Reading Time: 4 minutes Last weekend, my youngest son invited his best friend to come over and play. They had a great time. They played video games, built some Lego creations, and somehow made enough slamming and banging noises throughout the house to make me think we invited his entire first-grade class over. But when they took a break […]
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Why I let my son read a children’s book by Rush Limbaugh
Reading Time: 3 minutes First off, I didn’t want to. Let’s get that out of the way right now. If you haven’t heard of it—and I’d be a little jealous if you haven’t—the skid mark on the underwear that is talk radio wrote a book series of children’s historical fiction. The main character is called…wait for it…Rush Revere. My […]
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How my Catholic mother saved me from purity culture
Reading Time: 5 minutes As my mom recounted the day she got her period at her Catholic school, my eyes grew wide and my jaw sunk closer to the floor. I hung on every word as if it were the scariest campfire story I had ever heard. I was around 11 at the time, and absolutely terrified. A lot […]
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I’m nonreligious, and I kind of hope reincarnation is a real thing
Reading Time: 2 minutes Like a good little Evangelical, I spent much of my childhood worried about going to heaven. Though, it wasn’t all bad. The idea that I’d get to see my little sister who passed away as a baby was comforting. When I left Christianity in my early adult years, I had no trouble ditching the Bible, […]
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How my kids met me one age at a time
Reading Time: 4 minutes “Twenty-eight!” “Twenty-eight…oh, that’s a good one.” Despite living with him for 13 years, I knew very little about my dad. He worked three jobs and traveled a lot. When he was in town, he came home exhausted from a hundred-mile round-trip commute. I didn’t even know he was a nonbeliever until long after his death […]
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Santa Claus: The ultimate dry run
Reading Time: 4 minutes It’s hard to even consider the possibility that Santa isn’t real. Everyone seems to believe he is. As a kid, I heard his name in songs and stories and saw him in movies with very high production values. My mom and dad seemed to believe, batted down my doubts, told me he wanted me to […]
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Elf on the Shelf morality: There’s got to be a better way to teach our kids to be good people.
Reading Time: 2 minutes As we approach the beginning of December, my social media feeds are flooded with the Elf on the Shelf. From clever ideas on how to hide him and position him, to complaints on having to dig him out of the Christmas bin, it’s pretty amazing how pervasive this scary little doll has become in the […]