Family

One of the strangest parts of midlife motherhood is realizing your children still matter deeply to you while also realizing they no longer need you in the same way. No one really prepares women for that emotional transition. We spend decades building lives around driving, organizing…

When divorce is mixed with other transitions in your life like retirement or taking care of an ailing parent, it’s tempting to never want to leave the house. Although feeling overwhelmed and confused during divorce is normal, avoiding these common boomer…

When the family doctor rescinded my 80-year old Dad’s driver’s license, my siblings and I were relieved. It may sound cruel, but his GP did our family a great service. Dad’s growing dementia had become an issue and his eyesight was failing…

It occurred to me, as I was watching a television program, that I was fussing about the behavior of the characters. I thought to myself, Why am I still watching this show when the characters get on my nerve? Why do I keep watching it? How is it that I haven’t turned it off? And that’s how this particular reflection…

There is a moment in motherhood that arrives without announcement. No milestone. No celebration. No clear language for what is happening. Your children are grown. They are living their lives. Making their choices. And suddenly, you are standing in a space that feels unfamiliar… even though you earned your way here…

The next time you see a tree, let it remind you of the value of friendship and community. When I turned 70, I found myself stunned and lost, wondering “Where did everyone go?” I had recently left full-time work, and around the same time, my grandson, whom I’d raised, launched into young adulthood…

Conflicted feelings and emotions are at an all-time high after the transition through divorce. Sometimes it’s terribly challenging to control and channel reactions to people or situations in a positive, constructive way; and as a result…

Most grandmothers I know carry a quiet question: What is my actual role here? You don’t want to overstep. You don’t want to second-guess your adult children. But you also don’t want to sit on the sidelines of the lives of the people you love most. There’s an answer to that question, and it comes from an unlikely place…

Does this ever happen to you? There you are, going along with your day, minding your own business and it hits you. The whiny, super-annoying feeling that tells you that no matter what you did during your marriage, it just wasn’t good enough…

The air inside the market carried the scent of yeast and something faintly floral. Coastal fog clung to the redwoods, but here the light through salt-hazed windows came in warm, settling over bins of produce and jars of honey. The space, built from reclaimed cedar, felt worn in the right places…