ParentDish

It's Not You, It's Us: Breaking Up With Other Parents

David Valdes Greenwood — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Gay Parenting, Childcare, Opinions, Relationships, Family Time

Remember dating? And that most awkward of moments, the end of an evening when it was clear not everyone had enjoyed the experience equally?

Your date would ask the question, "What are you doing next weekend?" And, instead of saying "avoiding you," you'd stay pleasantly vague. "Ooh, sorry. I think I'm busy." For that matter, you'd be busy the weekend after that, too. Suddenly, your calendar was just packed.

Marriage is supposed to put all that behind you, right? Not if you have children. For every time your kid makes a new friend, you end up doing the getting-to-know-you-waltz all over again with a new set of parents. It's a little like having a 40-inch yenta stubbornly pushing you toward an endless series of blind dates. And if you think chemistry is hard to predict between two people, just try making it work with four.

One mom we met seemed to like us well enough, but in a very distant way; she would spend entire playdates at our house staring at the grass or looking past our shoulders at some far away thing we couldn't see. Conversation always involved long stretches of cricket-begging silence and we decided she must be shy.

Both of the children loved these meet-ups, nonetheless, so we kept at them for a while, but we did notice we were never invited to the other family's house in return. And then the mom started taking longer and longer to return our calls. Eventually, we got the message: She just wasn't that into us.

We could hardly throw stones; there are plenty of perfectly well-intended parents we haven't exactly developed crushes on ourselves. There was the mom who detailed her sexual history 10 minutes into the first playdate; the dad who yanked out his daughter's not-actually-loose tooth so that she could keep up with her tooth-losing friends; and the mom who treated us like Encyclopedia Homosexualis, lobbing blunt questions our way as if we somehow spoke for the entire species.

All our parent friends have their own similar tales from the grown-up dating trenches. One couple we know had never met the parents of their daughter's best friend in preschool, so they were delighted when the other family suggested they should all spend a day together. This seemed ideal -- at least until the inviting parents planned themselves a getaway for that same weekend, leaving my friends to entertain their child and her nanny for them.

A couple with two boys told us how thrilled they'd been when they'd learned that a new family would be moving to their street with three sons younger than 6. Our friends could just imagine all the years of play ahead, when the boys were all old enough to run from house to house. But that kind liberty started a little too early.

While the new family was still doing major construction on their enormous mansion-to-be, they left their kids (one still in diapers!) completely unsupervised, free to wander among the equipment around the site and toddle off into the road, which is where our friends found them. All visions of bonding between the families evaporated.

If you met someone who bothered you this much in a dating context, you wouldn't hesitate to just ditch the bozo and stop returning his calls or texts. Parent "break-ups" are a little trickier because you know your kids will see their kids in school for, oh, a decade or so, which means a little finesse and tact might be prudent.

But make no mistake: Job number one is keeping your child safe -- not sparing the feelings of other parents whose values put them at risk.

There is no easy exit line in situations like these. We all know that the old chestnut, "It's not you, it's me," actually means "It's me disapproving of you." So The Hubby and I fall back on the kinder, gentler dodge: Suddenly, our weekends are full -- and, depending on who's asking -- they will be for a long, long time.

Veronica Rhodes and David Valdes Greenwood alternate weeks writing the Family Gaytriarchs. Look for them on ParentDish every Wednesday.

David Valdes Greenwood has written about marriage and parenting for the Boston Globe and in his first book "Homo Domesticus: Notes from a Same-Sex Marriage." The author of three nonfiction books and the creator of the blog "Diva Has Two Daddies," he also finds time to be a kindergarten room parent and Barbie pretend play expert. Read his blog on Red Room.

Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Gay Teens Engage in Destructive Behavior, CDC Reports

Tom Henderson — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: In The News, Alcohol & Drugs, Relationships

Gay, lesbian and bisexual teenagers are more likely to engage in self-destructive behavior. Credit: AFP/Getty Images

Being a gay teenager can often be anything but gay.

Gay teenagers are routinely harassed, bullied and ostracized, as we've often seen in the news. And then there are their own emotional conflicts and doubts piled upon the usual adolescent angst.

It is no wonder that a study, released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, concludes that gay, lesbian and bisexual teenagers are more likely to engage in self-destructive behavior -- smoking, drinking, illegal drugs, unprotected sex and attempted suicide -- than their straight peers.

The new study is based on data from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveys, Time magazine reports. The surveys were conducted from 2001 to 2009 among high school students in New York City, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Milwaukee and San Diego.

Teens were asked about everything from whether or not they used heroin to whether or not they buckled their seat belts.

"This report should be a wake-up call," Dr. Howell Wechsler, the director of CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health, tells Time. "We are very concerned that these students face such dramatic disparities for so many different health risks."

A cause of these risky behaviors is a lack of safe and supportive environments, according to the Advocate, a gay publication.

CDC officials call for state and local governments to take action, such as creating gay-straight alliances.

Better information is also needed, the Advocate indicates. In 2009, the last year the survey was taken, only 10 states and seven large school districts asked whether students were gay or bisexual.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Dr. Phil on Mondays with Marlo

the editors at MarloThomas.com — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Bullying, Just for You, Relationships

Psychologist and hit talk show host Dr. Phil stopped by to chat with Marlo Thomas about relationships, bullying, parenting, and more!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Becoming a Stepmother from Marlo Thomas

the editors at MarloThomas.com — Tue, 17 May 2011 11:30:00 EST

Filed under: Single Parenting, Relationships, Expert Advice: Family Time

When I realized I was going to have the title of "stepmother," I thought, "Oh, no, I don't want to be one of those!" In fairy tales and children's stories, stepmothers are usually villains. I had to figure out how to be a nice one, a good one. The first step was becoming a true and trusted friend; the rest followed.

Auntie Marlo and Kate: Stepmotherhood
My niece Kate and I bring together women from each of our respective age groups to explore how different generations look at different issues. The topic of this segment is stepmotherhood.
Watch the video

Becoming a Happier Stepmother
It's not always easy to be a stepmom - I know that myself from experience! - but it has some wonderful rewards as well. I asked psychotherapist (and stepmom) Rachelle Katz if she had any tips for stepmothers. Rachelle had some great advice - read her tips, then share your own! (And if you're a stepdad or stepchild, chime in here with your own comments, too).
Read the article

Understanding Your Stepchildren (They're "Younger" Than You Think)
When I got married, I went from being single, with no kids, to being a stepmother with five children. We all survived it, and learned to thrive, and today I'm very close to them (and their own children). But I know the relationship between a new wife and her husband's children can be a difficult one to forge. I asked Rachelle Katz - psychotherapist, stepmom, and author of The Happy Stepmother - if she had any advice, and of course she did!
Read the article

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Marital Discord Disrupts Baby's Sleep, Study Finds

Tom Henderson — Thu, 12 May 2011 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Babies, In The News, Relationships, Sleep

Babies exposed to marital discord have more trouble sleeping. Credit: Getty Images

Talk about your vicious cycles.

