Family

What do you do with a useless engagement ring? Here are 5 ideas

You could hold onto it until you found another person worthy of your love and your precious stone. You could…

November 13, 2015

My boyfriend refuses to sync with my sleep schedule

A: In general, that is true: Someone puts effort into doing what matters to them. But his staying up late…

November 7, 2015

What realizing we weren’t a dog family taught me about being a parent

So a puppy sounded great. A puppy would love me! “A dog will without judgment curl at your feet while…

November 7, 2015

My mom knew just what she wanted to wear at her funeral

When she and my father had drawn up their burial contracts, she’d requested to be buried in a simple white…

November 7, 2015

These breakups really slayed: History’s three biggest splits

“I think one of the best things that books can do is make people feel less alone,” Wright says in…

November 6, 2015

Son just wants to feel pretty

A: The challenging aspect of this scenario is that there is so much we don’t know about the minds of…

November 6, 2015

Once bullied, now empowered

“My parents raised me so normally that I had no clue I was different,” said Velasquez, 26, who was born…

Come on, moms. Let dads be in charge of the kids too.

Then I remembered Naomi would be turning 13 around the same time – and she wanted a sleepover birthday. A…

What a selfie taught me about culture, freedom and confidence

I start to dismiss her question and turn it into a teaching lesson, as I usually do, encouraging her to…

‘Where’s your costume?’ An accidental Halloween love story

“One of the biggest problems singles have is they hang out with the same people, do the same things and…

Baggage Check: My sister only cares about me when she’s depressed

A: This is frustrating, I’m sure. But you have to adjust your expectations and prioritize what you’re really looking for…

Is it offensive to wear the Caitlyn costume for Halloween? Depends.

Question 1: Can I dress in drag for Halloween and wear a sash that says “Call me Caitlyn”? Bruce is…

Forced to pick between love and her family, Terri Upshaw chose love

She talks about being raised in the upper-middle-class Buich family, who owned San Francisco’s famed Tadich Grill. She calls her…

Kids with imaginary friends run risk of being ostracized

After doing some careful cross-examination, I’ve learned that Salice is older than my son, who is 5, but not “old…

What to do when your child is the ‘bully’

Whether your child is a victim or a perpetrator, Kyle D. Pruett, a clinical professor of child psychiatry at Yale…

Oh my God, there’s so much crying in (Little League) baseball

This was a Thursday evening, so naturally I spent the night and a solid chunk of Friday dealing with a…

October 21, 2015

I graduated from college 10 years ago. So why don’t I feel like an adult?

A: It’s common for the sheen of nostalgia to airbrush our memories, and omit dorm showers and hangovers and all-night…

October 21, 2015

Welcome to cuffing season. Does cold weather compel us to couple up?

Is cuffing season an urban legend, or is there a scientific basis for it, too? After all, humans don’t have…

October 20, 2015

Forget the new baby gift; there are better ways to help new parents

Do you remember what it was like? There was the lovely new baby, of course. You fell hopelessly in love…

October 20, 2015

Chechens discourage ‘indecency’ at weddings

A Chechen bride dressed in national costume rests during a wedding ceremony in Grozny, Russia. Chechen weddings are traditionally paid…

10 things our kids want us to stop telling others

I put down the beans. I knew the incident she was referring to, one that I thought was benign enough.…

Finding nature again with my children

The end of our street opened into a vast wooded forest, defined by a thin dirt footpath that stretched into…

Postpartum depression affects more women than you think

How huge is the number? It could be about one in seven new mothers, said Aimee Danielson, director of the…