I’ve been accused of being a mean mom.  I’ve been accused of being a strict mom.  I have been accused of treating my teen like a baby.  All of these accusations have come from my teen, and mostly in response to house rules about technology or screen time.  He will say that all of his friends get to do “x, y, and z” and my response always starts the same way: “Your friends’ moms don’t love them as much as I love you.”  He hates that response, but always gives a defeated smile because he knows that the conversation that follows is about the reason why there are restrictions.  Read More

I grew up a mixed breed among Mexican immigrants in California, and for the first ten years of my life, I thought I was one of them. My mother, a practitioner of free-love, told me and our family, that my biological father was a Mexican man, and that was the only tidbit about his identity she knew. For ten years, trips to our local Mexican restaurant, and crispy bites of tortilla chips dunked in cool tomato salsa felt like a link to half of my heritage. Read More