.

Oh, this one is Oregon all the way. I saw it in the local news yesterday and just knew that it would be a Portlandia joke by breakfast time today.

(Full disclosure: As a parent I'm still breastfeeding my 15 month old. We struggled with low supply and a bad latch for the first few weeks but I got help from a lactation consultant and we got better at it and it became way easier. As a single mom, I went back to working full time when the pup was only 10 weeks old…

I'm all the way out in Oregon but after watching a Bill Moyers report on how politics in North Carolina got hijacked by one man with lots of money and a super conservative agenda I think these NC races are important to watch as a test of popular democracy. If I were local I might even be tempted to join campaigns and…

If you're connected to your extended family through a social media site, like Facebook, you might try starting the conversation by posting links like this one to your profile along with some "This is why we..." commentary. Then follow up with one-on-one discussions with family members who don't pick up on that cue.…

I think it's super important to start the conversation around consent early by teaching even little kids that they have autonomy over their own body (to a realistic degree anyway...there are times when a kid, particularly one under 5, does not want to do something that it needs to for its own health and/or safety like…