Here's a story from India about how kids should be taking care of parents ... or else!

Oh, my. The "Older Persons (Maintenance, Care and Protection) Bill, 2005", under which parents are legally entitled to maintenance from their adult kids is now being adapted to include 'non-old' parents.

What will be called the " "Parents and Senior Citizens (Welfare & Maintenance) Bill, 2006" will provide protection to every parent in need of it instead... more

Parenting 101 usually means it is on the job training. Sure you may have read a book or two, and gotten some great tips from Great Aunt Mary, but no one is there with the books to tell you exactly how to handle it when your toddler suddenly gets diarrhea in the bathtub.

You instinctively know to yell for Daddy.

…..And when that doesn’t work. You deal with it..

The first years are the hardest – at least from an exhausted point of view. I’ve been known to put toilet paper in the freezer and the formula in the... more

This has been making the internet - emails circuits for a while now, but just in case you haven't seen it:

POSITION: Mother, Mom, Mama, Mommy, Ma

JOB DESCRIPTION: Long term, team players needed, for challenging permanent work in an often chaotic environment.

Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends and frequent 24 hour shifts on call.

Some overnight travel required, including trips... more

A while back I posted asking for witty comebacks.

We all need things to say when someone says something rude to you about parenting at your age..... like this one that came across my email group this morning:

A man came up to me and said, "You are a little old to have twins, aren't you?" I looked at him dumbly and said, "I'm too OLD to have twins?" To which he replied, "Yes. Are they yours?"

What to say to... more

My husband thinks the most interesting thing about me is that I’m an older mom.

Huh?

The conversation came up because I was discussing the list I just did, 100 things about me with him, and I was asking him about it.

What shall I put on the list? What is interesting about me? I was asking for input.

You are an older mom.

Yea yea, I know, What else?

Being in my forties... more

We sit in our comfortable middle-class lives and we look at the parents of juvenile delinquents and tsk-tsk, thinking "why don't those parents do something." When our very own kids are acting out in similar ways, but flying beneath the radar of illegality...just barely.

Many of us as parents, just don't have a clue. When I talk about the hook-ups, and the skip parties, the drug use, and the way the internet and cellphones and technology in general is used to advance all manner of dangerous and illicit behavior among today's children...my peers, my neighbors,... more

In my last couple of posts I asked whether there was a down side to being an older adoptive parent. As could be expected there were yays and there were nays. What there were none of were definitive answers. One of our more vocal readers...who disagrees with older parent adoption because of her personal experience as the child of an older parent...raised the point about the way that the generation gap between children and older parents affects the quality of the relationship.

As a clinical psychologist, I have to admit that I am often stunned... more

Some people can't imagine allocating all of their available resources to a little bundle of joy from the time they are twenty until they are forty...or so. Some can't imagine starting to do the same at age forty and continuing for another twenty years. It all seems to be a wash.

There probably is a down side to adopting as an older parent. We shouldn't paint a rosey picture as if it is all peaches and cream. Still, I can't imagine any negative aspect of being an older adoptive parent that doesn't apply to being a parent in general. Yes, there is the energy... more

Since I have been blogging on older parent adoption, I believe I have, pretty much, written in a rah-rah-you-can-do-it voice. At least that has been my intention. Think it through carefully and honestly, decide if that's what you really want, and then go for it! That has been my message.

Today, I started to wonder if there are any circumstances, other than the ones that have already been discussed--primarily involving health--that should definitely point one away from the decision to adopt at an older age. The only ones that I could think of would... more

I followed the link that fellow blogger, Sandra left, about finding your place to live in the USA.

My top four places included two in Massachusetts and two in Vermont.

I lived in Massachusetts until I was twelve. It was a great place to grow up. Maple syrup tapping, apple picking and leaf jumping in the fall, but what I most remember are cold icy winters and... more