When You're Done

When you're done having babies, you just know.

At least that's what they say.

What I know is that there's nothing more perfect in this world than a nursing baby who lets go and looks up at you to smile.

What I don't know is how to reconcile that with the feeling that I am full. Our house, our car, and our dining room table are at max capacity. Some days, I feel stretched to my limit trying to meet the needs of my children, especially when I'm up all night with the baby and the day starts with a toddler meltdown over a piece of toast.

Sometimes I look at my family and feel like it's complete, but I also know without a doubt that if another baby joined our family I'd look back and laugh, wondering how I ever could have been so wrong.

One summer, my older kids took swim lessons at a local pool that allowed siblings to swim at no cost during lesson time. In our family, you don't turn down free pool time, but believe me: supervising a baby, toddler, and preschooler in the water by yourself every day for two weeks is not for the faint of heart.

As I was trying to distort the space-time continuum to be in three places at once, an older mother at the side of the pool caught my eye.

She looked composed in a way I couldn't even imagine, with an actual hairstyle and a bathing suit she didn't choose for its ease of nursing. She was reading in a deck chair, looking up occasionally to wave at her two junior high-age kids jumping off the diving board.

When it was time to leave, her kids would dry themselves off and carry their own stuff back to the car. They'd have a coherent conversation on the way home, and she might even have the energy to say more than a few words to her husband before collapsing into bed at night.

I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't love a day like that. But a whole life?

Every day without chubby baby thighs and milk-drunk smiles and the smell of a newborn's head?

They say when you're finished, you'll just know. 

Is that true?

Right now, all I know is I'm not ready to feel the longing of the empty-handed lady in Target who tells frazzled young moms to enjoy every minute.

My husband — the pragmatist in our relationship — points out that no matter what we do, someday I'll be that lady anyway. He's right, as much as I hate to admit it.

The inescapable fact is that children grow up. Someday we'll no longer need to keep an emergency pair of tiny pants and underwear inside the glovebox of the van.

Someday we won't need a van at all.

We're still saving the baby's clothes when he outgrows them. We've always done that, filling the attic with children's clothing of every size just waiting to be hand-me-downs for a future brother or sister.

But I had no idea how hard it would be packing up a box of 3-6 month onesies and wondering if I'll ever hand them down to anyone again.

No idea how hard it would be folding all the little knit pants with footies and then shutting the box for what might be the last time.

The baby years are messy, chaotic, and exhausting, and just when you think you can't feel any more overwhelmed a stranger in Target tells you to love every minute.

I don't know what the future holds, but as I stand over this box with a roll of tape in my hand and a lump in my throat, the only thing I know for sure is that I did love every minute, after all.

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9 Jobs Newborn Babies Would Be Excellent At

Some people say newborns are just squishy blobs that don't do much besides eat, sleep, and poop, but I don't know about that.

It seems to me like newborn babies just have a really unique skill set that lends itself perfectly to a lot of careers out there. You just have to find the right ones.

For example, a newborn baby would make a really great:

Demolitions expert. Ever seen the house of a family with a newborn? It's completely trashed: dishes stacked to the ceiling, laundry everywhere, and a gallon of milk going bad under a stack of mail on what used to be the kitchen table. It's an impressive level of destruction, especially when you consider newborns aren't even mobile.

Runway model. Extended relatives will be sending your little fashion icon one haute couture label after another: Carter's, Gymboree, Baby Gap... You might not leave the house for the months at a time due to how busy you are dressing your baby up in cute outfits and taking pictures.

Celebrity. Speaking of pictures, as a new member of the parent paparazzi you will stalk your newborn and photograph him from every conceivable angle in every conceivable location. Not because he's doing anything interesting, either. Just because you're obsessed with him.

Explosives technician. Two words: diaper blowout. Nobody knows more about detonating volatile substances than a newborn.

Political dictator. These tyrants rule with a tiny iron fist to get whatever they want, whenever they want it, and if that means you lose basic rights like hot meals and showers? Then so be it. Talk about absolute power.

Contortionist. Ever look up from changing a diaper and realize your baby's heels are quite literally touching her forehead? There are flexible people, then there are circus performers, and then there are newborns.

Ta-da!

Eating contest entrant. Cluster feeding makes you want to scream, but try to think of it as a training opportunity for your newborn. He can make a lot of money touring the competitive eating circuit and winning contests for that.

