Is Happiness Actually Important?
Thursday, November 19th, 2009 Posted in Main essay, Marriage | 1 Comment »Is it worth staying in a marriage that makes you unhappy? That question has generated more than a little heat on this blog. But in order to answer that question, we have to answer an even deeper ...
Comment Round-up: Should We Stay Together for the Kids?
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 Posted in Comment Round-up, Conflict, Marriage | 10 Comments »Thank you for all of the thoughtful and heartfelt comments last week regarding the question of whether or not to stay in a marriage once children are involved. Nancy Prisby had a very important clarification about conflict and what ...
Should We Stay Together for the Kids?
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 Posted in Main essay, Marriage, On Life & Being a Parent | 18 Comments »Last night, one of my best friends called my cell phone twice in one minute—our signal for distress, the indication that I needed to pick up the phone right then, even if I was in the middle of dinner. I’d ...
Are Parents Today Too Needy?
Friday, October 9th, 2009 Posted in Main essay, On Life & Being a Parent | 3 Comments »Michael Lewis is worried that now that he isn’t writing about his kids, he isn’t going to pay enough attention to them. To quote Jon Stewart, this is one of the worst things I’ve ever heard a parent admit ...
Are You Sadder Than Your Mother?
Thursday, October 1st, 2009 Posted in Fostering social connections, Main essay, Mothering, Uncategorized | 11 Comments »Thanks probably to my mother herself, I’m not. (Sadder than her, that is. I’m almost certainly happier.) But many women today are sadder than their peers were 40 years ago, according to a study by Penn researchers called ...
The Importance of Pain
Thursday, September 24th, 2009 Posted in Main essay, On Life & Being a Parent | 10 Comments »I think the worst feeling I ever have as a parent is when I see my children suffer. I know this is true for my mother, too: she never could stand to see me in any sort of pain. ...
Handling Bad Behavior in Public Places: Alternatives to the Supermarket Squeeze
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 Posted in Changing bad habits into good ones, Comment Round-up, Emotion coaching, Mindfulness & Meditation, On Life & Being a Parent, Perfectionism, Real-life parenting, Self-discipline | Leave a Comment »“Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain.” –Author Unknown My point in writing the Bad Mother: Real-Life Tales ...
Losing my Mindfulness
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 Posted in Changing bad habits into good ones, Main essay, Mindfulness & Meditation, On Life & Being a Parent, Real-life parenting, Self-discipline | 8 Comments »It seems everyone who read the post about losing my temper in the supermarket has the same question: what should we do instead of employing the grocery-store grab? My complete answer to this question will be posted on next week’s ...
Bad Mother: Real-Life Tales of Imperfect Parenting
Thursday, August 27th, 2009 Posted in On Life & Being a Parent, Perfectionism, Real-life parenting, Video | 29 Comments »Why the Supermarket Squeeze is a Technique to Avoid If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning. —Catherine Aird Video: Letting Go of Being Perfect You wouldn’t believe how many people ...
Finding the Good in a Bad Economy (there’s a video, too)
Monday, August 10th, 2009 Posted in On Life & Being a Parent, Video | 4 Comments »Virtually all of us have been touched by the recession in one way or another. Money troubles are stressful for everyone involved, including our kids. Here are some quick suggestions for positive ways to cope with a difficult ...
Put Your Own Oxygen Mask on First
Saturday, May 9th, 2009 Posted in Holidays, Main essay, Mothering, On Life & Being a Parent | 7 Comments »I'm always struck by our willingness as mothers to take care of our children—and often their fathers and a host of others around us—before we take care of ourselves. Right around now, at the end of the school year, ...
Better Than Sex (and Appropriate for Kids)
Thursday, February 12th, 2009 Posted in Compassion, Forgiveness, Main essay, Mindfulness & Meditation, On Life & Being a Parent, Sex, Teach kids to meditate, Video | 5 Comments »Might be that sitting with your legs crossed repeating stuff like “May all beings be free from suffering,” is a little too far-out for you. I’m a scientist for crying out loud, so you can imagine how I might ...
Love: More is More
Thursday, February 5th, 2009 Posted in Compassion, Dads & fathering, Family meals, Fostering social connections, Main essay, On Life & Being a Parent, Praise, Social intelligence, Teaching Emotional Literacy | 2 Comments »You may think Valentine’s Day is for lovers, but I say it is for kids! I didn’t really know how darn much love I had in me until I had kids – and I’ve always been a lover, not ...
Getting the Ratios Right
Thursday, January 29th, 2009 Posted in Getting the ratios right, Growth & fixed mindsets, Main essay, Marriage, On Life & Being a Parent, Praise, Success | 3 Comments »Is it possible to praise your children too much? Last year I spent a lot of time emphasizing the importance of growth-mindset praise, and as a result this is a question I get asked a lot. The corollary ...
