I'm not sure when it changed. Maybe it never did. Maybe my notion of a neighborhood where the adults all kept an eye on the kids, broke up squabbles, made sure they weren't breaking the rules and told the other parents what they saw is a romantic one – more a movie scene than reality. It seems, though, that adults today are afraid. Afraid to step in when 8-year-old kids they don't know are fighting on the playground. Afraid to tell random kids at the pool to slow down when they're running recklessly. Afraid to intervene when a gaggle of middle school kids is teasing another kid and excluding …

A fire pit. That's what we went to Home Depot to get. Simple, right? I wanted to get a relatively deep one that would allow the ashes to settle and not blow all over the yard. One that would encourage a whole evening of sitting outside listening to the sound of crackling wood and leave my clothes infused with the smell of hardwood. A fire pit that would bring us all out for the evening to chat and enjoy the pleasure of summer nights. When we got to the store, Conall and I looked at our options. Most were black metal, shallow bowls with mesh tops that stood on small, curved feet. Some had …

I'm sitting outside on a glorious, unusually warm March day, writing. When I was a kid, the only options for writing were pen and paper. My only options for reading were books or newspapers held in my hand. The only option to communicate with my friends was to go over to their house or call them on the phone. How times have changed. Now, I never use a pen and paper, and to be frank, it feels foreign when I do. I still read some books the old fashioned way and get the Sunday New York Times, but otherwise, my reading is all done digitally. I text or email rather than call most of the time and …

I’m frustrated. It’s Thursday afternoon, and every Thursday, I drive Conall to fencing while Declan rides the bus home and is on his own for about 45 minutes or so. Declan is 13, in seventh grade and is growing in front of my eyes. When I take Conall, I leave a note and a snack for Declan, and the rule is that if you’re still hungry after the snack (today a brownie and a pear), you can have more fruit or veggies, which are in ample supply. For the last few months, Declan has been eating large amounts of junk food when he’s left alone. Whole packages of Oreos or large plates of brownies are …

I was stumped. My son Declan’s 13th birthday was approaching, and I had no good ideas. He loves watching sports but already has jerseys for the teams he likes. He doesn’t play a sport himself, though, so equipment wasn’t a good option. Believe it or not, he’s not that into video games, either – he will play Temple Run or Fruit Ninja on his iTouch, but that’s about it. He doesn’t read for pleasure, so books were out. He did say he wanted a Sponge Bob cake for his birthday, so at least I knew I’d make that for him, but the cake would be quickly consumed with nothing but a photo to remember it …

Standardized test season is about to begin, and my daughter, a junior in high school, is sharpening No. 2 pencils and finding her student ID card in anticipation. On the surface, test taking remains one of the few things unchanged from my high school years. Still no pens allowed; still paper booklets and Scantron sheets. Yet there’s a tension that didn’t exist for me. Sure, I needed to do well on my SAT and ACT to get into a good school, but almost no one I knew took a test prep class or studied for the exams in the late '70s and early '80s. To be honest, I think I realized I was taking the …

Wednesday is the first day my kids are back with me each week. They spend Monday and Tuesday with their dad, and they are with me Wednesday, Thursday and every other weekend. It’s an even split and infinitely fair, but it remains strange years later that I have a homecoming of sorts every Wednesday. Before ‘Friends for Dinner’ became routine, my boyfriend Tony would join us for dinner once in a while on a Wednesday, and for a long stretch, one of Conall’s close friends would come home from school with him and stay with us until about 8, having dinner with us every Wednesday. I was off work …

Conall: "Can I have some help with my math homework?" Cocky Me: "Sure! I love math! It was my best subject all through school." Conall: "If 7/8 of the points in a basketball game are scored by the home team and Sandy is scored ¼ of the home team’s points, what fraction of all the points scored in the game were scored by Sandy?" Less Cocky Me: (long pause) "Is Sandy a he or a she?" Conall: "What difference does that make??" Busted….. I loved math all through school and even got through calculus in high school. It was a breeze for me then, but after years of intellectual disuse, my math skills …

Single parent. Isn’t there a better term for people who are divorced and raising kids? It connotes a solitary and difficult role: alone in the sea of diapers or car pools or school conferences or packing lunches. In reality, I am single and a parent, but I share the joys and chores of parenting with my children’s father, and we both are equally engaged in their lives. I’m lucky in that way. I’m a full-time parent when it comes to thinking about the children and their needs, worrying about their struggles, and celebrating who they are, but only about half the time do I need to be in charge of …

I wasn’t allowed to watch TV when I was a child. I’m 46, and growing up, I remember when all the kids were talking about Happy Days, I had to just sit and listen or try to fake some knowledge of the show I didn’t have. I thought my parents were crazy and mean for not allowing me to watch TV like all the other kids. Sure, I’d sneak sometimes and watch stuff like HR Puffinstuff on Saturday mornings when my parents were still asleep – I even remember trying to convince my parents that having watched Mass For Shut Ins on Sunday morning (without permission) meant that I shouldn’t have to go to …