ARTICLES

You’ll notice that I don’t refer to my mother-in-law by name. I never knew what to call her. She never said, “Call me Joan.

They say you never forget your first. Mine was a 1973 Chevy Vega mini-station wagon. It was tan, with a brown plaid plastic interior. The exterior was squat and featureless. Still, being butt ugly was the least of this car’s issues.

I’m sitting in a soundproof booth, high quality headphones clamped over my ears, hearing absolutely nothing. “Clever,” I thought. “They’re weaving in gaps of silence, so you can’t cheat.”

Recently, someone mentioned the idea of a “grandma shower” to me. I was intrigued. I love giving bubble baths to my 3-year-old granddaughter, but if there was a trick to making showering fun, I was all in.

I have a recurring packing dream. It opens with a small blue plastic suitcase. At first, I need only pack clothes. But soon I realize that I must pack up the whole room, including the furniture. Next, I have to stuff…

Certain books just stay with you, even years after you’ve read them. I enjoy a light, breezy story, but it’s the more challenging stories that have lasting impact.

When the weather outside is frightful, is there anything cozier than curling up in your favorite chair in front of the fireplace, a steaming mug of cocoa beside you, and a wonderful book in hand? Let these great winter reads transport…

“Mom, do you mind not body-shaming in front of Annie?” she snapped, referring to my granddaughter. “I grew up hearing this all the time, and I don’t want her exposed to it.” What? I was baffled by what I had done…

On a late October afternoon, I arrive at Harlem Valley State Hospital to learn what happened to my grandmother. The windows are covered with rusted bars; ivy creeps up the crumbling brick façade. Wind gusts send dried leaves whirling around the…

It’s exciting. You’re going to be a new grandparent! It will be wonderful. You’ll bond with that baby. You’ll help the new parents learn the ropes. Hold on — stop right there.

How could I have imagined that my chaotic, emotional, vegetarian daughter would marry a buttoned-up, intense military pilot? Or that my sensitive, homebody son would fall for an immigrant from Pakistan, now an attorney with cases all over the country? How…

I’m not a person drawn to alternative treatments. Western medicine has been good to me. So when a friend suggested acupuncture to treat the chronic pain that shot from the middle of my shoulder up the side of my neck, I…

My son-in-law recently introduced me to his friend the following way: “This is Kate. She’s an interesting person and a good conversationalist … unless Anne is in the room. In that case, don’t even try.” Anne is my toddler-aged granddaughter, and…

Downsizing is a cliché. Moving to a smaller place comes with the well-documented emotional struggle of sorting possessions into piles of discard, donate, sell and pack.

When I was a young kid, my parents refused to fly. For several years, the family took the train from New York to Florida to vacation.

I was 24 when I met Michael, 25 when we got engaged, 26 when we got married, 27 when I got pregnant with our first child. We barely knew each other when we said our vows, though of course we thought…

I’m packing up the remains of a journalism career that once consumed and defined me. When I began, my life’s work took up an entire room. Now it’s down to a couple of cardboard boxes. Even those are excess. I am…

It turns out that my therapist is a cat person. Before the pandemic, I’d never have known. Her office was nondescript, with few cues to her private life. But now that we conduct sessions online from our respective homes, I’ve seen…

“I have no idea what he or his older brother even look like now,” she says. Fortune has been estranged from her son, the boys’ father, for eight years. As a result, she also lost contact with her two grandsons. Like…

I’m a grown woman — okay, a woman who belongs to AARP — who sleeps with a stuffed animal. For most of my life, I didn’t feel the need to clutch a small, cuddly toy to make it through the night.…

“You’re spending more time with your little baby than your big baby.” That was my 98-year-old mom’s complaint this week, after I’d spent a long weekend with my 9-month-old granddaughter.

Forget the gendered ribbon colors; the entire concept of a paper birth announcement now seems incredibly antiquated, and far too slow. So when my granddaughter was born last year, I couldn’t wait to post her photo on social media. (After all,…

The first time I held my newborn granddaughter, I was mesmerized, immediately awash in love. The second minute, my mind drifted in a less wholesome direction — could I spirit her away under my coat?

“Mom, I have some not-good news,” my 35-year-old daughter told me. Jeanie was 10 weeks pregnant and had just received results from a routine prenatal blood screen. Her voice was flat, and my stomach dropped.

The gray-haired set isn’t what it used to be. Compared with previous generations, today’s elders are more open-minded and more involved with their grandkids. But familiar stresses and power struggles remain. Read on for the revealing results from Good Housekeeping’s exclusive…

“I’m ready for a new cat,” my 97-year-old Mom tells me. “Dixie,” my mother’s last cat, had died two months earlier. Back when the beloved cat was still alive, mom had said it was her last. But she’d said the same…

Most Westchesterites are oblivious of the prison complexes in the county. For those who are imprisoned, have loved ones locked up, or work or volunteer in one, the prison industry is a harsh reality of life.

It’s the time of year when we celebrate mothers and — about a month later — fathers. But the way we view each holiday reveals a lot about the growing gap between cultural gender stereotypes and the reality of most families’…

Husband-and-wife Pulitzer Prize winners and county residents Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn want Americans to know that the nation’s most significant crisis goes well beyond a virus.

One night, after taps had been played and we were all asleep in our cabins, our counselor woke us up. We were all to go to the campfire area. Sleepy and confused, we stumbled our way out into the cool, dark…

MY son’s room has been described more than once as a shrine. The object of his homage? The New York Rangers.