Quality control specialist. I have never in my life met anyone as picky as a newborn. It's always too hot, too cold, too loud, too quiet, too still, or too bouncy. If there's even the slightest thing wrong, trust me, a newborn will let you know.

High school dance chaperone. If you need to keep couples from getting too close or sneaking off to be alone, a newborn is definitely the right person for the job. As any new parent will tell you, babies are naturals at shutting down romantic moments practically before they even get started.

You see? All sorts of careers are perfectly suited to newborns and their innate skills. If you're a new or expecting parent, keep this list handy. After all, it's never too early for your baby to seek gainful employment and start saving for college.

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It's the 21st Century and Girls Can Grow Up to Be Anything. Almost.

Welcome to the 21st century! We have great news, because now you, my sister, can be whatever you want to be!

Unless what you want to be is a traditional wife and mother.

Then don't be that. We were just kidding.

A few weeks ago, my kids and I watched Zootopia for the first time. (I know, I know, we're a few years behind on popular culture. You don't need to point it out.)

The movie was clever and entertaining, and in a sense I really did enjoy it. The DMV staffed entirely by sloths was hilarious and made total sense of the world after waiting in my local social security office for an hour and 45 minutes to sign a single form.

photo credit

But Zootopia also packed some serious feminist commentary, and the irony was not lost on me that I was sitting right next to my kids as Disney told them with a hint-hint, wink-wink that my life spent raising them was a waste.

Let me explain.

Zootopia's main character, a bunny named Judy, dreams of becoming the first female police officer in the metropolis of Zooptopia, where the city motto is 'Where Anyone Can Be Anything.'

Her risk-averse parents don't want her to go, though. It's too dangerous. They want her to stay in Bunnyburrow, where they run a carrot farm and raise their hundreds of baby bunnies (rabbits, you know.)

Trying to talk her into staying, Judy's mom says "Do you know why we're so happy, Judy? Because we settled!"

"We settled hard," Judy's dad agrees, nodding vigorously.

The scene was done with humor and wit, but you read that right: they really did say that staying home and having babies is "settling."

Just why, in order for Judy to go to Zooptopia and shatter glass ceilings, does the movie have to make ignorant fools of the stay-at-home carrot farmers of the world? What's so wrong with making a life out of raising your bunnies, anyway?

It's clear that in Zootopia (and by extension, in our pop feminist version of Utopia,) the motto is Where Anyone Can Be Anything — with an asterisk, of course, reading: "except a traditional wife and mother."

This fake narrative of women's liberation leaves women like me behind.

It tells our girls it's fantastic to be police officers (or lawyers or heart surgeons or whatever,) but being a stay-at-home mom makes you a backward country bumpkin who is settling for less.

I guess it's no longer politically correct to suggest that baby bunnies and carrot farms are still appealing to women in these liberated days, and yet my own experience and observation tells me it is.

Virtually every woman I know wants the bunny-and-carrot-farm experience, at least to some extent. Even the most professionally accomplished of them feel that their families, not their careers, are the most important achievements of their lives. Even Beyoncé says so.

Not Beyoncé. This is a slightly blurry photo of me holding my son while he tries to escape.

When even Disney movies are telling my kids that being a judge or a scientist isn't simply another path for intelligent women to choose, but the only path worth taking, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little worried. There is so much more I want my kids, and particularly my daughters, to know.

I hope they know that paychecks and credentials don't define their worth.

I hope they know that choosing to raise a family is one of the most rewarding things they could ever do.

I hope they know they can truly be anything, without explanation or apology — and that includes, most especially, being the mothers of their children.

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18 Ways You Know You've Had a Lot of Babies

Having lots of babies changes you, and I'm not just talking about stretch marks and a wayward pelvic floor.

Parenting a large brood means you're used to dealing with a very specific set of challenges and joys — usually ones only other big families will understand.

If you've had a lot of babies, chances are...

1. The Labor & Delivery nurse waved you off saying, "See you in a few years!" (Yes, that actually happened to me.)

2. It's completely possible for your baby never to be set down all day, just transferred from one pair of arms to another.

3. Family memberships, kids eat free deals, and occupancy codes in hotel rooms are a joke to you.

4. You're regularly stopped in public and told "You have your hands full" when less than half of your children are with you.