Your infant has trouble sleeping, so you're up half the night. This makes you cranky, irritable and short-tempered with your spouse.

And guess what? Researchers say babies exposed to marital discord have more trouble sleeping.

Face it. You can't win. You may now whimper pitifully if you wish. Researchers at Oregon State University would understand.

They studied more than 350 families with adopted babies ages 9 to 18 months. They stuck with adopted babies to make sure parents and children didn't share any genetic behaviors or personality traits.

"Our findings suggest that the effects of marital instability on children's sleep problems emerge earlier in development than has been demonstrated previously," researcher Anne Mannering, an instructor of human development at Oregon State University, says in a press release. "Parents should be aware that marital stress may affect the well-being of their children even in the first year or two of life."

Researchers wanted to confirm that marital problems, such as parents thinking about divorce, affected children's sleep later in their infancy. They found parental bickering when a child is 9 months old can affect his or her sleep nine months later.

And Manning says problems can manifest themselves much later than that. They can "correlate with problems in school, inattention and behavioral issues," she says in the release.

Marital instability was measured with such survey questions as, "Has the thought of separating or getting a divorce crossed your mind?" (If the answer is yes, by the way, don't worry. That just means you're married.)

Researchers also found no link between sleepless infants and parents' relationship problems. Then again, they probably reached that conclusion after a good night's sleep.

Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Nurturing Sibling Relationships

PBSParents.org — Tue, 10 May 2011 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Siblings, Relationships

When my oldest daughter was 7 and her little sister was 5, I told them they could go swimming after finishing a page of homework. After a while, my 5-year-old raised two pages of work up in the air and proudly proclaimed, "We can go swimming now! Let's go!"

Confused, I asked her what she meant because her older sister was still working on her homework. She replied, "Oh, Mommy, we can go swimming now because I did two pages of homework." Wondering if she had misunderstood the guidelines, I pointed in the direction of her sister, who was still busily working at her desk. With a proud smile on her face and wide-eyed excitement, my sweet little 5-year-old exclaimed, "No, Mommy, we can go now because I did two pages: one for me and one for my sister!"

While applauding her for her thoughtfulness, yet setting the correct boundary, I told her, "Oh, honey, that is very sweet of you to want to help your sister, but she really needs to finish her own work. Thank you for the thought, but your extra page doesn't count for your sister."

With an accepting nod of the head she replied, "OK, Mommy, but the love counts, right?"

It warms a parent's heart to see love between siblings. When a parent witnesses one sibling choosing to do something loving towards another on his own accord, it creates a deep sense of satisfaction. More than anything else, parents want to see their children get along harmoniously, support each other and be "bestest" friends.

Unfortunately, this love between siblings does not always come naturally or easily. Siblings are often squabbling, competing or having less than positive feelings about each other. Left to their own devices, they will bicker to no end. It takes vision, patience, modeling and encouragement on the parents' part, and plenty of practice on the children's part, for the sibling relationship to be a positive one.

Yes, children are young, but relationships are real. As much as adults struggle with having positive relationships, children do, as well. They need their parents' help.

While parents want to nurture a positive relationship between their children, many times they don't know exactly how to go about it. Should they have their children room together so that they will develop a closer bond? Should they insist on their children taking classes together or sharing hobbies? Or should they step back and let their children figure out the relationship and hope for the best?

Just like so many other areas in life, children need specific instruction and good modeling to know how to develop good sibling relationships. As most parents know, siblings do not become best friends automatically just because they are living in the same house. Children need parents to help nurture this very important relationship.

Try these five tips to help strengthen the connection between your children:

1. Practice what you preach, because your children are learning more from what you do than from what you say. Instead of shouting at your children to stop shouting, encourage them to use a gentle voice with each other. Use kindness and thoughtfulness in your actions, and your children will be more likely to follow suit.

2. Does every child in the family get shoes just because one of your children gets his much needed soccer shoes? Do your children always complain that you're not fair? When children complain about something not being fair, what they really mean is that it's not exactly "equal." They want the exact same portion of ice cream as their sibling every time but let's face it, life is not always equal. Explain to your children that fairness means you get what you need, but it doesn't always happen at the exact same time or in the exact same way. And, that's okay.

3. Siblings need meaningful activities in order for them to have opportunities to work together and have memorable, bonding experiences. If left unattended on a daily basis without goals or focus, frequent conflicts and aggravations are sure to flair up. Bake cookies together. Build forts. Work together as a team toward a common goal. Children benefit greatly when parents help to channel their children's energy into something positive.

4. Consider whether your children have been together too much for their own good. Allowing each child to have private time in the playroom for a day or letting a child attend birthday parties alone once in a while can be a good thing. Maybe they could benefit from a change in scenery and company.

5. For siblings who have five or more years between them, it can be more challenging to find connections and opportunities to nurture. Despite the wide gap, it is still very important for them to have a positive relationship and the energy put into this is well worth it. One danger to avoid is giving the older sibling authority over the younger sibling. Of course they should look out for their younger brother or sister but parents need to set the boundary and expectation that siblings are friends first.

As often as you can, intentionally nurture the sibling relationship with good modeling, opportunity, encouragement and teaching. It's impossible for kids to always get along, but at least you now have a few strategies to help create harmony among your kids. What other strategies have worked for you?

This article originally appeared on PBSParents and was written by Suzy Martyn. Suzy is the author of Enjoy the Ride: Tools, Tips, and Inspiration for the Most Common Parenting Challenges and Sleep Tight: Help Your Child Attain a Good Night's Sleep in Three Days As a mentor mom and keynote speaker for Babies 'R Us and MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) groups, Martyn enjoys sharing her knowledge and experience with parents and hearing what concerns them the most. Her experience has been enhanced by more than 25 years of caring for children in the classroom, through in-home childcare, and as a parenting consultant as well as from being the mother of three daughters who are "bestest" friends.

More From PBSParents.org:

Child Development Tracker

Expert Q&A

Activity Search

Kitchen Explorers

The Parent Show

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Steps to Stepfamily Success

PBSParents.org — Wed, 04 May 2011 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Adoption, Siblings, Relationships, Family Time, Home Base

Typical multi-home stepfamilies are like intact biological families in many ways. But, they differ structurally, developmentally and dynamically in many ways too.

Stepfamilies who aren't aware of these differences risk using biological family norms and expectations to guide their day-to-day lives. That's like trying to play baseball with soccer equipment and basketball rules -- guaranteed to create confusion, conflict and stress.

