Angie and I were playing hide-and-seek at the playground on a Wednesday afternoon when three helicopters starting circling overhead, a sure sign of trouble in our neck of northern Los Angeles.

One of the dads at the playground had the inside scoop: police were searching for two armed robbers...

Last night, my daughter, Angie, wanted to retrieve a giant inflatable dolphin from the top shelf of her bedroom closet. Because she's 6 years old and fiercely independent, she fashioned a chain out of plastic clothes hangers and decided to scale the side of her closet, like something out of...

Like most Americans, I've spent the last few years reading stories about mass shootings in one part of the country or another, each more horrific than the last. Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, Tucson, Aurora. After every one of them, I thought we, as a country, had reached a tipping point,...

Over the weekend, I stumbled upon an online conversation about whether boys are underperforming in school because single mothers are unequipped to raise them.

As a single mother myself, I am intrigued by anything that pins a certain problem to a parent's marital status, and this discussion was...

So the National Rifle Association's answer to our problem with gun violence is to get more guns. Did you expect the NRA to say something else?

I did, though I'm not sure why. The NRA is a massive lobbying organization that promotes gun ownership. Lobbyists are salesmen. They advocate for...

My daughter was 5 years old when she performed in her first play -- not the kind of production kids put on when company comes over, but the real deal, with lights, costumes, makeup and props. And because it was scheduled for the week of Halloween, the show included spooky...

My daughter will not see news coverage of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. She will not hear it on the radio, see it on the Internet, or catch any conversation about it in our home. The television has been off since Friday morning,...

I was annoyed during most of last night's presidential debate, but when Mitt Romney insinuated that single-parent families are to blame for gun violence in America, my blood pressure shot through the roof.

I'm a single mother. A proud one. And Romney's remarks are ignorant, insulting and based on stereotypes...

When you wake up tomorrow, you'll be 6 years old. You've been waiting for this day for months -- marking the calendar, counting the weeks, writing and rewriting your wish list.

In the morning, I'll make your favorite breakfast: Banana mini-muffins and strawberry milk. There will be a birthday...

His name is Lincoln the Lion, in honor of the mascot at my daughter's elementary school. We bought him last year at the zoo, where Angie and I went to celebrate her first week of kindergarten. Full of school pride, she spotted him right away, tethered to a gift shop...

This is the note my 5-year-old daughter, Angela, wrote and slipped under my bedroom door, where I had sequestered myself from her sassy, surly complaints on a day when she was being particularly difficult.

I ignored her and her note, so she knocked on...

She must have noticed the frown on my face. Or maybe she could tell by the way I shook my head that I was frustrated.

Disgusted, really.

"What's wrong, mama?" my 5-year-old asked in the middle of dinner Tuesday night. "Is the news saying something bad?"

I put down my...

It is a house like any other on our street. Small and neat, with a few tidy shrubs in the yard and a row of potted plants on the front steps. Palm trees overhead and green grass underfoot. The only sign that disaster occurred there is a patch of flattened...

When my daughter, Angela, was an infant, I spent innumerable hours pinned to the couch, either breastfeeding her or holding her while she napped. I felt like a prisoner to her schedule, a captive in my own living room.

She weaned herself just after her first birthday and I expected...

I plopped my body onto a hard plastic chair inside the Department of Health and Human Services and waited for my name to be called.

The office smelled like sweat and cigarettes even though it was cold outside and my seat was near the front door. I wanted to run...