5. Your parent friends have aged out of playgroup and moved on, leaving you to find a new group. Three times.

6. You've been hearing crying (both real and imagined) 24/7 for 10+ years. Instead of phantom crying, you sometimes hear phantom silence.

7. There's always somebody in the bathroom and there's always something wrong with the toilet.

8. Your baby can sleep through a thunderous piano performance, a toddler bear hug, and people fighting over a kazoo three feet away from her head... all at the same time.

9. You have this doormat.

10. Your toddler has a preferred hierarchy of people to go to when you've told him no.

11. You overhear the kids talking about "when the next baby comes," and you're not even pregnant yet.

12. You're okay with waiting 10 minutes to see if the crying baby will settle down on his own. Actually, better set a timer so you don't forget about him.

13. Everything your pediatrician says to you starts with "You probably already know this, but..."

14. Your kid learns to do everything by observation, from using a spoon to using a potty.

15. Instead of going directly to mom or dad when he has trouble operating a toy, your toddler just stands in the middle of the room and yells "Can somebody help me?"

16. You've stopped attending curriculum night and any other kind of parent orientation night for the schools. You've been there longer than the principal, anyway.

17. You dismiss all methods of sleep training. You realize this is just a phase and the baby will learn to sleep eventually, no matter what you do.

18. You know each sweet age of childhood is fleeting and try harder than ever to relish it. And you totally do, when you aren't preoccupied with someone else crawling on your head asking for water.

If you've got a big family, you know firsthand that having a lots of babies is a grand, messy adventure that sometimes seems bizarre to other people. But even with the decades of sleep deprivation, you wouldn't give it up for the world.

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Screen-Free Road Trip Activities for Kids of Every Age

This post contains my affiliate link, meaning that I may receive a commission on whatever you buy through these links. But the price is the same to you, I promise.

When you're taking your kids on long car rides, you and I both know the easiest form of distraction is a cell phone or tablet. But in our many travels over the years, we've noticed that even though the kids beg for a movie or device, staring at them for too long in the car makes them grumpy and tired.

And honestly, between technical problems, low battery life, and the agony of waiting your turn (#firstworldproblems) I sometimes feel like handing out screens causes more problems than it solves.

Our solution is to become experts at finding other methods of car entertainment. Divided by age, here are some of our favorite unplugged road trip toys and activities.

Best Baby and Toddler Car Toys

Pop & Slide Shelly

10 months+

For years, this little turtle has been in our bag of "quiet toys" to take to church, and I have to say that for an adult I find it way too satisfying to push the colorful buttons down and slide them all around. I'm honestly not sure how to put the appeal into words, but for a low-key toy that doesn't make noise, flash lights, or even move much, it certainly fascinates the kids.

Skwish Rattle and Teether

newborn+

This is another one that you just can't not play with, I don't care who you are. Babies love to suck on the knobs at the ends and the ball easily stays in their hands even if they're not too good at grabbing things yet. Older kids like to squish the ball and watch it snap back into shape, or slide the colorful beads around. Another similar toy my babies have liked is the Oball, but this is my favorite.

Spin & Learn Color Flashlight

ages 1-3

To be perfectly honest I'm not sure my kids ever learned much by playing with this toy, but let's be honest: that's not why I bought it. The buttons and fun lights are fascinating to toddlers, and since they get yelled at every time they play with (and lose) the real flashlights in the house, they love this one. It's especially mesmerizing at night when the light really shines in the darkness. This can entertain a toddler for hours after sundown.

Best Road Trip Toys for Preschoolers

Color Wonder Markers and Accessories

ages 3+

Crayloa has a whole line of Color Wonder products with mess-free clear markers that only write on special Color Wonder paper. (As someone whose child has autographed various pieces of furniture, this is a life-changing product.) There are lots of different kinds of markers, coloring books, and blank drawing pads to choose from. FYI, there's also no-mess fingerpaint but I would not recommend that for the car (it's clear but still sticky.)

LCD Drawing Pads

ages 3+

This is an upgraded version of the Etch-A-Sketch or maybe the MagnaDoodle you're probably familiar with from your own childhood. While this may technically be a screen, I'm not counting it as one because it's not backlit and there's no passive watching going on with this toy. My kids can spend a long time drawing on this pad with the included stylus, pressing the button to erase, and drawing something new.

