Child(ish) Reads: The Book of Mothers

The Book of Mothers by Carrie Mullins is pretty much the dissertation paper I’ve always wanted to write.

Millennial moms characteristically have done a lot of emotional work: reflecting back on their childhood trying to understand the context of how they were parented, and trying to figure out exactly what type of mom they want to be. A large percentage of our parenting is going to come from our own parents and experience, but TV, movies, books, and pop culture give us plenty of model moms to take note of.

So put on your AP Lit hat, and let’s get some close textual analysis.

Continue reading

Things I Learned on TikTok

Very apropos considering Tuesday’s Netflix post and that TikTok might be getting banned. Maybe not so apropos considering one of my Resolutions is cutting screen time…

There are so many parenting influencers (we do consider ourselves one), and all of those accounts, commentaries and opinions contribute to a lot of parenting noise. What may have started as a mindless scroll to turn your brain off, might end up with you questioning your parenting choices, feeling like you have to buy every product under the sun, or leave you genuinely scared for this generation.

And it doesn’t stop at parenting noise. Similar to spending hours on a video game or bingeing on the couch, once you stop, you’re like “Where did my life go?”. You end up dysregulated, feeling lazy, and asking yourself “Did I really need to watch 20 minutes of wild Karen encounters?”

In my infinite scrolling last fall, an ad showed up about turning your screen time into microlearning. Of course, I’m not going to pay for whatever app or course they are trying to promote, but it did make me reconsider the types of content I’ve been consuming.

Continue reading

Podcast Playlist: March 2024

We’re throwing in another installment of Podcast Playlist pre-Spring Break. It’s been quite a haul to get through all these blog posts, leading up to our two-week Spring Blog Break. So if you are hitting the road for warmer climes or enjoying a staycation with your kids, download a couple of these parenting podcast episodes and see if you like them.

Continue reading

Coffee Chat: Redshirting

The Georgia pre-k lottery is in full effect, but my husband and I have been dealing with the decision to redshirt our twin girls for a while. They are August babies, born very near the September 1 cutoff. I’m admittedly a little jealous of parents with September-June babies, because this is something that they most likely don’t even have to consider.

We have talked at length between ourselves and with friends/family, in addition to reading a bunch of research and studies, to figure out if giving the girls “the gift of time” is the best option for them. I’ll tell ya, even after all that data collection, the verdict was still not cut and dry. 

Continue reading