Learning to live well in a new family takes time. Everyone has a lot to learn, including how to cope in a new environment. One of the first things you'll want to do is to recognize some of the myths of stepfamilies. For example:

Myth #1: "I love you, and I must love your kids."
Reality: "I love you and will patiently work at respecting your kids. They and I may never love each other. If we do, it will feel different than biological parent-child love, and that's okay.

Myth #2: "Your or my ex-mate is not part of our family!"
Reality: "As long as your biological children from your previous marriage live, their other biological parent, and their new mate(s), if any, will emotionally, financially, legally and genetically influence all of your lives. Ignoring or discounting the needs and feelings of these other adults will stress everyone for years.

Myth #3: "We're just like a regular biological family."
Reality: Not really. Your new extended family and the linking of stepfamily co-parenting homes add up to loads of relatives with many major losses to mourn, and many conflicting values and customs to resolve. You are, however, normal -- a normal multi-home stepfamily.

Myth #4: "Your or my kids will never come between us."
Reality: Stepfamily adults' inability to resolve clashes over one or more step-kids, including related money issues, is the most quoted reason for a stepfamily divorce. Underneath this usually lie your own unhealed wounds.

Myth #5: "Stepparenting is pretty much like biological parenting, without the childbirth."
Reality: While stepparents' primary goals are about the same as those of biological parents, the emotional, legal and social environments of average stepparents differ in numerous ways. This usually leads to confusion, frustration, and stress, until all the stepfamily adults agree clearly on what each other's key responsibilities are.

Myth #6: "Your and/or my biological kids(s) will always live with us."
Reality: In about 30 percent of U.S. stepfamilies, one or more minor biological kids move into the home of their other biological parent at some point. The resulting emotional and financial shock waves can be extremely challenging. The key is to build realistic expectations for your new stepfamily homes, roles and relationships. If you don't, ongoing frustrations and disappointments can end up harming your marriage. Learning together what's normal in average stepfamilies -- early on -- can help considerably.

Here are a few more ideas on how to keep your new family on the right track:

1. Adopt an open learner's mind to new ways of doing things.

2. Award yourself patience, permission to mess up and learn, and strokes for the smallest triumphs.

3. Expect some people to misunderstand and to criticize your new values, goals, and plans -- or you. Realize they probably are stuck in a biological family mode of thinking. That's their issue.

4. Keep your emotional knees flexed, hold hands, and enjoy the adventure and challenge together. It's worth it!

Your relatives and friends might mistakenly expect your new household and kin to feel and act like a biological family. They also may not approve of either the prior divorce(s) or the remarriage. Yet, when well-run by confidant stepfamily adult teams (not simply couples), this modern version of an ancient family form can provide the warmth, comfort, inspiration, support, security -- and often (not always) the love -- that adults and kids long for.

What's your biggest challenge as a stepparent? How are you dealing with it?

This article was originally published on PBS Parents by Gloria Lintermans. Gloria Lintermans is the author of The Secrets to Stepfamily Success: Revolutionary Tools to create a Blended Family of Support and Respect, The Healing Power of Grief: The Journey Through Loss to Love and Laughter, and The Healing Power of Love: Transcending the Loss of a Spouse to New Love.

More From PBSParents.org:

Child Development Tracker

Expert Q&A

Activity Search

Kitchen Explorers

The Parent Show

Permalink | Email this | Comments

The Abusive Son: A Mother's Story

the editors at More.com — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:30:00 EST

Filed under: Opinions, Relationships

Rob and Jacquelyn Mitchard on a trip to Florence in 1991. Courtesy of Jacquelyn Mitchard

A mother can take only so much abuse from her son -- and then she can take a whole lot more. Jaquelyn Mitchard tells how she finally found the courage to shut the door on the love of her life. And open it again.

Some parents consider their children heroes because they endure devastating, even life-threatening health conditions with courage. Some people see their children as heroes because they overcome bullying, criticism or social cruelty.

My son Rob is a hero to me because he faced the fact that he had made a mess not only of his life but of his very character. The road to that recognition began when I threw him out of our house one sweltering summer day almost three years ago, when he was 23. At the time, both of us thought this was an ending, not a beginning. As Rob slammed the door behind him that day, he never looked back. He took the first steps of a 10-mile walk back from our house in the country to his crummy apartment in the city. I ran from window to window, struggling to catch a last glimpse of his brawny form and characteristic springy step. I didn't know it then, but this would be the longest walk of Rob's life.

At the time, all I thought was that I would never see my firstborn again.

Once I had believed that Rob might be the only child I would ever have. Because I'd had trouble conceiving, Rob was specially treasured and the darling of his father's heart. When the next two came along, Rob seemed more put out than the usual older sibling. Then Dan died at 44, cancer claiming him as swiftly as a brush fire, leaving me with three little boys and precious little else. Rob was only 9. The younger boys clung to me, but Rob withdrew into an ever-darkening cloud of self-absorption. Of course, I wasn't the mother I should have been or wanted to be. Emotionally and economically, I almost cracked under the strain. But I tried to fight back, with all the stamina and creativity I had. After a full day at the university where I worked, I seized every freelance assignment I could find and was also -- crazy as it seems to me now -- trying to write my first novel. All I wanted was to keep life "normal" for my boys, not understanding that life would never be normal again. The youngest, Marty, was just 3 and wistfully told me that I should work at the Dairy Queen, where they had four-hour shifts. But even Marty seemed to know that this harried and weary woman was doing her best.

Read the rest of the story here.

This article was written by Jacquelyn Mitchard and appears in the April issue of More magazine.

Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

College Couples Hook Up and Check Out Emotionally, but Virgins on the Rise Too

Mary Beth Sammons — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: In The News, Sex, Relationships

Even this is too romantic for a hook-up mentality. Credit: AFP/Getty Images

When it comes to the sex lives of American college students, courtship and dating are out -- and booty calls and virginity are in.

Sounds contradictory, but recent studies suggest that traditional dating on college campuses has been replaced by no-strings-attached (or "hook-up") relationships where the bonds between young men and women are increasingly brief and sexual, according to USA Today. These "hook-ups" or "friends with benefits" are defined as encounters ranging from kissing to sexual intercourse, the newspaper reports.

At the same time, a rising number of young women and men are considering sex more precious, with percentages of men and women between the ages of 18-24 who are virgins on the rise, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

"You just don't date at colleges," says Kathleen Adams, 23, now a Fordham University graduate student, who tells USA Today she didn't have a boyfriend until the second semester of her senior year.

What's driving these trends, experts agree, is that most colleges have significantly more women than men, according to USA Today.

