DOING WHAT DAD WANTS TAKES A NEW TWIST!
Both our children are far away this year, so Father’s Day won’t be about the whole family “Doing What Dad Wants.” But it most definitely won’t be a joyless day. Instead, for my husband Bob and me it will be a celebration of “Dad’s Amazing New Project” – the BlueStone Gallery in Milford, PA (www.bluestonegallerymilford.com) which both our kids love.
We will be spending the afternoon where “Dad is Doing What He Wants.” In the past year, my husband has envisioned, brought to …

Internet Intimacy is New for Me
When my kids were younger and I wanted to have a difficult conversation with one of them, I would wait until we were driving alone in the car. I found that it was easier for me to broach the subject when my gaze was fixed on the road, and it was more likely I would get some feedback if my son or daughter didn’t have to make eye contact either. In that circumstance, the avoidance of eye contact fostered intimacy.
But most of the time intimacy …

Not long ago I came across some letters I had written home from camp. The envelopes were marked S.W.A.K. (For those who weren’t preteens back then, that stands for “Sealed With A Kiss.”) In the same shoe box were a few stilted “newsy” letters that my parents, who had no vocabulary for that kind of correspondence, had sent me – and several letters from friends. I recognized the handwriting on just about every one. After all, we had signed each others autograph books, corresponded over many summers and, in several …

My husband and I are leaving on the trip of a lifetime in early February. We are going to India for three weeks – to visit sites and spas and to make a pilgrimage to the southernmost tip of the country, where my late brother spent several transformative years. My husband is looking forward to it with all his characteristic energy and curiosity. I, on the other hand, am dreading it – not the vacation, but the going away.
Anne Morrow Lindburgh identified a common reluctance to set out on a …

In late June I went to Nantucket with my mother and my children for what is probably the twentieth summer in a row. The annual pilgrimage to my mother’s time-share on that lovely island began when my kids were babies and my mother was in her prime – about the age I am now. I’m not sure where I was, except overwhelmed by the classic juggling act.
Over the years I have enjoyed the benchmark that the Nantucket trip offered to monitor my children’s growing up. I see it most clearly …

The further I get into this transition to the rest of my life, the more I understand how it is a process not a “giant step” from one state to another. Experiences that seemed daunting when I started – like making peace with my waist-loss – are now in the past, but new challenges that I hadn’t anticipated – like reconfiguring friendships – have cropped up. I feel older, yes, and even a bit wiser, yet each new development catches me by surprise.
As the current picture fills in, I am …

We refer to childhood friends as “people we grew up with.” The phrase conjures kids coming over after school, giggling in my room, raiding our refrigerator, endorsing my annoyance with my little brother, knowing my parents in their prime. There is a special intimacy about that shared history, and whenever I run unto Someone I Grew Up With, I count on that special bond to bridge the years.
We certainly didn’t register at the time that we weren’t just growing up alongside one another – we were helping each other make …

I’ve been traveling again – and talking to more women about what’s on our minds. The theme that has emerged recently is “The Sandwich Generation” stresses. It is a condition of our parents living longer that makes it likely that we will have, according to some estimates, as many years of parent care ahead of us as we have had of childcare behind us. Not that caring for our children is behind us. The other half of the sandwich is the trend toward grown children moving back home or simply …