Family / Huffington Post
I think North American women are ready to put up an “arret” sign against the recent barrage of books by French femmes who are writing about how they drink champagne, eat foie gras and don’t get fat; bring up beautifully behaved children simply by setting out a few non-negotiable ground rules, get those same children to eat anything (only at prescribed times), and how they...
Read More
Family / Huffington Post
“The first thing that strikes a visitor to Paris is a taxi.” – Fred Allen I almost proved that point here today in Paris, having a close run in with a rapidly changing traffic light and its anxiously awaiting autos, ready to leap off the starting line as I dashed across the road. “We crossed that like Montrealers,” said a colleague, but even the Montreal...
Read More
Family / Huffington Post
Amsterdam is a city of almost 800,000 inhabitants, and 600,000 bicycles. Bicycles are stacked along the sides of canals, outside restaurants, historic buildings, at the docks for the canal “taxis” and tethered to the sides of the 2,500 houseboats. But as a North American traveling to Amsterdam, I was simultaneously impressed by their pedal power while surprised to discover that not one single cyclist owned...
Read More
Family / Huffington Post
I had a dinner party this weekend. It was a Hunger Games themed dinner party which may or may not have included a “Pin the Arrow on Katniss’s Face” competition. But not all dinner parties have to be that fancy. At my house, inviting people over for dinner works for me on several interesting and often unexpected levels. 1. I have to clean my house....
Read More
Family / Huffington Post
“Mommy Bloggers” have changed the way that marketers and brands interact with consumers and their products. Many bloggers have relationships with brands in the form of an ad on their website, running a Twitter chat contest, or doing product reviews. But now they’re looking for more lucrative opportunities to act as the brand voice, or spokesperson. Yet they’re making some fundamental mistakes which are stopping...
Read More
Family / Huffington Post
I’ve always believed in the parenting principle of finding out what your kids like the most… and then taking it away from them as a form of punishment. The thing is, kids are very transparent, or “authentic” in today’s social media terminology. They simply cannot hide when there is a toy they really love, a friend they prefer over all others, or an activity they...
Read More
Family / Huffington Post
A recent book about the phenomenon of “Tiger Moms” caused quite a stir in the parenting community. I’m not going to name it, because then you might buy her book instead of mine, and frankly, I think she’s doing okay. And it would just prove that HER mother was right, if she’s more successful than me. Basically the premise of the book is that the...
Read More
Family / Huffington Post
The huge on-line success of the book Go the F**k to Sleep is due mainly to one thing: Every single parent in the world has uttered these words, either in their inside or outside voice. From the string of sleepless nights a newborn delivers the minute they come home from the hospital, through scary school age nightmares about The Grinch, to the awakening sounds of...
Read More
Family / Huffington Post
A recent report has suggested that family “fun” is anything but, indicating that finding personal happiness through the act of having children is a tad… overrated, and concluding that in fact children can bring the level of “happy” down, not increase it. I don’t really think this will come to a surprise to many people — oh, sure there are some great times to be...
Read More
Family / Huffington Post
Recently there has been a lot of research published on the significance that the birth order of children, the number of children, and the sex of the siblings have on forming who we and our children turn out to be. Is it really that predetermined? Stereotypically, the oldest child is likely to be more academic, less of a risk taker, a perfectionist, more driven, and...
Read More