"It's kind of like a competition," Adams tells USA Today. "The guys have their choice of whoever they want. So they think, 'Why would I date?' "

Adams' experience underscores an emerging reality for today's college students,
Mark Regnerus, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas-Austin, tells USA Today.

His research reinforces the idea that the higher proportion of women on campuses has contributed to the ascent of the hook-up culture. Overall, women made up more than 56 percent of the college population in 2009, according to the recent Census data on enrollments; more women are found on many campuses that serve both sexes.

"The women wind up competing with each other for access to the men, and often, that means relationships become sexual quicker," Regnerus, co-author of "Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate, and Think About Marrying," tells USA Today. His book is based on four national studies representing 25,000 young people ages 18-23 and more than 200 additional interviews.

"The result of these casual encounters, is that college students no longer know how to get relationships started," says Justin Garcia, a State University of New York doctoral fellow at Binghamton (N.Y.) University who conducts research on hook-ups.

"For the majority of students, they're not going to dinner and a movie unless they've hooked up with someone," Garcia tells USA Today. "Some physical interaction comes before the dating. Often dates happen after a relationship, rather than before."

But even so, "it's not like everyone is having casual sex all the time," says sociologist Paula England of Stanford University. Her ongoing research has surveyed more than 17,000 students from 20 colleges and universities since 2005.

"Some people are hooking up a bunch of times with the same person but are not calling it a relationship," England tells USA Today. "Others are never doing anything you would call a hook-up."

Her latest data finds that by senior year, 72 percent of both sexes reported having at least one hook-up, with the average of 9.7 for men and 7.1 for women. Just under one-quarter (24 percent) of seniors say they are virgins, she says.

The numbers of those who claim virginity appears to be increasing, according to a National Center for Health Statistics study released this month. Among 18- and 19-year-olds, about one-quarter of men and women said they hadn't had sexual contact with another person, up from 17 percent of women and 22 percent of men in 2002. Among those ages 20-24, 12 percent of women and 13 percent of men said they were virgins, up from 8 percent for both sexes in 2002.

"We're seeing that the choice to remain abstinent is increasingly resonant," Valerie Huber, executive director of the non-profit National Abstinence Education Association, tells USA Today.

That organization is launching a campaign next year to "rebrand the cultural message" and tell young people that "sexual activity as a rite of passage" is no longer an expectation for teens and young adults.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Mommy Is Dating After Divorce: Do Tell, Do Ask

Jennifer Mattern — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Divorce & Custody, Relationships

Illustration by Dori Hartley

"So ... did you KISS him?"

My inquisitor is my 7-year-old daughter. The Spanish Inquisition could have used her. This one, she's persistent.

"What do you think?" I ask, stalling for time.

"YES. I think YES," she says confidently.

My 9-year-old pipes up. "But was it on the cheek or on the lips?"

Details, details. I squirm. "Ummm ..."

"ON THE LIPS! THEY TOTALLY KISSED ON THE LIPS!" Miss 7 yells.

"I KNEW it," smirks Miss 9.

"Can we just please go inside the restaurant now?" I say, blushing furiously.

I thought it was my job to embarrass my children, not the other way around.

I've always tried to be forthright with my kids about the fact that, yes, Mommy is dating post-divorce. We're three years out from my split with their father, and we're all in a much better place.

One popular line of conventional wisdom on dating post-divorce is the "Don't Tell, Don't Let Them Ask" thinking that holds divorced parents should say zip, nada, zero, squat to the kids about their dating lives until they are on the verge of remarrying.

This has never felt like the right strategy for our little estrogen posse. I want my daughters to know their mama is not just a mama. I want them to know I am a woman, as well, and that I am open to the possibility of finding someone special and lovely and true, someone who may stay in our lives. I want my daughters to know I keep my eyes wide open and that I'm careful with my affections, because anyone I choose must be worthy of all three of us.

So, we talk. We talk in a simple, straightforward way they can understand. We talk about the old goodness between their father and me, and how he and I agree they will forever be the best collaboration of our lives. We talk about the value that lies in remembering the good that came before. We mourn the loss of who we once were as a family, but we talk about the possibility that, someday, our family will be bigger, full of more love than we could have imagined.

Our frank talks demystify "dating," make it less precious, defuse it. I've never introduced casual dates to the girls. But when there's been a serious relationship, I let them know.

They don't get details -- they don't need details -- but they get the basics. Communication stays open, not compartmentalized. It's been a good tactic for us. Talking about Mommy dating has offered opportunities for discussions about self-worth, boundaries, goals, values, what compatibility is and why sharing our hearts and lives with others is not the same thing as giving our hearts away.

Someone mighty special has come along. I couldn't hide the grin on my face if I wanted to. I don't want to. This one, they will be meeting.

Miss 9 has prepared a list of questions for him. "Tell him we can go out for hot chocolate and I'm going to check him out for you. Don't worry, I'll be polite. He sounds like he has potential."

Miss 7 wants to tell him about princess dresses and tiaras and her favorite game, Apples to Apples. She says she wants to see how he smiles.

I love how he smiles. I hope so much they do, too.

It is as nerve-wracking as meeting the parents used to be, if not more.

I'd choose to go without a partner rather than bring someone into our lives who is not right. Life is good now, peaceful. We speak of this.

"I'd like to have a partner, but I don't need one, if that makes sense," I said, over dinner the other week. "Our life is solid. It would have to be the very, very rightest person for us all."

"Yeah. It's kind of like we're a puzzle that's already finished," Miss 9 observed.

"True. It's not like there's a hole we need to patch," I replied.

"But it's OK to want to have somebody special," said Miss 9. "Even grownups get lonely sometimes."

"It's more like our puzzle is good, but you can get an extra pack to build onto the puzzle, make it bigger with more colors," said Miss 7, excitedly.

"Yes," I said, marveling again at how much more they teach me than I can ever teach them. "It's kind of like that."

Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Irish Names for Modern Babies

Pamela Satran and Linda Rosenkrantz — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Holidays, Baby Names, Relationships, Expert Advice: Babies

Lots of Americans have Irish grandmothers named Bridget and Grandpa Patricks, moms named Eileen or Kathleen, uncles or dads called Sean.

But now, in time for St. Patrick's Day, there's a new generation of Irish names. With deep Gaelic roots, these names have been revived in modern Ireland and have started to immigrate to our shores, as well, sometimes with the help of a celebrity.

To make these names easier to understand for Americans, stick to Anglicized spellings -- they're on the right side of the slash. Or, use the Irish original and help with pronunciation; there's a guide in parentheses. These names are so beautiful, they're worth the effort.