Ten 2008 Tips for Raising Happy Kids
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 Posted in Changing bad habits into good ones, Conflict, Family meals, Forgiveness, Friendship, Gratitude, Kindness, Main essay, Materialism, On Life & Being a Parent, Optimism, School & scheduling, Video | 2 Comments »Replace Your Kids’ Annoying Behaviors with Happiness Habits Some of the most irritating things our kids do (whining and tattling come to mind) are nothing more than bad habits, and as we all know, bad habits are tough to break! ...
Strong Women, Close Friends
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 Posted in Fostering social connections, Friendship, Main essay, On Life & Being a Parent, Video | Leave a Comment »"Throughout our lives, friends enclose us, like pairs of parentheses," writes National Book Award nominee Beth Kephart. "They shift our boundaries, crater our terrain. They fume through the cracks of our tentative houses, and parts of them always ...
Raising Happy Kids on Summer Vacation
Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 Posted in On Life & Being a Parent, School & scheduling | Leave a Comment »Happy summer! I hope all of your families are settling into a summer routine that is more lazy than crazy. Personally, I find it really difficult not to super-schedule my kids into a different camp each week now ...
Is a Divorced Dad as Important as Other Dads?
Monday, June 23rd, 2008 Posted in Dads & fathering | 1 Comment »Do I Have to Live with my Kids for Them to Reap the Benefits? Last week I heard from dads across the spectrum. One emailed me saying my last posting was "BS," because I was just "feeding into the ...
How Do We Get Dads to be More Involved?
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 Posted in Dads & fathering | 4 Comments »I'm surrounded by super-involved dads. Dacher Keltner, founder and faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center, is one of the most admirably hands-on dads I know. My dad was considered involved back in the day because he ...
Are Dads as Essential as Moms?
Thursday, June 12th, 2008 Posted in Dads & fathering | 9 Comments »My kids' dad travels a lot for work. For seven years I heartily resisted his heavy travel schedule. Even though I knew that he didn't want to be away from us, I still longed for him to be ...
How to be a Happy Mom
Monday, May 5th, 2008 Posted in Mindfulness & Meditation, Mothering | 5 Comments »Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically…on children than the unlived life of the parent. — Carl Jung The full truth of this quotation (provided in a comment on my last posting, Confessions of a Selfish Mother) is up for debate, ...
Confessions of a Selfish Mother
Monday, April 28th, 2008 Posted in Mothering, On Life & Being a Parent | 16 Comments »Mother's Day is that one time of year that moms are allowed indulgence—in our household this usually involves breakfast in bed and a rare opportunity to read the paper. For me this breakfast-in-bed "indulgence" is, not surprisingly, messy and ...
Your Paltry Sex Life
Friday, February 29th, 2008 Posted in On Life & Being a Parent, Sex | 5 Comments »Christine Carter, Ph.D. This posting concludes a four-part series on improving your relationship to improve your children's well-being. Go here for Part I: Your love life, your child's happiness; here for Part II: How To Fight; and here for Part ...
From My Experience: Rona Renner on Marriage
Monday, February 25th, 2008 Posted in Marriage, On Life & Being a Parent | 1 Comment »Rona Renner, RN From my experience, the “five magic hours a week” is an essential ingredient in making a marriage work (though some weeks it’s more like 2-3 hours…but the intention is there). Our 27th wedding anniversary is coming up next ...
5 hours to a Better Relationship
Thursday, February 14th, 2008 Posted in On Life & Being a Parent, Sex | 4 Comments »Christine Carter, Ph.D. This posting continues a four-part series on improving your relationship to improve your children's well-being. Go here for Part I, "Your love life, your child's happiness," and here for Part II, How To Fight. Just to restate the ...
How to Fight
Monday, February 11th, 2008 Posted in Conflict, On Life & Being a Parent | 6 Comments »Christine Carter, Ph.D. This posting continues a four-part series on improving your relationship to improve your children's well-being. Go here for the first post, "Your love life, your child's happiness." Parents fight. A couple necessarily involves two completely different individuals ...
Your Love Life, Your Child’s Happiness
Friday, February 1st, 2008 Posted in On Life & Being a Parent, Sex | 12 Comments »Christine Carter, Ph.D. As a working parent, I often feel guilty that I don’t have loads of down-time with Fiona and Molly. We have an early dinner together shortly after we all arrive home, and then whip through the bath-book-bedtime ...
This blog is about science-based parenting advice. I'm a sociologist and the executive director of UC Berkeley's 
Appearances on ABC's "View From the Bay."
