One week 'til Elf on the Shelf is over

Giving birth is a major medical event . Sure, millions of people do it, and some people do it with very little medical interference, but it's still a big deal. You're in an immense amount of pain and discomfort, and it takes every bit of energy you've got. Not to mention, it's a visceral experience. Your body is doing things it has never done before. All that to say it's understandable that you would be choosy about who's in the delivery room when you're getting it done. Common sense says it sh…

Commuting to work is a necessary evil that most of the working world has to deal with. Aside from those lucky remote workers, most of us have to figure out a way to get our behinds to the office and back every single day. If you're especially blessed, you might live within walking distance from your job. But most of us either have to drive or use public transportation to get where we need to go. It might not be a fun part of having a job, but it is a necessary one. And the thing with jobs is th…

Family dinners can bring out all kinds of clashes within a family unit

Children need positive reinforcement . If we were never told we're good at something, or that our efforts paid off, we might never follow up on our interests. Sure, there's such a thing as over-praising or infantilizing, where we over-blow our children's achievements, thus giving them a distorted sense of reality. This can be a fine line to walk. But when your child genuinely accomplishes something worth praising, it is our job as parents to praise them. Even if it means putting a little more w…

Parental guidance suggested

Everyone is allowed to do whatever they want with their diet. It's your body, so you get to choose what you put in it and what you don't. Sure, we all might have to make compromises when we're eating at someone else's house or traveling to another country, but ultimately the only person in charge of what we eat should be us. That's why one Redditor was so upset at her family after revealing a secret they were holding about their cooking, and what it meant for her dietary choices. Every vegetari…

Having your relatives stay with you is not always the most pleasant experience in the world, especially if they have kids. If you're anything like me, you value your space and privacy. You love your home and have worked to have it the way that you like it. Odds are, you probably don't take kindly to anyone coming in and disturbing your hard-earned peace. Some would say, though, that's what the holidays are for. You make sacrifices for the ones you love because you expect them to do the same for…

Allergies are no joke . If it's an environmental one, like pet hair, then any space that has or has had a pet in it can become a no-fly zone for people with severe allergies. It's just not worth the risk of a flare-up. But what happens when you're dating someone that has a pet? Dating is no easy task on its own. It can take a lifetime of meeting people, dating, and breaking up before you find someone you'd like to spend the rest of your life with . So if you find that person, you probably want…

Parents have a difficult task this time of year, pretending to do their jobs at work, ushering their kids through the end of the school semester, and convincing them to still eat turkey sandwiches every day. It's a weird in-between time when the holidays are really starting to kick into gear but yet there are a few normal work weeks to get out of the way first. Soon you'll have to deal with your kids being on break from school while you're still on duty for work, giving them something to do so…

Memory can be a slippery thing . They say that whenever you remember something, you're not actually remembering the thing itself, but rather the last time you remembered it. So by this logic, the quality of the information slowly degrades with time-- a photograph of a photograph for years and years until it's just fuzz. So it's not so easily relied upon. This is especially true when you're a kid. Memory is so hard to access from that time that someone could tell you a story about yourself and y…

Happy Turkey Day, parents

Teenagers and technology are not the best mix. Anyone who has grown up with social media knows how damaging it can be to your mental health. It can distort reality, dampen your creativity, and make you irritable. So it's no wonder that some parents want to restrict how much access their teen has to their phone because left unchecked, some kids might spend all day on their device. But this is not always a popular decision among the teenagers themselves. If there's anything that they hate, it's b…

Having children over at your house is no simple task . If you're used to existing in the adult world, having kids suddenly enter your space can be jarring. You realize quickly how much breakable stuff you own, how many sharp edges there are, how many possibly dangerous items you have lying around, and how kids have no regard for that kind of thing. It then becomes the job of the parents, or whoever is in charge, to make sure that the kids stay in their lane, as it were. That's just called good…

Every family who celebrates Christmas has their little version of tradition. They've honed their ritual-- what they eat, where they go, and when they open presents. Some folks go to church the night before, some on the day, and some don't go at all. Some eat a traditional roast and some mix it up. Santa might wrap your presents or leave them unwrapped. You might have a stocking or just do a gift exchange. Everyone does it a little differently . But what happens when two families, and thus two t…

Nicknames can be a tricky thing. They usually start as a form of endearment when you're little, turning your adult name into something more befitting of a little one. Gregory becomes “Little Greggie” because a baby named Greg would be unsettling.