Bad Parent
Bad Parent
Bad Parent
I Hate Calling My Kids When I’m Away
Spring is here, which means a lot of us are hitting the trail to teach, speak, meet, and conduct all manner of business that keeps money and professional mobility flowing in our households. My slate is full this year and while I'm excited to be on the road — - all those Bliss Spa beauty products and random chats with cab drivers - I dr...
Bad Parent
Nude Awakening
My ten-year-old son storms into my bedroom, plants his feet, fixes his eyes on me and bellows, "I can't take it anymore. He won't stop banging his drums when I'm trying to play Guitar Hero! Can you pleeeeeeeease help me? Now?" "Sure — just give me two secs." He huffs back towards the playroom, glancing over his shoulder...
Bad Parent
Screen Queen
I wake up to a remote control being bounced off the bridge of my nose. My daughter's voice has reached fever pitch, and it's only 6:30 in the morning. "Mum, Mum, can I watch TV? Please, please, please?" Now she's bouncing in the space recently vacated by my husband, who's off to work. Sure, it's early, but as far as I'm concerned, he'...
Bad Parent
Who Needs Bedtimes?
It's ten p.m., and I know exactly where my child is. Upstairs, in her bedroom. But she's not asleep. Last I checked in on her, she met me at the safety gate at the top of the stairs draped in her miniature surgeon's scrubs, her bug-hunting hat perched on her still-damp-from-the-bath hair. The contents of one of her two dress-up trunks are strewn a...
Bad Parent
Against Rooming In
They say that after forty-eight hours without sleep the human brain begins to slow down. Think of a computer burdened by a hundred different open browsers. After seventy-two hours, psychosis can set in. I for one have first-hand knowledge of this process, not because I was subjected to some covert military experiment, but simply because a year and...
Bad Parent
Gimme Sugar
Last month, I took my fifteen-month-old son Leo to his friend Elliot’s first birthday party. It was a mostly adult gathering and as we sat around the table the mother of a seven-month old offered him a taste of ice cream from her spoon. "I’m only giving him a taste," she explained, cheeks flushed. "I almost never give him sugar." Across t...
Bad Parent
After a Fashion
This all started because I was doing things by the book. Doing what all the "experts" told me I should do. It was supposed to build my kids' confidence, their independence, and their decision-making skills. But lately, it's been making us look like a pack of lunatics. I let my children dress themselves. And it shows. At first it was cute. When...
Bad Parent
Playing Favourites
I have long suspected that my mother favoured my older sister. I'm not sure if this is something I actually witnessed, or something my sister surreptitiously manipulated me into feeling. Whatever the case, I embodied the much-maligned younger sibling to a T. Many years ago, before I had my own children, I was having coffee with my aunt wh...
Bad Parent
