Avant Parenting Archives
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Avant! Welcome to my parenting blog archives
As you can see by the dates below, this blog is no longer being updated. However, there’s lots of good stuff here, much of it as true now as when it was written. Please feel free to browse, or follow these links: One last piece of parenting advice: Enjoy today even if it’s a rough…
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The public/private school choice
A correspondent asked me to weigh in on the choice that many of her friends are making right now: public or private school for kindergarten. Our children have gone both to public and to private schools, so I guess I do have a perspective on that. And when I interview parents, teachers, and administrators, I…
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Surly Beach Day
Like I was in control of this situation. Apparently, he didn’t know any eight-year-old girls. He didn’t know how to suffer defeat with a measure of gravitas. This is what sketchbooks and benches overlooking the bay are for: pretending you have some control in your life when your eight-year-old daughter has decided to be surly!
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Positively imperfect
Perhaps I’ve just been in a self-critical mood these days, but lately I’ve been wondering: Do people think that I write about parenting because I think I’m the perfect parent? It’s the “gone to school in my underwear dream” gone awry. Sometimes I’m out somewhere and my kids do something (the particulars hardly matter) and…
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Whatever you do, make sure not to have fun!
My kids attend a public school homeschool program. Though homeschoolers have a variety of choices (including homeschooling independently or joining a public charter program), I have been very happy with our hybrid choice. I don’t have anything against public schools as a concept. I think they used to be a fundamental part of the community…
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Feminist inspirations
I have off and on been working on an article about the irony of being a feminist homeschooler. It’s a little bit like being a gay marine, but so far, no one has tried to stop me from telling my troops, eh, kids what my feelings are. I’m guessing they’ve figured it out. One of…