Girls

Aine/Anya
Aislinn/Ashlyn
Aoife (Ee-fa)
Juno
Maeve
Niamh/Neve
Orla
Quinn
Saoirse (Seer-sha)
Tiernan

Boys

Ciaran/Kieran
Cillian/Killian
Cormac
Declan
Eamon (Ay-mun)
Finn
Lorcan
Oisin/Osheen
Ronan
Rory (works for girls, too)

Pamela Satran and Linda Rosenkrantz are the creators of nameberry.com.

Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

A Happy Childhood May Sabotage a Romantic Happily Ever After, Study Says

Tom Henderson — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 13:45:00 EST

Filed under: In The News, Relationships

Unhappy childhood? That could mean good things in the romance department later in life. Credit: Getty

"Perhaps I had a wicked childhood. Perhaps I had a miserable youth. But somewhere in my wicked, miserable past, there must have been a moment of truth. For there you are standing there loving me, whether or not you should. So somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good." -- Maria, "The Sound of Music"

Maria may have been on to something.

Having a happy childhood actually decreases your chances of living happily ever after with your true love, according to a Cambridge University study.

If Maria had more confidence, stemming from a less wicked childhood, she would have been able to take or leave Capt. Von Trapp, perhaps causing her to remain a nun and be captured by the Nazis.

That's the theory, anyway.

Researchers tell the London Daily Mail that happy children are confident children and, later, confident adults. Therefore, they are more likely to cut their losses and walk away from a faulty relationship, secure in the hope that everything will work out.

The Daily Mail reports researchers looked at thousands of Brits born during the same week in 1946. While in their teens, they were rated for happiness, friendliness and energy, as well as the flip side -- restlessness, disobedience and anxiety.

Now that they're all 65, they were studied again to see what became of them.

Professor Felicia Huppert, director of the university's Well-being Institute, tells the Daily Mail many of the happy kids had not-so-happy marriages.

"One factor might be that positive children have higher self-esteem than their peers and are more willing to leave a marriage if it is not meeting their needs," she tells the newspaper.

However, an unhappy marriage doesn't necessarily mean an unhappy life.

Huppert tells the Daily Mail, researchers also found that happy teenagers went on to be content in their work, have more hobbies and busier social lives. They also were less likely to suffer from psychiatric problems in later years.

"Even in this time of great financial hardship, policymakers should prioritize the well-being of our children so they have the best possible start in life," Huppert tells the newspaper.

Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

How to Make Friends With Fellow Moms

Ellen Rooney Martin — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Relationships

Moms who cook together stay together. Credit: Getty Images

Once you get home with the new baby, making friends may be the last thing on your mind.

But going from office worker to parent can take a toll on your social life. Finding other moms to pal around with can ease the stress of being a new parent and make home life more fun.

"You really need women who are going through the same experience as you," says Marla Paul, author of "The Friendship Crisis: Finding, Making and Keeping Friends When You're Not a Kid Anymore" (Rodale, 2004). "Becoming a new mom is a huge change in your life and can be very isolating."

Get online. The Internet can be a great place to find friends when you simply can't get out of the house. CafeMom.com helps women connect with other moms who have similar interests, issues and even children. For instance, if you have a son born on New Year's Day, you can find other parents with baby boys born on holidays.

Get moving. When you are ready to get out, join a fitness class geared toward moms. Strollercize is an exercise program available online and in some cities for moms pushing strollers who want to get fit. Many park districts have a variety of programs for new moms, as do libraries, music stores, book stores and coffee shops.

Get cooking. Spending time in the kitchen is another way to make new friends. Everyone talks about what to make for dinner, says Allison Bermack, co-owner of cookingwithfriendsclub.com. She says setting up a cooking date with someone can provide meals for the week and build a friendship.

"The dinners don't have to be fancy or complicated," Bermack says in a phone interview. "A lot of things are really, really simple to make. If you have time for lunch or even coffee with a friend, you can cook in that time, too," she says.

It's also important to maintain those pre-mom pals, Paul says.

"They will keep you in touch with who you were before you had a kid," she says. Just be careful not to talk about the new baby nonstop and when you ask them about their lives, really listen.

Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Valentine's Day Ideas: Date Night Plans for Parents

Jessica Samakow — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Love & Sex, Places To Go, Sex, Relationships

Rekindle the romance with a date night in your living room. Credit: Getty Images

Another February 14th is rolling around and you've done the candle-lit dinner routine about a thousand times. You can't just jet off to Rome while the kids are in bed upstairs, but there are a few things you can do to spice up your Valentine's Day.

1. Make a carpet picnic: If you're still burried in two feet of snow like most of the country, an outdoor picnic is out of the question. So, move it inside!

Spread out on a blanket and surround it with lots of candles.
Make a heart-shaped pizza or choose another heart-shaped treat.
Select a recipe from a cookbook that you have never tried. Shop for the ingredients and prepare together.
Don't forget the wine!

2. Play truth or dare: Challenge your spouse to a game of truth or dare. Use this online truth or dare tool to find exciting ideas ranging from G to X rated!

3. Lock lips: Try to set your own kissing record and see if you can beat it next year. The longest recorded kiss was 33 hours, set by two men! If you get tired, feed each other some chocolates.

4. Get romantic: Make a playlist of all the loves songs that remind you of each other and listen to it while relaxing in front of a fire. Go through this list together and see how many you know. Or, take turns reading the best Valentine's Day poems to each other.

If you planned ahead, register to have a star named after your partner and try to locate it together. Cliche? Maybe. Romantic anyway? Definitely.

5. Taste test: Gather samples from this list of aphrodisiac foods. Take turns blindfolding each other, feeding each other, and guessing what you're being fed. If the kids wake up and walk in on you, just tell them you were playing hide-and-go-seek!

Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Love to Help Ya With the Kids, Honey, but There's This University Study ...

Tom Henderson — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 13:45:00 EST

Filed under: In The News, Relationships

Mom does dishes while Dad plays games? Oh, no, they didn't! Credit: Corbis

All you fathers out there will want to pay special attention to this study.

Researchers at The Ohio State University say kids are better off when mothers change the poopy diapers and prepare the meals while fathers confine themselves to giving piggyback rides.

OK, dads, here's what you do. Print out this story. The next time your wife tells you she'll wash if you dry, wave the story over your head and say, "Excuse me! Ohio State study! Hello?!"

Be sure to tell us -- and your marriage counselor -- how this works out for you.

The study may not fly with America's moms, but researchers insist children form tighter bonds with both parents when Mommy is the drudge and Daddy is the fun parent. Sounds like life after divorce, right?

Researchers say it may be a good idea to get started early. According to an Ohio State press release, researchers looked at 112 couples with 4-year-old children. Both mothers and fathers were asked how much they do around the house in terms of household chores and playing with the kids.