Reusable Sticker Books

ages 4+

Remember Colorforms? This is like that, but maybe better because the puffy shape of the reusable stickers is easier for chubby and/or uncoordinated fingers to get a hold of. The pages are sturdy and the books are spiral-bound so they lie flat easily. There are lots of different scenes so it takes a long time before a kid gets bored with this toy. Highly recommend.

Magnetic Dress Up Dolls

ages 3+

These have kept my kids plenty busy over the years. I like that the figures are girls instead of fully-developed women, and that their clothes are something you'd see in an elementary school instead of a night club. (Ahem, I'm looking at you, Barbie.) There are also specialty sets like princesses, mermaids, and firefighter/police. And if your kids aren't into dress up, they will probably love this human body set.

Best Travel Toys for Elementary-Age Kids

Usborne Doodle Books

ages 5+

What I love about the beautiful books in the Usborne Doodle series is that they're freeform enough to play with for a long time, but provide enough structure to keep kids from running out of ideas. On every page there's a partial drawing to complete (something really interesting like wacky robots, mazes built out of pipes, and so on) and even teenagers can get into this almost as much as their younger siblings.

Rubik's Twist

ages 8+

This is not like other Rubik's products, where unless your kid knows the solution they're just cubes of frustration. This is more like Rubik's Cube meets the tangram. It's a twisting puzzle (with traditional Rubik's colors) that can be bent, posed, and manipulated into hundreds of different shapes. Older kids will like trying to match the ones in the included challenge booklet, but mine mostly prefer to create their own or just experiment and see what happens.

Scratch Art

ages 6-15

My older kids love scratch art, especially my 14-year-old artist. It's basically drawing in reverse, so it works your brain as you try to create a picture using negative space (although you can make it as simple or complicated as you want.) The kit here is perfect for families: plenty of rainbow, gold, and silver paper plus 4 styluses so everybody can do it at the same time.


These offline travel toys are tested favorites of my kids on car trips. Phones and tablets are fine, but I prefer these because they get us all to our destination with a little less stress and restlessness.

Good luck on your next family road trip and don't forget to check out the rest of the list at Surviving a Road Trip with Kids!

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5 Bath Time Rules for Kids You Can Completely Ignore

At our house, we have a lot of rules.

There are rules about chores and food and screen time. I'd consider myself a strict-ish parent, and I'm sure my kids would agree. But there is one area where our family seems to break almost all the rules, and that is bath time.

You see, I think many of the "rules" of bath time make absolutely no sense, and never have. And therefore we disregard just about all of them.

Rule #1: Bathe Your Kids Every Day

Setting aside the fact that if we gave daily baths to all 6 of our kids we'd have a water bill that rivals  the national debt and single-handedly be responsible for killing the whales, I just don't see the point. Little kids are spot-cleaned as necessary all day long, meaning that unless they're smelly or covered in actual dirt I won't bother filling up the bathtub.

That means until puberty at least, baths in our house work out to once or twice a week (more frequently in the summer when kids are outside getting truly filthy.) Maybe it's my aversion to cleaning schedules in general, but I don't believe in The Daily Bath just because.

Rule #2: Calming Baths as Part of the Bedtime Routine

For my kids, bath time = playtime. There's nothing even remotely calming about any activity they perform in the tub. I've seen three stooges who are more chill than my three youngest in the bath, who egg each other on until the whole thing resembles either a demonic possession or a stampede at Wal-Mart on Black Friday.

Many times I've wondered as I sat in the bathroom supervising my kids' bath, completely drenched and cowering behind a towel, how in the world anyone has the mental fortitude to add the shenanigans of bath time to the already long and exhausting process that is getting kids to bed. I certainly don't.

Rule #3: Fun Tub Toys for Everyone!

Um, no. We used to have bath toys and a special bag suction cupped to the wall of the shower to theoretically let them drip-dry. In actuality, it was a glorified mesh mold factory that made me gag so hard I think I saw my own intestines once.

I'm one of the least germophobic people I know, but the thought of those grody toys climbing aboard the Toddler Hands Express and embarking on a non-stop trip to Mouthville was more than I could handle. I threw everything out and now their baths toys are limited to: bubble bath, colored bath drops, and whatever kitchen utensils I can put in the dishwasher afterward.

Rule #4: Baths are for Bathtubs

I know some parents are super-eager to get their kid in the real tub as soon as they can sit up but I ask you: WHY.

