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Category archive for: Parenting

Charting the puzzles and peeves of kid-herding — from Huggies to homework, Pilates to pinatas.
Published bi-weekly, twice a month

Secrets of a Very Catholic Daughter

Published by Starshine Roshell on June 2, 2018

‘Hiding Out’ Author Talks Drugs, Deception, and Double Lives

He used to leap around naked in front of thousands of people weekly while touring the nation in Hair, a rock musical about sex, drugs, and draft-dodging. On my first day of 9th grade at a snooty prep school, my 70-year-old history teacher proclaimed to the class that my father had sat naked on her lap during a matinee in Baltimore. I never quite recovered.
But then I met Tina Alexis Allen and discovered I had it easy. Really easy.
Continue reading Secrets of a Very Catholic Daughter

Raising a First-Person Shooter

Published by Starshine Roshell on April 7, 2018

‘Fortnite’ Video Game Blowing Holes in My Anti-Gun Policy

The hypocrisy of my life is corroding my insides, and confession is the only cure. Outwardly — in dinner conversations, on social media, at girls’ nights — I go all frothy-mouthed about gun control, all soapbox-y on the nefarious NRA, all high-horsey over our nation’s sick obsession with firearms.
But in a dimly lit corner of my home, probably even as you read this, my sweet 12-year-old son who still orders off the kids’ menu is entertaining himself by assassinating animated strangers with a digital assault rifle — the very weapon now dominating public debate.
Continue reading Raising a First-Person Shooter

Theater Kids Save the World

Published by Starshine Roshell on April 7, 2018

Drama Class Prepares Students to Lead a Revolution

Everyone who’s been to high school knows it: Jocks top the student hierarchy. They earn the yearbook’s Most Popular designations and dictate, by their mere arrival, where the coolest after-prom parties are.
But when a group of outspoken, articulate, enraged students galvanized the nation after last month’s massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, it wasn’t a pack of athletes. It was a ragtag troupe of theater kids.
Continue reading Theater Kids Save the World

Rooting Against Your Kids

Published by Starshine Roshell on March 10, 2018

Yes, Sometimes We Do Want Them to Fail

There’s tough-love parenting, and then there’s just “tough luck, kid!” Wisconsin GOPSenate candidate Kevin Nicholson got a heaping helping of the latter last week when his Democrat parents each donated $2,700 — the maximum amount allowed by law — to support his opponent’s campaign. Which is bound to make Easter dinner exceptionally awkward.
But it got me thinking about the times I’ve rooted against my own kids, and whether it was the right thing to do. Since, you know, they’re not even Republicans.
Continue reading Rooting Against Your Kids

High Sobriety

Published by Starshine Roshell on October 22, 2017

Memories of a Drunk Dad, Gone Dry

When I was a little girl, my dad was more fun than anyone I knew.
He’d pick me up from grade school on his chopper and let me start up the growling beast all by myself — and rev it — as my friends watched in awe. Then he’d talk like Donald Duck and take me for ice cream right before dinner.
He loved roller coasters and food fights and making me laugh. He penned a ditty called “Turdballs on Parade,” and we’d wail it in public places, or break into a scripted repartee (“May I have a tissue?” “Kiss you?! I hardly know you!”). If I asked to wear his hat, he’d hoist me onto his shoulders and flip his black Stetson onto my noggin.
Dad was not what you’d call “a responsible adult.” I was the grown-up in our relationship—the one always saying, “Come on, cut it out. You’re gonna get hurt. We’re gonna get in trouble.” But that was okay; one of us had to be the parent, and I liked him as the lunatic.
Continue reading High Sobriety

Exes Co-Parenting in Peace?

Published by Starshine Roshell on October 22, 2017

Starshine Surveys the Pros and Cons of Sharing Kids

I like to think of myself as fairly magnanimous. Generous of spirit. Warm hearted and welcoming when need be. But I’m going to be honest with you: If I had to walk my precious toddler to his first day of preschool alongside his father’s girlfriend — and my child was calling us both “Mommy” — it would be hard for me not to hurt the hag with my fingernails. And, depending how quickly I could get it off my foot, maybe also the heel of my right shoe.
Continue reading Exes Co-Parenting in Peace?

What Makes Dads So … Non-Mom?

Published by Starshine Roshell on June 23, 2017

A group of young dudes in Spokane, Washington, recently put an ad on Craigslist for a “BBQ Dad” who’d be willing to man the grill at their Father’s Day backyard burger roast. They told the local news station their own dads don’t live nearby and they aren’t up to the challenge of filling their shoes. Duties would include flipping patties while drinking beer, talking about lawnmowers, and referring to the hosts as Big Guy, Chief, Sport, and Champ. They got a few takers.
I’m learning there’s nothing quite like the bond between a boy and his dad. Moms get a lot of reverence lobbed our way, mostly because of the way people just spring to life right there between our hips. The truth is that when my kids need comfort — or, alternately, a taloned and shrieky advocate on their behalf — there’s really no substitute for mom. Also, I keep them alive by cramming the occasional wad of produce down their protesting pieholes.
However, when my sons get talking about their dad, their words reveal less a reverence than a rapport. Less a biological tenderness than an utterly rational fondness. Continue reading What Makes Dads So … Non-Mom?

13 Reasons Why Parenting Is Frightening

Published by Starshine Roshell on June 4, 2017

With Wisdom Comes Age … And Fear
Last month saw the launch of two unrelated cultural phenomena that enchanted teens and horrified adults: the Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino and the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why.
The frothy, rainbow-swirled beverage was mercifully short-lived; ashes to ICEEs, fluff to fluff. But the controversial television drama lives on as the most-Tweeted-about show of 2017.
13 Reasons Why tells the story of a high school girl who committed suicide by slitting her wrists in a bathtub. But first, she recorded audiotapes detailing why she was ending her life and instructed that these tapes be passed around to the friends and classmates whose particular cruelties stung her so badly — the people “responsible for my death,” as she puts it.
The show has experts crying foul. Schools are advising parents not to let their kids watch it. New Zealand created a whole new rating category for it; those under 18 are forbidden from watching without an adult. Mental-health experts say the series — which depicts the bloody death in horrific, drawn-out detail — glamorizes suicide and could inspire copycats. Netflix met the backlash by adding more warnings to the first episode.
But no one listens to warnings. Continue reading 13 Reasons Why Parenting Is Frightening