Parents were then watched as they worked together to play with their children and do various chores. Researchers were looking for how much parents helped each other or got on each other's nerves.

Turns out Mommy and Daddy don't work and play well with others -- at least when doing household chores.

"Results showed that couples had a stronger, more supportive co-parenting relationship when the father spent more time playing with their child," the press release says. "But when the father participated more in caregiving -- like preparing meals for the child or giving baths -- the couples were more likely to display less supportive and more undermining co-parenting behavior toward each other."

In other words, don't ask a man to help with any of the parental grunt work. He's probably just going to be a big jerkface about it.

The press release states "the results were surprising ..."

Wait a minute. "Surprising?" Really? Have any of these Jane Goodalls actually observed the human American male (buttus sitticus gigantus) in his natural habitat?

Actually, the surprising part is that kids might truly benefit from this good cop/bad cop routine.

Then again, Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, the co-author of the study and an associate professor of human development and family science at Ohio State, is not taken in -- even by her own research.

"I don't think this means that for every family, a father being involved in caregiving is a bad thing," she tells Forbes magazine.

The point is that moms and dads don't work well together on chores. If dads weren't such jerkfaces -- or did chores by themselves with no one around to hear them whine -- it might be a different story.

So, dads, when you wave this study in your wife's face, wave it fast enough so she can't read the fine print.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

My Son's Mean-Spirited Grandmother May Be Preventing Him From Grieving His Father's Death

Susan Stiffelman, MFT — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Relatives, Relationships, Expert Advice: Big Kids

Dear AdviceMama,

My 9-year-old son lost his father last March in a motorcycle accident. His paternal grandmother filed for custody of him just hours after they turned off his father's life support. I have kept custody, but my son hasn't been able to grieve properly because of the catty, petty way his grandmother and her horrid boyfriend are with me and those around us. How do I help my child mourn his daddy properly with all this selfishness going on around him?

Signed,
Grieving Mom

Dear Grieving,

I'm so sorry to hear about the sad turn of events in your son's life, and in yours, as well. Losing a parent is extraordinarily difficult, but a sudden death like this must have left your young child in enormous shock, not to mention great sorrow.

While I am sure his grandmother would tell her version of the story, it is clear that what your son needs and deserves is to have the unified support of his loved ones to help him through his grief.

But even if his grandmother continues to make things difficult, there is much you can do to help your son grieve the loss of his father.

Here's my advice:

Encourage your son to talk about his loss, and create emotional space for him to voice his feelings with words like "Tell me more ..." when he expresses unhappiness or anger. Make sure he knows that when he's with you, it's safe to vent big emotions.

Create rituals that honor his father's memory. You might light a candle once a week and talk about his dad for a few minutes. Or allow your son to set up photos in a special area where the two of you go to sit and remember his dad. This might help him reach inside to feel the sadness that he might otherwise be suppressing.

Use his father's name in conversation to keep his presence alive for your son. Sometimes people are uncomfortable about mentioning someone who has passed because they don't want to remind a loved one of their loss. But it's very important for a grieving person to feel that those around him are thinking of the loved one who has died, and miss him, too.

Don't push your son into grieving. Allow him to express his sadness when he's able and willing, but recognize that he will also want to play and have fun, and that doesn't necessarily mean he's repressing his feelings.

As upsetting as it is that your son's grandmother has been so mean-spirited, her behavior doesn't have to rob you of the ability to help your son grieve. We can hope that in time she will find a healthier way to deal with her own grief.

Meanwhile, follow these suggestions to help your son move through this loss, and seek professional counsel if he demonstrates symptoms like excessive irritability, difficulty concentrating, trouble sleeping, appetite changes, academic problems, withdrawal, diminished interest in activities or extreme sadness.

Yours in parenting support,
AdviceMama

AdviceMama, Susan Stiffelman, is a licensed and practicing psychotherapist and marriage and family therapist. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in developmental psychology and a Master of Arts in clinical psychology. Her book, Parenting Without Power Struggles, is available on Amazon. Sign up to get Susan's free parenting newsletter.

Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Single Mom Delves Into World of Online Dating to Find ... Her Ex-Husband

Jennifer Mattern — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Divorce & Custody, Relationships

Date? What's that? Illustration by Dori Hartley

Fact: I never dated.

I kissed. I made out. I fooled around. I messed around. I saw. I slept with. I went with. I went out with. I broke up with. I got back together with. I was exclusive with. I got engaged. I eloped. I married. I separated. I divorced. Period. "Dating" was not a word my generation used to describe ourselves in any phase of the lurchy, messy love dance.

"Dating" always conjured up images of my mother in faded Kodaks from the '50s, shellacked in a cloud of tulle and and hairspray, topped off with heavy cat-eye glasses, perennially ready for prom. My mom knew how to date. Even when she and Frank were going steady, they had movie dates, soda shop dates, Scrabble dates. "You have no idea how hard it is to try to lose at Scrabble," she likes to say, still.

I got booted from my cocoon of marriage to find that "dating" was back, with a horde of impatient, hot-but-not-so-heavy subcategories. Speed-dating. Online dating. Sexting. Naughty Skyping.

Modern times. At first, I resisted the development. I'm a twisted addict to my past. I reconnected with former flames, tried to fix what didn't work the first time around.

This brilliant maneuver resulted in some spectacular, epic failures worthy of NBC dramedy. I began researching "single mothers who enter convents." This yielded few helpful results.

I decided to bite the bullet. I gulped down two glasses of Shiraz before I crafted my first online profile. I cringed as I tried to describe myself authentically, to choose pics that were the perfect combo of attractive, smart, possibly sexy. Cleavage or nay? Gahhh.

I met a lily farmer first, 13 years my senior. We had two "dates," if you count the afternoon I helped him organize his dirty bulbs for shipping. Hawt. I liked his smile, the sure way he dug his fingers into the earth. His Border Collies adored me, but he seemed ambivalent, as confused by post-divorce dating expectations as I did. On our second date, he made me a stir-fry with vegetables from his garden, then seemed miffed that I didn't want to be dessert.

Next up: A psychologist who worked at a camp for kids with cancer. Awww. I was impressed by our "by the books" approach: Our first dinner at a neutral location, a Mexican restaurant we'd both wanted to try. I liked his crisp white shirt, his Billy Crystal wisecracking, the way he talked about his sons. There were a few decent "dates" before I received an email from him out of the blue, saying he was in a dark place. When he was with me, he said, he felt like he was "overcompensating."

I feel like there must be a fantastic punchline there. When you find it, let me know.

Third time was not a charm. I joined a new online dating site. It searched its entire database of potential lovahs and enthusiastically offered me my "Top Match Within 250 Miles!" YES! I clicked through to see the new love of my life: My ex-husband.