I never enjoyed kneeling on the tile floor and to be honest, it always felt like a gigantic waste of water to fill a tub for someone barely bigger than a hubbard squash. I figure if I wash my produce in the sink, I might as well put my babies and toddlers in there until they're no longer vegetable-sized.

Rule #5: Invest in Special Kid Everything

There are specialty baby washcloths, hooded towels, baby body wash, no-tears shampoo, kid bath visors, and foam faucet covers shaped like humpback whales. To which I say, huh?

I admit we once had some of those things from my first baby shower, back when we actually thought you needed half of Babies 'R Us to raise an infant, and sure, we use up the travel-sized bottle of Johnson's that comes home in the maternity ward swag bag. But for the most part we just use products from our shower and bathroom cupboards, and the kids seem to be surviving.

If you love giving your kids nightly baths or if you're a traveling rubber ducky salesman, that's totally fine! Your house, your rules.

But for those of you who secretly hate these bath time rules and follow them anyway because you think you're supposed to, I'm giving you permission right now to stop. You'll be in good company.

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An Accurate Hot Toy List for the Holiday Season

It's that time of year, when every retailer in the universe releases their "Hot Holiday Toy List," and we're all supposed to stampede each other in the aisles for them (or pay quadruple on Ebay later.)

But here's the thing. Most of the toys on the list look like more expensive versions of stuff my kids already don't play with. So I've compiled an actual Hot Toy List that will clue other parents like myself in to what your young one might like this holiday season.

Along with these nominations for Best Toy of the Year, here are 10 items that have been played with practically non-stop at our house since I started having babies over a decade ago.

10. Toilet Plunger

My youngest is a ninja when it comes to sneaking in the bathroom to grab this curious piece of equipment. If I leave the door open for even a second, he's walking around somewhere with the toilet plunger giddy with excitement. I read a blog post by a mom who decided to stop fighting it and just bought her son a brand-new plunger at the hardware store... I'm not sure if the article was serious or joking, but either way it's the most brilliant thing I've ever read.

9. Light Switch

Best case scenario: you can pull a chair up to the wall and let your child stand there flicking the switch and giggling for 20 minutes while you eat a sleeve of Oreos in the other room. Worst case scenario: they're not old enough to reliably stand there without falling so you have to hover within arms' length without blinking the whole time, or skip the chair altogether and stand there holding them like you don't have anything else to do today.

8. My Earrings

Another fun cause-and-effect toy! Pull the dangly loops and get a gasp, scream, or expletive from mom every time! It's basically a newer version of those dolls from the '80s where you'd pull a string to make them talk. Talk about a classic.

7. Junk Drawer

When a child gets tall enough to reach the junk drawer, the second half of his life begins. Rubber bands, tape dispensers, random writing utensils, a pad of Post-It notes, a fingernail clippers... the funnest substances known to man, hitherto off-limits, are all jumbled up in one drawer of wonders. Some kids pick through it cautiously, others dig in like a starving man at a Golden Corral; either way, the household junk drawer will entertain them for hours.

6. Flashlight

These are great for carrying around the house and wedging beneath the couch. Left on, of course. I have replaced the batteries in our flashlight a dozen times and I don't think I've ever used it. The underside of our couch, however, has been well-illuminated for most of the time we've lived here.

5. Remote

Next to an airliner cockpit, you really can't find more buttons in one place than a remote control. (The one with LOTS of buttons in our house isn't pictured here because, ironically, it went missing after the kids played with it.) When you walk around with a remote in your hand, you walk around holding power. Until they reach a certain age and realize there's a difference, remotes can also double as pretend phones.

4. My Keys

I'm starting to suspect the nurses in the maternity ward of teaching babies to tell real keys from fake ones. We have a pair of baby toy plastic keys that look just like real ones, they're not those fake chunky ones, and none of our kids has even feigned interest in it . My keys, on the other hand, are a hot commodity. It probably helps that there's a red button specifically designed to send the car into a delightful panic mode.

3. My Shoes

I have no nice shoes anymore. The backs have all been smashed flat by small people who help themselves to my closet and wear my shoes around whenever the mood strikes. The fact that I may not want them to clomp around in my footwear for fun never seems to occur to them. I know because I just found my only pair of dressy flats on the counter in the kids' bathroom filled with Shopkins.

