Articles

Four years ago I warned young straight men that a vote for former President Donald Trump might hurt their chances with women in the dating market. As a wife and mother with a positive view of marriage and family life, I worried that Trump-supporting men would ruin their chance for love and romance in the years to come. Sadly, four years later, the gender gap has widened and women’s reluctance to be with men who want to vote for Trump has increased, particularly when it comes to Gen Z.

In the wake of yet another shooting, people immediately wanted to know what influenced and motivated another young man to open fire on a crowd, this time during a July 4 parade. As usual, their curiosity stemmed in part from a belief that if we can simply identify the next probable shooter in time, we can prevent the next massacre. In other words, we can make sure that only good guys, not the bad guys, get to have guns.

As I walk around Portland, Oregon, these days, I see more electric cars on the road, and a fair number of them have female drivers. This is surprising based on what we know about electric vehicle sales in the past. According to a 2021 report from Hedges and Company, in the year before the pandemic, 75 percent of all-electric vehicles across the board were sold to men.

As I walk around Portland, Oregon, these days, I see more electric cars on the road, and a fair number of them have female drivers. This is surprising based on what we know about electric vehicle sales in the past. According to a 2021 report from Hedges and Company, in the year before the pandemic, 75 percent of all-electric vehicles across the board were sold to men.

I’m happily married but I’m good at matchmaking, mostly because I’ve learned to ask the right questions. These days one question tops the list: Who are you supporting for president?

More than a decade ago, I wrote a memoir chronicling my experience raising a child with little to no television or screen time. I had been hooked on TV throughout my childhood and wanted to raise my son differently. It wasn’t easy to do at the time, but keeping young children away from screens in 2020 looks far more difficult, thanks to the countless handheld screens that never leave our sight.

I grew up in a family of what could easily be called a colorful cast of characters. I often thought we should all be in a book, but I didn’t consider writing that book until I became a parent. As a new mother, I was obsessed with the role that television played in the lives of families since I had been hooked on the plug-in drug most of my life. I knew I had to write about it.

I love our city’s bumper stickers. You can find everything from “My God Can Beat Up Your God” to my personal favorite, “I used to be indecisive, but now I’m not so sure.” They provide a welcome diversion in rush-hour traffic.

When I was pregnant, my husband and I argued about what to name our child, because the name I liked had also been the name of my husband’s first dog. We went back and forth about it and myriad other issues, as well, except for one. I knew with certainty that I didn’t want our child to watch any television, even videos, until he was 6 years old. After that, I planned to limit my child’s TV watching to two hours a week. I suppose it was extreme, but I wanted our family to be close and connected, and for our child to know those around him better than he knew the Teletubbies.

Poor Disney. It seems that its Baby Einstein DVD series might not be a magic and miraculous invention to make babies smarter, after all. If Frederick Zimmerman and Dimitri Christakis’ latest research out the University of Washington is accurate, then babies acquire language better by interacting with real people instead of staring at a screen. What a concept! No wonder Disney is so upset.

I’d always longed for a Brady Bunch family, complete with a Florence Henderson mother, all neat and orderly, pleasing and perfect. Much of my childhood was spent in front of the television set, so I’d seen enough TV families to know what a “normal” mother was — and it sure wasn’t mine. In fact, all my life people have said to me, “Your mom’s a real character.” This was usually after my mother had done something memorable, like showing up at a city council meeting to protest a high-rise building. “We don’t need another phallic symbol designed by males insecure with their genitalia,” she once shouted at the mayor.