kids
For my husband and me, the decision to sell our home in Walnut Creek, California, was years in the making.In our 25 years there, we had raised two daughters, rescued two dogs, hosted neighborhood gatherings, and oversaw three renovations.In 2022, we took our first step toward letting go by renting…
Parent student-loan borrowers have to act quickly to keep their affordable monthly payments.President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful” spending legislation made sweeping changes to student-loan repayment, and loans that parents take out for their kids, known as parent PLUS, are facing a key deadline.Currently, parents can take out loans equal to…
Like many mothers, I often feel as though my family couldn’t survive without me.I have four children who rely on me to make sure there is milk in the refrigerator, to get dinner on the table, and to shuttle them to and from soccer practice. I love my family dearly,…
I used to hold a quiet grudge against my parents for the way they handled my creative dreams. Loading audio narration… It wasn’t the kind of loud, dramatic grudge that shows up at therapy and needs a name. It was more like a low hum in the background of my…
Last year, our family of five moved interstate. We’d been living in Bright in country Victoria, Australia, for four years, and I wanted to move closer to my parents on the Gold Coast in Queensland.The Gold Coast is Australia’s sixth-largest city, home to more than 680,000 residents. Bright, on the…
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with John Caudwell, the British billionaire founder of mobile phone businesses Phones 4u and Singlepoint, both of which he sold. Caudwell is raising three children with his partner, former Olympian Modesta Vžesniauskaitė, and now focuses on his childrens’ charities and real estate…
For Christmas one year, my husband and I bought our then 2-year-old son a Nugget Couch. It was amazing, and more comfortable than our mattress. Wait, was our mattress really that bad? I was pregnant and had thought it needed replacing (after all, it was over 10 years old), but…
In my 30s, I was the only one of my three siblings who wasn’t married or starting a family. At holidays and birthdays, I smiled through it and lead into becoming the cool aunt to my nieces and nephew. On Mother’s Day, however, I began bracing myself.Each year, my mom…
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lucy Rieger, 37, the cofounder of distillery J. Rieger & Co. It has been edited for length and clarity.I originally wanted to be a doctor, until I figured out I don’t really do math or science. Once I ruled those out,…
For more than a decade, I taught in public high schools. I believed deeply in standards, benchmarks, and measurable outcomes. I trusted data. I tracked growth. I aligned objectives. Success, to me, meant progress you could prove. Loading audio narration… I wasn’t wrong. But I wasn’t seeing the whole picture…
