As moms, we know life is filled with big and little moments of joy and comparable moments of pain. We experience this with our children often. When people ask me how my two kids get along, my response is always the same: “It is heaven and hell.” I love my kids, but day to day (and even from one minute to the next), I do feel like I move from heaven to hell and back again. What keeps my hopes up during the hellish times is the...

It began when I called my mom a “scumbag.” I was 12 and was now sitting in my bedroom in total fear, waiting for my dad to get home. My mom rarely told my dad when we did “bad” things, because she didn’t want to deal with his anger and just found it easier to handle us on her own. But my use of the word “scumbag” (spoken in the sassiest of tones and with utter disdain for my mom while I stomped up our...

Connecticut mother Jennifer Ghoshray, who homeschools her two daughters (ages 6 and 7), brought her kids to the gruesome trial of multiple-murder suspect Steven Hayes, telling reporters that it was for a “civics lesson.” Really? Oh — and she had prepared them by discussing the case for “six or seven months.” Really?! Oh — and what Ghoshray was having her young daughters focus on was the emotional state of...

The MTV shows “16 and Pregnant” and “Teen Mom” don’t glamorize teen pregnancy. Giving these young mothers covers on magazines with a quote like, “I’m Broke” certainly isn’t glamorous, either. OK, I get the argument that the teen moms are held out on the cover and given a pretty makeover, and that that might somehow make young girls think it is cool to get pregnant at 16, struggle to receive...

Michelle Golland: The MTV shows “16 and Pregnant” and “Teen Mom” don’t glamorize teen pregnancy. Giving these young mothers covers on magazines with a quote like, “I’m Broke” certainly isn’t glamorous, either. OK Magazine/US Weekly OK, I get the argument that the teen moms are held out on the cover and given a pretty makeover, and that that might somehow make young girls think it is cool to...

What would you say to your mom or dad if you were told they would be dead in a matter of months? How would you spend your remaining time with them? Do you wonder what they would want from you at the end of their life? Are there things you would want to express to them before they passed away? As a mother, I sit here writing this with one part of my brain thinking, “What would I want from my kids if, say, they were in their 40s and I had...