Last weekend, I wore a winter jacket to my younger son's Little League game, and my friend and I huddled in the bleachers under a fleece blanket.  Monday, it felt like summer with balmy temperatures in the 80s and I wore my sandals. Now, for two days more cold rain.  Yes, it’s spring in New Jersey and despite the bipolar weather I've been overcome with an urge to do spring cleaning. I looked around our house and yard. What could be thrown out? What had rotted but could be replaced with something green and fertile? Out on the front porch, the flowerpots were filled with dirt. I circled back to…

I can’t pay my kid to read Anne of Green Gables. The Little Princess, Little Women, Little House on the Prairie? Forget it, out of the question, no way. But why?As I learned when I gave a talk at the local public library, for more than 100 years, dead-ending with my daughter, you could assume that a girl raised in the United States had read or knew about Little Women. In a room of more than 50 women gathered at the library, all of them could name the four main characters in the novel.Canadian girls had the equivalent in Anne of Green Gables. For British girls, the Enid Blyton and E. Nesbit …

Question: Is your only conversation with your child; “It’s dinner time,” or “Are you doing your homework?” Many conversations I have with my clients include the above questions and the below issues. Scenario:  Your child comes home from school. They go to their room and shut the door. Only to be seen to ask the question, “What’s for dinner?” And the parent asks, “Are you doing your homework.” How do you correct this situation? How can you regain a relationship with your child that seems to have disappeared? Clearly, the above is unacceptable to a parent. Certainly, you want to have a …

Sometimes a vacation is not a vacation but more of a mind-bending family trip. Last week, my husband, kids and I flew out to Colorado. We'd used frequent flier miles to book our flights, and made reservations at a hotel that had been recommended by two friends who were great skiers and had stayed at the hotel before. We hadn't skied as a family in several years but figured it would all come rushing back to us. We set our clocks ahead, rose early and arrived the day Daylight Savings Time kicked in. That was mistake number one. The two-hour time difference, plus Daylight Savings, messed with …

Each season brings a new set of forms for camp, school, sports, and scouts. And on each piece of paper, along with name, age and t-shirt size, I provide my kids’ emergency contacts. As I write those familiar names and phone numbers that I have memorized, I realize how the years have brought me choices. When I first moved to New Jersey, I listed names of people in New York and far away in this state. When I knew my neighbors better, they joined the roster. Now friends, and neighbors who have become friends, are on that list. Still, when I step back, I realize what it means to choose a friend …

Friday night I poured myself a glass of wine and told my kids I was going upstairs to take a bath. It had been a long week and I wanted time to relax and get ready before I went to hear Alan Paul read from his excellent new book Big in China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising a Family, Playing the Blues and Becoming a Star in Bejing at a bookstore in Maplewood. My kids headed outside to play basketball and on their way out, my older son turned to me and said, "I feel like whenever I see you, you're drinking wine.""No, I'm not," I said. I felt ridiculous, because whenever you deny something like …

“I watched Nixon resign on television. I was a toddler."  That was my sole and unwelcome contribution to an argument at a neighbor’s house. Amy and her son, Eric, were negotiating how late he could stay up to watch the Oscars. Amy felt an early bedtime on a Sunday night, after a week without school, was the way to go. Eric felt if he didn’t watch the Oscars, he would be out of the swim of seventh grade conversation the next day. The compromise, taping the program to watch the next night, didn’t appeal to Eric. “That doesn’t work with a show like this,” he said. True, as the point is to learn …

A few nights ago my older son stood in the kitchen and read me this quote from the March issue of National Geographic."How big is 7 billion?" he asked. I shrugged. "In years it's half the universe's age," he said. "In text messages, it's the US total every 30 hours." That means Americans text each other 7 billion times in a little over a day. Wow. But the truly shocking thing wasn't just the number. It's that my older son stood and read a magazine out loud to me—and didn't shout at me from his room to come look at something on his laptop that he had downloaded from the Internet. When I was …

Watching the local middle school musical from a seat close to the stage, one I came an hour early to reserve, I clapped loudest for the performers closest to my heart.  When my favorite eighth grade performer danced forward, I cheered loudly, just as I clapped until my hands hurt for a sixth grade first-time hoofer. As I looked around at the audience, I hoped others watching the play recognized what was clear to me: though neither had a starring role—and why not?—the spotlight belonged to those two kids.  And that was just a warm up: my own kids’ show isn’t until next month. I was cheering on…

Moms Talk is a new feature that is part of a new initiative on Patch to reach out to moms and families. Millburn-Short Hills Patch invites you and your circle of friends to help build a community of support for mothers and their families right here. Each week in Moms Talk, we take your questions, give advice and share solutions. Moms Talk will also be the place to drop in for a talk about the latest parenting hot topic. Have a question or suggestion to raise in this weekly feature? Send an e-mail to jen@patch.com.Recently I did something I said I wouldn't do: I read Amy Chua's "Battle Hymn of…