In most partnerships, before children come along, (at least) one family member plays a non-trivial role in the happiness, decision-making process, and schedule of the household. When children come along, this household member takes a tumbling, decidedly non-slippery slide into anonymity.

Though a non-voting member of the micro-society (except by proxy), it once had a place at [...]

Adequate nation (village):

I’m appearing on the Kojo Nnamdi Show on Monday at noon.

If you’re in the DC area, tune in to WAMU, 88.5 FM. If not or are “working,” you can catch the show on line at http://thekojonnamdishow.org/

Tune in, call [...]

The following 4am feeding drivel is brought to you by a mighty adequate parent:

Talking baby but not sickly sweet infant worship crap.

Please use the comments to post whatever you stare at/ read/ laugh at when you’re either supposed to be doing something else or are enjoying the blessed motherly art of having a bald, toothless person [...]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/20/AR2011012003014.html

In a Thursday, January 22 Washington Post opinion piece, Edward Schumaker-Matos informs us that “Domestic help has been critical in their [professional women] success as workers and mothers.”

The truth:

Domestic help has been critical to the formation of dual-income families without husbands having to sacrifice career advancement when their wives enter the work force;
Domestic help has enabled [...]

The most important thing you have to do as a writer is answer the following question:

So what?

When you’re writing about the need for clean water in refugee camps, it’s not difficult to do.  When you’re writing about the odd proclivities of unusually privileged American breeding stock, it’s a tall order.

My pitch, to date:  it’s stupid to [...]

I recently did a phone interview with a nice reporter from the Washington City Paper.  This article was one of the results.  Author Kathryn Masterson took on my favorite hive of scum and villainy

Did you know? Obi Wan Kenobi references never go out of style. Because they were never in style.

–DC Urban Moms (and dads). For those of [...]

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Yes, I am that small.

This lemur species was discovered in 2005. Also that year, my child turned one year old, and I cried in my office 16 times thanks to the miracle of PPD. The kindest thing you can say to a woman with PPD is “you’re right, it does suck. Now put down that [...]

Amy Chua don’t take no crap from nobody.  Snap. She, like her mother before her, is a Chinese Mother.  By her definition, that means that she helps her children find their pride by lashing them to the piano and hurling sharpened chopsticks at them until they can play the complete works of Franz Liszt with their [...]

For your consideration, I offer the following items from the news.

Item 1: If you like civil divorce (has anyone ever witnessed one of those?), you’ll loooove religious divorce.

See, in civil divorce, you have to tell the court who you are, that you can’t stand each other anymore (but not why, which is a shame for those [...]