Oh, TIME Magazine. You’ve done it again. Last summer, you asked moms if they were “mom enough” by showing a picture of a perfect mom complete with a flat stomach, skinny jeans, and a breastfeeding toddler, insinuating that moms who… Read more ›
It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very… Read more ›
Let’s keep the baby train rolling today, shall we? Today’s link comes from Janni, who alerted me to this via Twitter yesterday. This story is about a woman who made a twitter list of tweeps over 30 without children and… Read more ›
I am a teacher. So is my husband. It probably won’t surprise you that, between the two of us, we’ve been through three actual lockdowns. Not drills. Actual, bonafide, real-life, doors-locked, no-one-knows-what-is-going-on, saying-goodbyes-just-in-case lockdowns. One for Tim at his previous school.… Read more ›
If you don’t want to read my daughter’s birth story, I suggest you stop now and go somewhere else on the interwebs. (Though, after that I imagine most of you will stay out of sheer curiosity!) If you’ve been around… Read more ›
I do a lot of complaining about pregnancy. I like to think that it’s not complaining so much as brutal honesty, but, at the heart of it, I’m whining about it a little bit. I don’t think there’s anything wrong… Read more ›
Don’t feel pressured to make stuff for your baby. Your baby won’t know if you did it yourself or if you bought it. Don’t feel pressured to breastfeed. Some women find it really difficult and formula is totally OK. Don’t… Read more ›
If you know me on a personal level, you have probably already heard the news: I’m pregnant! This is, of course, the other reason I took a break from social media that I alluded to earlier but couldn’t talk about.… Read more ›
I had a freebie day off today. A freebie day off is when you are pretty much the only person you know who has the day off. Everyone else is at work, so I stayed home, ate copious amounts of… Read more ›
I love reading articles on Role/Reboot. In fact, I am on their list of regular writers. I try to write for them once a month because I appreciate their work in questioning gender norms in relationships – something I’ve been… Read more ›
I’m not pregnant. Lately, I feel like I have to wear a t-shirt with these words emblazoned on it so people can stop skirting around the issue. I’ve noticed you haven’t been blogging so much recently. Any particular reason? Oh,… Read more ›
You may not have noticed from all of the posts on this blog, but it’s Banned Books Week! You all saw my awesome bulletin board to celebrate the week. My students have all seen it, too, and they are outraged… Read more ›
EDUCATION Master of Arts in English Studies – May 2010 Bachelor of Arts in English Literature with a Writing Concentration and an Illinois Initial Certificate in English/Language Arts, High School with a Middle School endorsement – May 2006 WRITING EXPERIENCE… Read more ›
My husband is a grown man. This may sound absurd, but it’s true. And I think the absurdity of the statement stems not from the fact that he is, in fact, a grown man, but from the fact that I… Read more ›
For more education-related information, view my partial CV or sample lesson plans. Published Work Print Samsa, Ashley Lauren. “Banned Books Can Be a Tool for Addressing Race.” Banned Books, edited by Marcia Amidon Lusted, Greenhaven Publishing, 2018, pp. 40–43. The Gentle… Read more ›
Thanks to my pal, Veronica, I saw this article about how women who are now between the ages of 33 and 46 (Generation X) are working harder and having fewer children. In an interview about the study with Sylvia Ann… Read more ›
I set out to write a post a few days back about positive images of independent, married women in pop culture, and I ran into a problem. I couldn’t think of any. The closest I could come was Mad About You,… Read more ›
Tim and I have been fighting this week. If you read this blog regularly or know me even a little bit, you are probably not surprised. Why ever would we be fighting? Whatever could we have to fight about? It… Read more ›
Yesterday, I gushed about Matt Damon. Today, I saw his entire speech at the Save Our Schools rally, and I love him even more. Here’s the text of the speech from the Washington Post for your reading pleasure: I flew… Read more ›
Here’s some shocking information for all you married/cohabiting women out there: There are several programs, some of which are free, that can manage household finances. Despite the availability of these tools and their relative ease of use, I am amazed… Read more ›