First things first. I am OK. My family is OK. We are out of power. The extent of our damage: A bag of ravioli perished in my melting freezer, my fence hinges blew off and Halloween was postponed until Monday. Probably the saddest piece of all this was my 3-year-old...

According to the New York Times yesterday, the presidential campaigns are "intently pursuing votes of women." In past elections, it's been the soccer mom. It's been the hockey mom. It's been Joe the plumber. But now, just a few weeks before the election, they're...

Thomas Friedman recently went on "The Brian Lehrer Show" and announced that "there is no more average." Citing statistics about the connection between unemployment and education, Friedman said that the less educated you are and the less spectacular you are, the less likely you are to succeed in...

Dear Video Game Industry:

In retrospect, maybe the whole video game thing is my fault. I was the one who bought him Wii. I was the one who got him the DS. I was the one who taught him how to play Lego Star Wars Wii, and yes, I was...

Let's imagine the horrific scene of the Aurora, Colorado midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises. You're sitting in an open theater and someone begins shooting at you. You are now an open target for a crazed maniac with an automatic weapon. Let them call it what they want --...

Separating kids based on gender is nothing new in schooling -- boarding schools and private schools have been doing it forever. But according to a new article in USA Today, with boys' dropout rates...

Last weekend, the Syrian government killed over 100 civilians, more than 40 of whom were children, according to reports -- but the news of an 11-year-old boy who survived the massacre by smearing his murdered brother's blood over his face to pretend he...

Just as Vogue announced a ban of under-aged and thinspo-leaning models from its pages -- a "triumph" according to Slate's Libby Copeland -- Seventeen magazine shut down 14-year-old Julia Bluhm, a ballet dancer who attempted to convince...

Over the past two weeks we've witnessed an array of mudslinging, and I'm not talking about Romney vs. Obama. From Alicia Silverstone mouth-feeding her baby pre-chewed food to Slate's Amanda Marcotte veering into attack mode by likening placenta-eating moms to "animals," there's a whole lot of warfare going...

There is not a worse feeling than having your parent humiliate you in public. Me, it was my Nana, whom I adored, screaming my name across a clothing store. Like a banshee: "Hayleyyy! Come and look at this pink shirt!"

Now, replace that with: "You can not absolutely not have...

When I was 15, I went through a bulimic episode.

I'd gorge myself with all sorts of food, go to the bathroom, stick my finger in my mouth and throw up.

It didn't matter where I was. Many times I was in front of friends. At the diner after bingeing...

Is this a reasonable argument?

Babble blogger Laura Mayes made an interesting point recently with her column, "Someone To Look Up To," by discussing a potential girl power backlash. With full knowledge that we still make less, etc. etc., Mayes wonders if powerful...

First, let's agree that the word "slut" has a variety of definitions. Salon writer Tracy Clark Flory wrote that the word's subjective nature-- some women think it's a turn on, others feel it's a demeaning label, some high school and college girls use it as a term of endearment...

Recently, a friend of mine told me about her daughter's friends -- two teenage girls who are touting beer cans in their Facebook profile photos. These are under-aged kids. 14-year-olds.

"Why are their parents letting them put pictures of themselves with beer...

I haven't sent out holiday cards in 5 years.

And I tried. I really tried! Especially this year. I went through Shutterfly and Snapfish and Tiny Prints. I went through all of our photos from Long Beach Island this summer. I went through the photos from the pumpkin patch. Central...

A few weeks ago, I flipped on the TV and the disturbing video of UC Davis students peacefully protesting while getting pepper sprayed by police aired on the news. Jake, not a stranger to the violent history of the world (he likes to

We are in toddler tantrum hell. It's affecting all of us. My husband and I. My eight-year-old son. It's a constant battle of will and want of an irrational two-year-old. The other day there were four tantrums back-to-back as a result of no nap. Picking...

The computer lab. I was a freshman in high school. I was a late bloomer and my breasts didn't pop until 9th grade. And when they popped, they popped. They were great, large, perky breasts. Computer lab was a mix of all grades. One day I was wearing a V-neck...

I'm not going to pretend like I haven't over-analyzed and over-researched vaccines. I'm not going to pretend that I haven't cornered my doctor for a much longer period of time than she spends with her other patients about MMR, chicken pox, polio, etc. We had discussions, yes. Which are the...

My two-year-old daughter, Elke, and I came home from Target with a pair of glitter shoes, and if that wasn't enough to trounce my reputation as an edgy suburban mom, I also bought a Disney princess coloring book adorned with even more glitter. It went down like this: Elke spotted...