• Last updated 10/18/12 by Melanie Mayo

Assetou Diallo, with a brother, her daughter Mariam and nephew Mohammed in Kati, Mali (Photo: Peter Biro/IRC) By Peter Biro Kati, Mali— A week after Mohammed was born, he was abandoned by his parents and left in the care of an aunt who was already struggling to raise nine children. “Milk is expensive and it is very hard to feed them all,” the aunt, Assetou Diallo, said as she sat in front of her home, a one-room shack next to a busy dirt road on the outskirts of the Malian capital of Bamako. This year has been particularly... read more

• Last updated 10/9/12 by Melanie Mayo

Enter to win one of three signed copies of Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi by Mothering blogger and natural dad Brian Leaf! Leaf’s tale unfolds like a trail of delicious bread crumbs leading to the heart of yoga practice. Whether you choose to scarf them down mindlessly or savor every morsel is up to you. But definitely take time to savor Leaf’s brilliant self-inquiry. — Yoga Journal From its first hilariously humiliating image to its closing words of grace, Brian Leaf’s memoir is an unfolding miracle. – Rebecca Pepper Sinkler, former editor of The New York Times... read more

• Last updated 10/2/12 by Laura Grace Weldon

Image from Ajari’s flickr photostream Parenting would be easier if my children wanted to learn about the same things that I happen to love. Long ago I had the naive assumption that they would naturally develop my passion for environmentalism, muckraking journalism, anthropology, applied ethics, messy art, alternative medicine, and satire.  I knew these passions weren’t genetic, my parents were into playing bridge and visiting historical sites.  But I figured my children would absorb my fascination by osmosis. Nope. More like reverse osmosis. They seem to feel that just... read more

• Last updated 10/22/12 by Melanie Mayo

By: Beth Berry Over the years, I have pinpointed a few behaviors that — though widely accepted and even promoted by popular culture — simply don’t serve me. Changing these behaviors is a process and one that requires both a willingness to take personal responsibility for our choices and a continuous countercultural commitment to creating our lives by a truer, though “less convenient” set of standards. However inconvenient, these subtle shifts sure have made for better living in my experience — that is, once I sorted through the... read more

• Last updated 10/7/12 by SavvyHomeschool

In this episode we catch up after a week off, chat about fun and games while homeschooling, and… Homeschooling with The Amazing Race! Learn about all the great ideas we’ve found on the web, and some we thought up ourselves, on how to turn the tv show “The Amazing Race” into geography and social studies lessons, and more! Some links in this episode: Red Cabbage pH Indicator Homeschool Realm Exchange Change Game Secular Homeschooling Magazine (currently in hiatus, but back issues are available!) Homeschooling the Amazing Race on Annie-Babble Homeschooling with the Amazing... read more

• Last updated 10/18/12 by Melanie Mayo

This is my first post for Mothering and I am excited to be among the ranks of so many thoughtful writers and parents! I have been working to help families slow things down for several years now and I look forward to sharing some of my ideas and inspirations here! As we are well into our first quarter of school here in Austin, TX, I thought I’d share a topic very near and dear to us right now: homework. For those with kids in school, this time of year can feel a lot like  jumping rope. There might be a few missteps at first but once you settle into the... read more

• Last updated 10/18/12 by Melanie Mayo

Last week we were at a restaurant full of kids for brunch, and our waitress pointed out that our son was the only child in the restaurant who was not staring at a smart phone or iPad.  We looked around, and sure enough she was right.  There were at least eight kids in the restaurant ranging in age from 9 months to 9 years, and they were all staring at screens.  Our son was busy ignoring our adult conversation.   He was playing with a tiny toy Meerkat, and pretending that it was peeing all over the food.   It was pretty funny, and a few minutes later we found... read more

• Last updated 10/4/12 by Mothering Editorial

Marybeth LambeWeb Exclusive JinJin Joseph Levy and MeiMei Julia Levy leap off the school bus every afternoon, laughing and talking loudly. Competing with each other for my attention, they tell me about their exciting day in kindergarten. They speak of friends, new songs learned, and their adored teacher, Miss Ferries. Their words spill out in a mixture of English and Mandarin Chinese, for these two children have only recently joined our family. My husband, Mark, and I adopted JinJin and MeiMei when they were five years... read more

• Last updated 10/18/12 by Melanie Mayo

Every once in a while I hear about a mother struggling to be the perfect “attached parent” and feeling like she is failing miserably. I don’t know exactly what attachment parenting means to you, in fact, I am not sure what it means to me. But I do think that many of us feel like failures if we haven’t checked off a million things on our “perfect attached mom” list. I hear women expressing guilt over the fact that they don’t : -cloth diaper -nurse two kids -nurse past a year -co-sleep -do crafts or are feeling overwhelmed... read more

• Last updated 10/4/12 by Mothering Editorial

By Craig Idlebrook Web Exclusive - September 21, 2007 It's Tuesday, so it must be playgroup-time. I love taking my 15-month old daughter to the Tuesday playgroup at our local church. It's a chance for her to socialize with her chubby peers and for my wife to take a couple of hours off. Tuesday playgroup is the only playgroup around where I feel welcome. All the other playgroups in town are actually called "moms' groups", which presents me with a gender barrier. I once approached a mom about crashing one of these groups; she didn't say no, but she didn't sound overly... read more