2. Pots and Pans

What makes a fantastic noise and is super-fun to drag out of the kitchen cabinets 42 times a day? Why, pots and pans, of course! You can use them to booby trap the kitchen in the dark, cook up some fake food in your room, or just do gross things like put your dirty bare feet in them for absolutely no reason at all so mom has to wash them again. Those are all popular options around here.

1. Empty Cardboard Box

One of the biggest surprises I've had in motherhood is how old kids can be and still have fun with a cardboard box. The fun can be anything from hiding inside it to jumping around with it on your head to simply ripping it apart with your bare hands (yes, that has actually happened and I still don't get it.) The best boxes, according to my kids, are the ones I'm saving for a specific purpose and would like to use in the future. Those are destroyed pretty much immediately.

Armed with this knowledge, I wish you the very best of luck holiday shopping for your children this season. Of course every child has their individual likes and preferences, but if you stick to time-tested favorites like these you really can't go wrong. If all else fails, just tell them it's yours and they're not allowed to touch it.

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What Parents Can Do to Raise Children Who Are Friends

Growing up in the 90s, one of my favorite things on TV was Clarissa Explains It All. As all preteen viewers of the show were supposed to do, I idolized the main character.

Clarissa was designed to be like all of us (except maybe a little cooler.) She was quirky and offbeat and funny, just like us. And her annoying little brother Ferguson made her life miserable. How relatable!

Fast-forward 20 years. I've got six kids ranging in age from 1 to 13, and lately I've been searching for books to interest my 9-year-old reluctant reader.

I check out library books on his reading level, but before handing them over I always screen them first. Of course I have an eye out for things like language and violence. But do you know what I'm really looking for when I screen books? I'm looking for Fergusons and Clarissas.

And they are everywhere.

Clearly, his two sisters are NOT reluctant readers.

As a kid, I consumed episode after episode of Clarissa Explains It All and never questioned the sibling dynamic, but as a parent it makes me sad to see kids' books, movies, and TV shows perpetuating the idea that siblings are one step away from primates ready to attack each other at the slightest provocation.

Worse still, I'm not so sure it's just the kids who have bought into it.

I know parents who buy doubles of everything, even when it's one child's birthday, so neither of the kids feels resentful of the other.

I know parents who read picture books teaching their preschoolers to cope with jealousy when a new baby is coming, and some who bring home a gift "from the new baby" right after the birth.

I know a mom who once, when we set up a playdate for two of our girls, declined our invitation for the younger sister to come along and play with my other children because "Hannah* probably wants to have her own playdate." As if the very presence of a younger sister in the same vicinity would've ruined Hannah's day.

(*Hannah isn't her real name, by the way.)

Ironically, all of these well-intentioned attempts to head off sibling rivalry might be contributing to the very problem we're trying to solve.

What if we, instead of anticipating sibling rivalry and doing all kinds of things to prevent it, simply expected the kids to be friends from Day One?

Is that naive? Maybe. But maybe not.

I say that because of a poem my 13-year-old wrote in school the other day as an assignment for her language class:

Words

There’s something in the word “hate”

that means bad.

There’s something in the word “kill”

that means wrong.

But there’s nothing in the word “brother”

that means mean.

There’s nothing in the word “sister”

that means awful.

There’s nothing in the word “parents”

that means annoying.

But when I tell you “I have five siblings”

And you say “I feel so bad for you”

There is a whole sea of reasons why that sentence

should make me reply,

“No, I feel so bad for you.”

There’s something in the word “family”

that means wonderful and loving and right.

I’m sorry you didn’t know

that families don’t have to fight.

The media tells us that siblings are natural enemies, but I think we can reject that idea and parent as if we expect them to be friends.

We can refuse to tolerate fighting that goes beyond age-appropriate, situational bickering.

We can encourage a team mentality by having many shared toys and spaces instead of designating ownership of every little thing.

We can seek out books and movies where families work together and siblings are friends who have adventures together.

We can prioritize family time over individual parent-child date night.

We can say good things to our kids about their brothers and sisters, both when they're around to hear it and also when they aren't.

We can praise them for cooperating or helping each other.

One thing I've learned about raising kids is that good behavior starts with the expectation of good behavior.

The Fergusons and Clarissas in the media can keep on fighting like cats and dogs, but as parents, we have the power to raise children who are friends.

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