Knife, meet Heart. I had taken his profile pic in our kitchen, a photo of him grinning in front of the cabinets he'd painted blue for me. The smile was no longer for me, but for WillowPussy74 and Purrfekt4u and SizzleGrrl1.

Top match within 250 miles: I am not ashamed to say that I puked. I am ashamed to say that -- after I puked up my invisible hairball of heartache, humiliation and regret -- I made a fantastic freaking arse of myself, by rewriting my profile as a letter to him. I knew the next time he logged in, I'd be coming up as his top match. If we had one last shot, I didn't want to blow it. I told him that I already loved his daughters. I told him I loved the blue cabinets, still. I told him real love was messy as f*ck, but maybe we owed it to ourselves and the girls to try to find our way back to each other. I told him I'd even learn to cook a chicken, if we could simply sit down and talk.

He declined the roast chicken. And me.

However, I received 47 heartfelt messages from other men, many of whom said they thought it was the most romantic overture they'd ever seen online. Several said my ex would be an idiot not to consider my proposal.

Aw, hell. What's a little cleavage between total strangers?

Date this, baby.

Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Marriage and Surprises

the editors at MarloThomas.com — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 16:39:00 EST

Filed under: Relationships

For those of you who are as eager as I am to find out what happens between Elizabeth and Felipe in Gilbert's new book, Committed, here's an excerpt - enjoy!

"Committed" by Elizabeth Gilbert. Credit: Amazon

Late one afternoon in the summer of 2006, I found myself in a small village in northern Vietnam, sitting around a sooty kitchen fire with a number of local women whose language I did not speak, trying to ask them questions about marriage.

For several months already, I had been traveling across Southeast Asia with a man who was soon to become my husband. I suppose the conventional term for such an individual would be "fiancé," but neither one of us was very comfortable with that word, so we weren't using it. In fact, neither one of us was very comfortable with this whole idea of matrimony at all. Marriage was not something we had ever planned with each other, nor was it something either of us wanted. Yet providence had interfered with our plans, which was why we were now wandering haphazardly across Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Indonesia, all the while making urgent - even desperate - efforts to return to America and wed.

The man in question had been my lover, my sweetheart, for over two years by then, and in these pages I shall call him Felipe. Felipe is a kind, affectionate Brazilian gentleman, seventeen years my senior, whom I'd met on another journey (an actual planned journey) that I'd taken around the world a few years earlier in an effort to mend a severely broken heart. Near the end of those travels, I'd encountered Felipe, who had been living quietly and alone in Bali for years, nursing his own broken heart. What had followed was attraction, then a slow courtship, and then, much to our mutual wonderment, love.

Our resistance to marriage, then, had nothing to do with an absence of love. On the contrary, Felipe and I loved each other unreservedly. We were happy to make all sorts of promises to stay together faithfully forever. We had even sworn lifelong fidelity to each other already, although quite privately. The problem was that the two of us were both survivors of bad divorces, and we'd been so badly gutted by our experiences that the very idea of legal marriage - with anyone, even with such nice people as each other - filled us with a heavy sense of dread.

As a rule, of course, most divorces are pretty bad (Rebecca West observed that "getting a divorce is nearly always as cheerful and useful an occupation as breaking very valuable china"), and our divorces had been no exception. On the mighty cosmic one-to-ten Scale of Divorce Badness (where one equals an amicably executed separation, and ten equals . . . well, an actual execution), I would probably rate my own divorce as something like a 7.5. No suicides or homicides had resulted, but aside from that, the rupture had been about as ugly a proceeding as two otherwise well-mannered people could have possibly manifested. And it had dragged on for more than two years.

As for Felipe, his first marriage (to an intelligent, professional Australian woman) had ended almost a decade before we'd met in Bali. His divorce had unfolded graciously enough at the time, but losing his wife (and access to the house and kids and almost two decades of history that came along with her) had inflicted on this good man a lingering legacy of sadness, with special emphases on regret, isolation, and economic anxiety.

Our experiences, then, had left the two of us taxed, troubled, and decidedly suspicious of the joys of holy wedded matrimony. Like anyone who has ever walked through the valley of the shadow of divorce, Felipe and I had each learned firsthand this distressing truth: that every intimacy carries, secreted somewhere below its initial lovely surfaces, the ever-coiled makings of complete catastrophe. We had also learned that marriage is an estate that is very much easier to enter than it is to exit. Unfenced by law, the unmarried lover can quit a bad relationship at any time. But you - the legally married person who wants to escape doomed love - may soon discover that a significant portion of your marriage contract belongs to the State, and that it sometimes takes a very long while for the State to grant you your leave. Thus, you can feasibly find yourself trapped for months or even years in a loveless legal bond that has come to feel rather like a burning building. A burning building in which you, my friend, are handcuffed to a radiator somewhere down in the basement, unable to wrench yourself free, while the smoke billows forth and the rafters are collapsing . . .

I'm sorry - does all this sound unenthusiastic?

I share these unpleasant thoughts only to explain why Felipe and I had made a rather unusual pact with each other, right from the beginning of our love story. We had sworn with all our hearts to never, ever, under any circumstances, marry. We had even promised never to blend together our finances or our worldly assets, in order to avoid the potential nightmare of ever again having to divvy up an explosive personal munitions dump of shared mortgages, deeds, property, bank accounts, kitchen appliances, and favorite books. These promises having been duly pledged, the two of us proceeded forth into our carefully partitioned companionship with a real sense of calmness. For just as a sworn engagement can bring to so many other couples a sensation of encircling protection, our vow never to marry had cloaked the two of us in all the emotional security we required in order to try once more at love. And this commitment of ours - consciously devoid of official commitment - felt miraculous in its liberation. It felt as though we had found the Northwest Passage of Perfect Intimacy - something that, as García Márquez wrote, "resembled love, but without the problems of love."

So that's what we'd been doing up until the spring of 2006: minding our own business, building a delicately divided life together in unfettered contentment. And that is very well how we might have gone on living happily ever after, except for one terribly inconvenient interference.

The United States Department of Homeland Security got involved.

Reprinted by arrangement with Penguin Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert. Copyright (C) 2011 by Elizabeth Gilbert

Permalink | Email this | Comments

How to Find the Light in an Interfaith Marriage

Tom Henderson — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 08:00:00 EST

Filed under: Relatives, Religion & Spirituality, Relationships

Christmas lights or a menorah? Different religions don't have to be a big deal in a family. Credit: Corbis

You're an Irish Catholic school teacher who falls in love with a Jewish cab driver/aspiring novelist at a New York City bus stop.

Naturally, complications ensue.

