Dry January and Lent
I just finished Dry January, which is to say, I abstained from alcohol for the month of January. It was hard at first, and then it became good, and it…
How to Navigate the Pressures of Modern Family Life
Our front hall table is still covered in holiday cards. There are the uber-organized people who sent their cards at Thanksgiving, then the steady stream of happy faces that arrived…
January 2025 Favorites
BOOKS: Heretics Anonymous Marilee and I have been enjoying Heretics Anonymous on car rides together. It’s the story of a group of high school students who decide to anonymously disrupt…
Why I don’t want to respond to President Trump’s baseless, inaccurate, and unjust accusations about who caused the plane crash into the Potomac
Yesterday, President Trump held a press conference where he suggested that the reason an army helicopter crashed into a passenger plane in Washington, D.C. was because of Diversity, Equity, and…
How to Delight in Our Children
As humans, we need to know that other people delight in who we are. Psychologists tell us it’s a core need, and they say we actually can never have too…
Photo by Bryan Johnson
Connect to Community | It Makes All the Difference!
Peter and I have often received praise for our parenting when people meet Penny, our daughter who has Down syndrome. That’s all very nice, but it’s clear to me that…
Cultivating Connection One Word at a Time
I once shared a post that included a story from someone who identified as a "person with autism." To respect their choice of words, I used the same term in…
S8 E9 | How to Talk About Disability with Carrie Hahn
Apple YouTube Spotify More! Is disability a tragedy? Are disabled people “inspiring”? The language we use often reveals our assumptions about disability. Carrie Hahn, a pediatric speech-language pathologist and mother,…
Family Formation: What is “the good life” for our children?
I loved getting to speak yesterday at Church of the Incarnation in Dallas about Reimagining Family Life. Our topic for their Family Formation evening was: What is “the good life”…
Belonging Begins With an Invitation
One of the most heartbreaking aspects of being a mother is watching our kids get excluded. I’ve seen it at times for all three of them, but exclusion happens most…
