Dear Straight Moms, I get it. We don’t look the same. In fact, I probably resemble and dress like your 12 year old son, but unlike him, I actually want to connect with you. When I smile and ask questions about your toddler, it’s because I also have one, and I’m looking for a non-threatening...
what of the mother whose house is in flames and both of her children are in their beds crying and she loves them both with the whole of her heart but she knows she can only carry one at a time? she’s choking on the smoke of unthinkable choices she is haunted by the voices...
People always ask me if I’m enjoying parenthood, and I undoubtedly tell them how much I love it. But the fact of the matter is, despite how much I love being a parent, I hate having a kid. And here’s why. Having a kid has proven challenging in so many ways. Beyond the obvious of...
The people that know me know that I tend to do things a bit differently. When working with clients who have gone through a breakup, I encourage them to think about if the heartache is fueled by missing the person, or missing what the person represented to him or her. Let me explain: Often my...
I have a few clients who identify as queer or lesbian, who also have kids. I myself have a kid. I have queer friends who have kids. I love that people from the queer community have children. But being queer and having a kid isn’t an easy task. Besides the obvious obstacle of actually making...
Joe Purdy sings a very powerful song entitled “isn’t love”. The singer is singing about all of the ways in which he is so pained, betrayed, and broken in so many different ways by the person he supposedly loves. And then over and over again he repeats, after poetically explaining his anguish, “…and I hope...
My partner and I recently (as in 11 weeks ago) had a baby. This experience has been life-changing in so many ways. Beyond the exhaustion, the expenses, and the indescribable love, one thing it has also impacted is our interpersonal relationships. Our friends appeared ecstatic for us from the get go. Everyone was incredibly supportive,...
If you know me or have been following my blog, you know I’m pretty open about my past struggles. I am quick to disclose snippets of my history, because a) it makes me authentic and b) I no longer let those experiences define me. By externalizing them, I gain control of them. As Brene Brown...
Every year, like clockwork, the stress-inducing holidays arrive. When I sit down with my clients to delve deeply into what exactly is so stressful, I find a common theme: many of these families—or at least small dynamics between family members—have poor boundaries. These poor boundaries awaken the vulnerabilities and frustrations within each of us. Mom...
I recently was having a discussion with someone about his sexual identity. He reported that he struggles to come out to his mother (despite him being middle aged) because she seems to over-sexualize everything, and yet isn’t comfortable discussing sex at all. She is, as we deemed her, “sex-negative”. He was able to realize, through...
