I’m getting knee surgery on Tuesday. And I need your help. What should I do with my week on the couch? Remember that thing I wrote a while back? About people fantasizing about going into the hospital, just to get a break, because they were so stressed out? I put together a poll, and found [...]
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We’re back, after a peaceful week in a tent, at the edge of Yosemite. For one exciting, very wet day, thunder and lightening crashed around us. The rest of our vacation was sunny days by the river, swimming, fishing, and eating popsicles. I even read a whole Aimee Bender novel! The absolute best part of [...]
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I just put together a very simple survey about working parents and stress. It takes only 5 minutes to complete. If you’re a parent and you work to help support your family, here’s what I’d like you to do: 1. Take the survey. 2. Forward the survey (or this post) to everyone you know. 3. [...]
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Nancy Davis Kho is a freelance writer and consultant in the Bay Area, with two daughters, age 13 and 10. Since her first child was born, she has tried just about every possible work schedule, from full time to part time to no time, and some other stuff in between. Today she gives us a [...]
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I just stumbled across an interesting story about the term ‘nervous breakdown‘ that came out in The New York Times last year. It explains why the term fell out of favor decades ago with psychiatrists, who now prefer labels like ‘anxiety disorder,’ ‘depression,’ or ‘schizophrenia’ when diagnosing patients. But the term ‘nervous breakdown’ is still [...]
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It’s a much studied fact that too much multitasking has the same effect on our I.Q. as a bong hit. It makes us stupid. And yet, life with young children can require, at times, an absurd, stuntman level of multitasking. I first noticed the stoner effect of multitasking after my first child was born. That’s [...]
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I went to a mellow birthday brunch this weekend for a friend’s 2-year-old. While Ruby picked out “Happy Birthday” on the piano and Jake pretended to drill things to the Christmas tree, I sipped coffee in the kitchen with a few other moms. As usual, the conversation turned to the questions that seem to plague [...]
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A couple weeks ago I attended The Sun magazine writing workshop at the Esalen Institute. It was heaven if your idea of heaven is writing and talking about writing all day at the foggy edge of a sea cliff, with some natural hot tubs and a yurt thrown in for good measure. On the last [...]
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Until I had kids, I was pretty happy with my brain. It got good grades in school, held its own in an argument, memorized lines in plays, and the year I lived in Chile, it learned Spanish. It was capable of empathy, which made it easy for me to make friends. It could fall in [...]
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