Beyond the Sling: a Hammock for the New Parent’s Soul

March 7, 2012

I got an advance copy of Beyond the Sling, a Real Life Guide to Raising Confident, Loving Children the Attachment Parenting Way by Mayim Bialik, PhD and, in short, I like it. I’m saying yes to more things these days, and I like that too.  I said yes to the publicist’s offer to send me [...]

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Computer Shooter on the Couch

February 29, 2012

Perhaps you are one of the 30 million plus people who have viewed the You Tube video, Dad Shoots Daughter’s Computer.  It is certainly a compelling 8 minutes. And while the dad has some points, his final response is terrifying.  However, since comedy is actually all about anxiety, I found myself watching with my fifteen-year-old [...]

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Making up our Minds

February 22, 2012

New research on ten to fourteen year old children who have been in homes with abuse, but who show no outward signs of trouble, reveals that their brains are extra-activated in the same regions as soldiers who have been in combat. While on the surface it is obvious that we do not want any children [...]

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World Peace?

February 15, 2012

I may certainly be wrong on this but I have an inkling that future humans may look back at the Superbowl half-time show of 2012 and mark it as the great turning point—the moment when the Titanic of inflamed and de-famed Western civilization collectively, tragic-comically, hit an unremarked iceberg of rising introversion and authenticity. In [...]

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Goats Head Soup

February 8, 2012

You’re following three lovely lasses up six flights to a tiny East Village walk-up, three lovely asses leading the way over white tiled stairs to who knows exactly where.  You’d say it was around 1987, but in post-modern Los Angeles you’re starting to lose track.  Soul’s train’s now a ghost train unseen by helicopters hovering [...]

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Dropping Eggs with the Riff-Raff

February 1, 2012

Women are like eggs—mysteriously attractive.  Men are like sperm—manically looking for the egg, but with a one in a billion chance of amounting to anything. When I was in seventh grade I had a cool science teacher.  He lifted weights and wore quiana shirts with groovy patterns and might have been listening to The Doors [...]

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Mosses in the Dessert

January 25, 2012

“F- – – – -” I gazed at this arcane and unfamiliar symbol, written thoughtfully on the back of my first essay in AP English, in a similar state of surreal dejection as I would later view my early decision rejection from Penn. Dr. Graham was an imposing teacher.  She told us that she was [...]

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The Case for More Social Support for Pregnant and New Moms (and Dads)

January 18, 2012

In the first year of life children develop either basic trust or mistrust, secure attachment or more problematic attachment.  The implication of this ripples through every child’s life, and through the society in which he or she lives. Research points to several things that impair this process.  The ACE (adverse childhood effects) study established a [...]

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Cooking up compassion for a better world with The Kitchen Witch

January 11, 2012

I’ve been thinking about how exactly, we might help our world be a better place, and one thing I keep coming back to would be helping babies be secure, particularly by helping new moms to feel loved, safe, supported and secure—perhaps bringing casseroles (rather than books) to new moms. When I started to think about [...]

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Back to Basics: Basic Trust (Honey Badger on the Couch)

January 4, 2012

Welcome to 2012—as we slog through our potential post-holidays blues, here’s to hoping we can make it a Happy New Year for all of us, one with a little less work and worry and a little more fun and hanging out. Given whatever clouds of Mayan Calendar mystical mumbo jumbo this year may come in [...]

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