I gave away some of my maternity clothes. But I kept the prettiest stuff. I can’t imagine never being pregnant anymore? Never having a baby grow under my belly.
What’s the argument for or against a third child?
Hello, I was reading your blog about single parenting and desperately need some advice please. I feel like I’m losing it emotionally and it’s so frustrating.
I have a 1 year old, and his dad just opened a restaurant, and now he’s never around. We just had an argument over the phone today because I told him he has to come see his child and he says he’s swamped with work.
He does pay for rent and we are married. But now I’m here 24/7 with no rest in a small 1 bedroom apartment and I feel like I’ve run out of ideas. His mom helps out at 6pm once or twice a week and takes him over night sometimes.
I need your perspective.
My daughter needs me to respond to her differently now. I don’t know how to help her. She shuts down when we talk. Even when she reaches out. I think she needs more compassion and empathy. My default is to go into fix it mode.
My ten-year-old son is in fourth grade and came home completely stressed out about math yesterday, literally four days into the school year.
It turns out they’re learning geometry, right angles, obtuse angles, etc. It’s not the entire curriculum of high school tenth grade geometry I had when I was in school but it seems above what is considered developmentally appropriate for fourth grade when we were in school.
It’s actually not entirely horrible but my kid is completely stressed out. Maybe it’s the culmination of all he’s exposed to in school, plus having to wear a mask all day and be socially distant, that’s put him at somewhat of a breaking point. Just wondering if this rings true to you.
I’m planning with my husband the next couple of years with kids.
I wanted to know, after everything you learned, if we had to choose, is there a “most important phase” to stay home with kids? The baby phase, the primary school phase, the teenage years..? I’m asking so we can organize ourselves financially.
The hardest thing for me is that I take care of the kids 24/7. No matter how flexible I am with family / extended family (even my ex’s family) or how hard I work at forging a community, I can’t find reliable people who can help watch my kids and I can’t pay for childcare on my income. How do you do it? How do you spend all day every day with kids and not go completely insane?
Whenever I think maybe I’ve found a balance and gotten some normalcy established, everything gets upended again and I’m back to square one with little to no childcare and staying up hours past their bedtime just so my introvert self can recharge. Idk if I’m just venting or if I actually think you might have an answer I haven’t thought of yet.
I was wondering what your thoughts/knowledge are about having more than one kid and about age spacing. I’m thinking about having a second next year (my son is ten months now), but I’m not completely sure for several reasons, one of them that my own relationship with my sister isn’t that great.
Is it smart to bribe my 5-year-old with video game time in return for practicing the guitar (or doing other stuff)? I don’t actually care if he plays a lot of games, but it seems like a fiendishly smart strategy to limit his time in order to use it as a bargaining chip for chores and learning stuff (like guitar, which he asked to learn) that takes work.
Is that terrible?!
Did your musical kid actually always want to practice, or did you make him practice because you knew he did want it but needed help doing the work?
Is there a way to leverage their love for video games in a way that isn’t going to screw them up?!
I have decided not to go back to work after my maternity leave ends in the middle of October. I am going to be a SAHM for 2-3 years before I do any kind of contract or freelance, but likely be mostly home for 5 years before I go back fulltime.
What do I do with my linkedin profile in the meantime? Do I show that my current job ends in the middle of October, and then nothing for my current position?
I am quite proud of being a SAHM and think more women should be too. What do you think of putting something like Managing Director, family name., and listing the work I do as a mom (advance negotiation, scheduling, budgetting, etc., etc.,) in a way that clearly says I am at home, and I am “owning it”, or “leaning into it” if you will. I don’t feel like I have anything to be ashamed of, but also think it is a safer move after I get my next job.
Contact
penelope@penelopetrunk.com