This is the premise of "Bridget Loves Bernie," a sitcom that appeared briefly on CBS in 1972. It appeared briefly, network executives say, because of a flood of letters from people upset about a Catholic-Jewish romance.

Like that's anything new. A Catholic girl falling for a Jewish boy was the subject of the Broadway play "Abie's Irish Rose" in 1922. It became a radio show in 1942, with Bud Collyer (who was also the voice of Superman) as the Jewish title character, Abie Levy.

People just assume interfaith marriages will result in conflict, drama and sometimes even hijinks and hilarity. If nothing else, goes the age-old question, how will they raise the children?

It's really not a big deal in most families.

Francine Shetterly of Polk County, Ore., is Jewish. Her husband Lane, a former Oregon state representative, is Lutheran.

You might think Christmas would present a problem in the Shetterly house. Hardly. The family celebrates Hannukah and Christmas equally.

"The entire month seems like one big holiday," Francine Shetterly said in a 2004 interview for her hometown newspaper, the Polk County Itemizer-Observer.

People naturally tend to marry partners with whom they have a lot in common, including shared religious and spiritual beliefs. And if you rarely stray beyond the comfort of your own social circle, you are more likely to find such a person.

When people from different religious traditions get together, their chances of staying together are bleak. Reliable statistics are hard to find, but most say at least half of interfaith marriages end in divorce.

Hold the phone. Don't 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce?

Maybe people in interfaith marriages roll the dice and take their chances along with everyone else. In fact, there are statistics to suggest your chances of staying in a marriage are even grimmer if you marry within your faith -- especially if you happen to be a fundamentalist Christian.

Forget all that talk about family values. The family that prays together doesn't necessarily stay together. A study by the religious Barna Research Group concluded divorces among Christians describing themselves "born again" were 27 percent higher than they were in other Christian churches.

Agnostics and atheists had the lowest overall divorce rate at 21 percent.

Tips for working through conflicts of an interfaith marriage can be found religioustolerance.org. Some suggestions from the website include:

Be realistic. Almost no one in the throes of falling in love thinks the relationship will end, but half of them do. Be realistic and get a lot of premarital counseling.
Tackle interfaith problems directly. Love doesn't conquer all. Neither does direct, blunt and honest communication. Between the two, however, the latter stands the best shot. Remember that the person you need to be honest with the most is yourself. Truly assess how important the differences are to you -- or will be once the passions of falling in love have subsided.
Consider the in-laws. Parents often have valuable life experiences that can inform your decisions. Of course, they can also be gigantic pains in the you-know-what. Just remember it's up to you to make the final determination.
Plan in advance. Don't wait until the baby is born to decide whether he or she should be raised Muslim or Wiccan.
Take an interfaith tour. "Interfaith tours are becoming increasingly popular, particularly in Israel," travel writer Judi Dash notes. "Jewish, Christian and sometimes Muslim participants get a taste of each others' religious traditions by exploring holy and historically significant sites."

Related: Raising children without religion

Online Dating Service Involves Jewish Mothers Because, Really, Is It Such a Crime to Ask for Help?

Tom Henderson — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: In The News, Religion & Spirituality, Relationships

Such a nice boy ... Illustration by Dori Hartley

Tzeitel: But Mama, the men she finds. The last one was so old and he was bald. He had no hair.

Golde: A poor girl without a dowry can't be so particular. You want hair, marry a monkey.

-- "Fiddler on the Roof"

All your mother wants to do is help you find a nice Jewish boy so that -- God willing -- she can have some grandchildren before she dies.

Is that so much for a poor old woman who has done so much for you to ask?

Jewish mothers now have help in meddling with their children's love lives, with TheJMom.com, an online yente, you might say. The site streamlines this dating business by cutting out the middle man (or woman) and dealing directly with the parents.

You don't sign up for the online dating service -- your Jewish parent does. Mom screens all the suitors and makes all the preliminary arrangements -- with the help of other Jewish mothers, of course.

The new site, which has only been up and running since Nov. 30, already has 69 users, founder Brad Weisberg, 30, of Chicago tells ParentDish.

A quick search for available Jewish women in New York City turned up just two prospects. And, we're just guessing here, but there are probably more than two eligible Jewish women within 100 miles of New York City.

But give the site time Weisberg, who started the site with his little sister, Danielle, 26, says.

"It was her idea, but it was brought about by our mother and our own dating experiences," he tells ParentDish.

Both Weisberg and his sister were on online dating sites, and their mother, Barbara, kept wanting to see their prospects. They finally let her take a peek.

"An hour later, she had a list of names," he says.

The proverbial light bulb went off above Danielle Weisberg's head.

"Moms have been setting up their children for centuries," she says in a press release. "We've made it simple for Mom to get online and start hand-picking her son or daughter's next date."

You don't have to be a Jewish mother to sign up for the site, Brad Weisberg tells ParentDish, but it helps. The site is geared to promote networking among parents. Individuals seeking romance for themselves should probably stick to other dating sites, he says.

The Weisbergs have been promoting the new site through Chicago-area synagogues, Facebook and Twitter. And yes, both siblings are on the site.

"Their social life is good and healthy, but I know that meeting new friends in the big city is not easy," Barbara Weisberg tells other parents on the site. "It's more comfortable to be with kids raised in a similar Jewish background."

Other mothers are getting involved too, Brad Weisberg says.

One of the two Jewish mothers to come up in a search of New York is Betty Rubenstein, who, along with her husband, lives in Fort Myers, Fla. They're looking for a match for their 26-year daughter, Marissa, who lives in Manhattan where she works as a teacher and voice-over artist. She is conservative and a "great catch."

Why is Marissa a great catch?

You'll just have to log on to get more information. You also can learn more about Marissa's interests and what she's looking for in a significant other (at least according to her mom).

Marissa might be a match for Elijah, 25, apparently the only Jewish boy in New York City at the moment. His mother, Clara, (she doesn't give their last name) says he comes from "a nice, fun-loving, dedicated Jewish family."

Like Marissa, Elijah is conservative and lives in Manhattan. He works as a legal consultant and is interested in music, literature, traveling and charity.

"He is wonderful young guy," his mother assures other mothers. "He loves children and he is working for a prospering law firm."

As for what he's looking for in a significant other, Clara says he wants "something special."

Such a nice boy.

"More parents are recognizing that making connections online can lead to love offline," Danielle Weisberg says in the release. "TheJMom.com puts parents behind the keyboard and lets them do the clicking and the matching."

Jewish mothers accessing the site just need to enter an e-mail address, choose a password and fill out information about themselves and their child.

And if they do it now, they can get a year's free membership. Sort of. It expires at the end the month.

Stop rolling your eyes. Your mother only wants what's best for you. If that's a crime, well, guilty as charged.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments