Women have been sharing childbirth stories with one other probably since the beginning of time. We tell our stories to console one another and to console ourselves. We tell our stories to […]
Labor is Love
A Dummy’s Orlando Eclipse Experience at 86%
I thought it would be funny to post a photo of 3-D glasses on Instagram with the question “Will these work” to view the eclipse. So I posted it. My significant other […]
The Growing Opioid Epidemic: How to Save a Life
It’s important to understand how pervasive and insidious opioids are. Vicodin and Oxycodone gave way to heroin. Now fentanyl, a drug up to 50 times more powerful than heroin, is the new drug of choice, and it’s filling morgues. But new laws in response to the opioid epidemic are giving people the power to save the lives of their friends and loved ones.
Quick and Easy Grammar: When to Use It’s or Its, Their or There or They’re, Your or You’re—and More!
Knowing the right way to write what you mean can sometimes be tricky, but you don’t have to memorize the rules of grammar to stop making common errors. Other people make […]
When Another School Shooting is Another Domestic Violence Shooting
School shootings and domestic violence shootings are two separate, complex problems—even when they become intertwined, as they have today. Crucial in the development of this tragedy is that the victim, Karen Elaine Smith, had recently left her abuser—the most dangerous time and circumstance for a battered woman. In our righteous grief and anger because this shooting took place at a school and included child victims, we must not forget the women like Ms. Smith who need us to address this story as a domestic violence issue.
5 Short Parenting Tips That Go a Long Way
When you’re a parent of young children, you have a golden opportunity to create habits and expectations that will survive the long haul. Want well-behaved children? Head ‘em off at the pass before […]
5 Mistakes I Made as a Parent
When I found out I was pregnant with my first child, I decided I would put everything I had into raising my children. I would be someone they respected even after they […]
THIS is What Democracy Looks Like! The Women’s March on Washington
All over the world, sisters, mothers, daughters, grandmothers, nieces, neighbors, and friends– and some of their men– stood together to say “Not today, patriarchy!” We were lucky enough to be in D.C. at the heart of it all, part of a human hive humming through the jam-packed streets, shoulder-to-shoulder and hip-to-hip. Democracy looks like THIS!
Turning the Tables on New Year’s Resolutions
The Facebook post of a friend, asking others to share their New Year’s Resolutions, reminded me of what I’d decided last January. I’d add one thing to my advice: congratulate yourself on […]
Confessions of a Christmas Letter Writer
My last Christmas letter was written a few years ago. My daughter, a freshman in high school then, read my letter and then wrote a spoof letter. When she read hers to her big brothers they laughed and laughed. I realized that my own children, who once thought the letters were special, had matured enough to know the letters were ridiculous while I, who should have long since outgrown the need to write them as a way of making myself feel better about my life, was still taking them seriously.
The Gloria Sirens 