Fourteen years ago, just weeks after becoming a new mother, I wandered into a “Meditation 101” class at a Buddhist center in New York City. I was a wreck. My body was buzzing from sleep deprivation, and my mind was headed straight into an existential crisis over what was...
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Tags: Buddhism, happiness, meditation, mindfulness, religion
Maybe this has happened to you: adorable children in your neighborhood knock on your door with a zip lock bag full of a yellowish, gloppy substance. They tell you it’s a starter for Amish Friendship Bread, and it works like a chain — they are baking their bread today...
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Tags: Amish, Amish Friendship Bread, baking, cooking, family, green, kids, St. Patrick's Day
An unsung American hero played on a bittersweet field where the personal intersected sharply with the political. Thanks to her, there are now over 300,000 girls playing Little League. Last week I found myself in a room full of some of the most recognizable trailblazers of the women’s movement...
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Tags: baseball, feminism, girls, Little League, sports
While walking with my 8-year-old son near our home in Manhattan, he spotted a purple swastika scrawled across a billboard advertisement. As I took in the complexities of the situation, my son uttered words that made my heart break… Across the nation, anti-Semitic bias cases have been capturing news...
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Tags: Anti-Defamation League, anti-Semitism, bias, children, graffiti, hate, Indiana Jones, Jewish, stories, Stuart Elliott, swastika
How can we instill in our children an appreciation for what they already have — especially when the people around them seem to have just about everything? Here’s our family’s holiday tip… This fall, my two children moved from a warm and caring New York City public school where...
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Tags: appreciation, Christmas, Habitat for Humanity, holidays, New York, Occupy Wall Street, private school, public school, UNICEF
It was a very risky idea, given how much he wanted Beats headphones ($200 headphones for a kid?) and a Wii. But this past week I gave my tween-age son his holiday present, choosing to surprise him with the gift of an experience over a thing. Here’s what came...
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Tags: art, family, gifts, holiday, inspiration, life, stories
Having neither spectacular accomplishments nor grave misfortunes to report, and, to be honest, having exhausted the vein of humorous family anecdotes over the years, I will tell you instead that we are all well and fine, and hope that you are too.
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Tags: family, friendship, holiday
I think it’s the perfect gift for the holidays. But how will my son react when he finds out where I’ll be sending him for the next five days? Recently I took a cold, hard look around our NYC apartment to assess the cause of its great untidiness. I...
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Tags: art, Center for the New American Dream, creativity, family, gifts, holiday, inspiration, life, mother, Simplify the Holidays Challenge