Ylonda Gault Caviness

Ylonda Gault Caviness describes her journey to the realization that all the parenting advice she was obsessively devouring didn’t mean much compared to her mom's old-school ways.

This week, when Portia de Rossi filed a petition to change her name to Portia DeGeneres, it got all of us talking about name changes around marriages. Who changes their name when they get married, anyway? A lot of us do, it turns out – 77 to 95 percent of women, at least. But a recent study found that women who change their names are perceived to be worth lower salaries than women who don’t.

If you're married, did you keep your name, take your partner's or take a new name altogether?

To most children, summer vacation means sun, fun and a long break from school. But for many parents, each summer brings with it the same difficult question: what to do with the kids? Working parents often grapple with leaving children unattended during the workdays, and childcare can take a toll on the pocketbook. How young is too young for a child to be left home alone?

With the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico dominating news headlines, some families are reacting by turning off the TV. But other families have instead chosen to respond by signing up to volunteer, as a family. Megan Miller and her 16-year-old daughter Savannah  Miller are signed on as volunteers with the Alabama Coastal Foundation. Together, along with dad Sean and 13-year-old sister Annalese, the Millers plan to help clean up the coast.

From Jamie Oliver’s 'Food Revolution' to the first lady’s national crusade, it seems that the issue of child obesity is everywhere. Clearly a major health issue, it is also a major self-esteem issue for children, which leads us to wonder: Is it possible to help our kids take off the extra pounds without giving them a complex?

First, the warm up: A light jog amid office cubicles to the elevator bank. Filled with liquid gold – the day’s breast milk receipts – my six-pound Pump & Go vigilantly straddles my shoulder as I make my way, gingerly dodging the judgmental eyes and last-minute questions from colleagues. I pound the call button once, then twice more for good measure, then rifle through my purse, desperately groping for the commuter ticket that will take me home to the achingly sweet babies I left at home 10 hours earlier.

Since December 2007, seven million jobs have been lost in our country, and the majority of those who’ve lost their jobs have been men. At the same time, females have been returning to the workforce in higher numbers than their male counterparts, and more and more women have taken on the role of primary breadwinner for their families.

 

President Barack Obama does it, and according to a study by the AARP, so do 33 percent of all 18-to-49 year olds. Living with your parents or in-laws is sometimes done out of necessity, other times voluntarily, and in many other cultures, much more frequently.

Kids often feel scared and powerless when a disaster – like the Haiti earthquake – hits. But there are constructive ways to talk with them about traumatic world events, and to channel their anxieties into positive outcomes.

On Mondays we take a few minutes to take stock of our family lives.  It’s also the Monday after Christmas, only a few days away from New Year's Eve. We're joined by our family contrib...

For many families the holidays are a time of togetherness, good food and especially, presents. But in the middle of an economic downturn, it is harder than ever for many families to s...