Eliana Osborn

Sometimes the nicest kids turn into whole new people when they come over to your house.

Really, you should thank me. I’m just protecting your future self.

I get how we want to make our kids successful and everything, right from the start. Feeding into the pressure, here’s the tagline from Starling’s company: “The world’s first word-tracking system that can improve your child’s trajectory for life.”

I’m a sucker for an interesting woman, so Notorious RBG is obviously my sort of book.

1. Write a damn letter.

Your partner will make you want to throw up at some point. Pure, unadulterated disgust.

It is hard to find any real numbers about how many people do "direct sales" or how much money they make. The web is full of either big promises or pissed-off former sellers. What I do know, from bazillions of friends and family, is that making much more than pocket money means selling like a real job. Yes, it might be more flexible, but there’s no magic formula.

I always have a small piece of my brain on mom mode, no matter what else is happening. I have no problem with this, since that is how humanity has survived.

A new, exciting trend is to have food pantries for college students. I talked to an AmeriCorps volunteer running one of these centers and she was matter-of-fact about the need — and how little is being done. Today’s college students may be young and single, living la vida loca. But more and more are what we call ‘nontraditional’: slightly older, employed full-time (or close to it), supporting a family, a veteran, etc.

Hunger for nontraditional students doesn’t mean surviving on ramen: It means they are not the only person in the household who's in need.

If he were an a--hole to my kids, things would be easier. But he’s not. He’s good with them. He’s his best self. It makes me alternately happy and heartbroken.