ArcaMax

Our nightly dinner routine goes like this: I cook dinner and the husband sets the table. Last night we had Panera napkins, the night before we had Subway napkins. We have a drawer full of cloth napkins, but he prefers to save those until we’ve used all the extras that fast food places stuff in the bag with our order.

Sometimes he goes to the ...Read more

Q: My co-parent and I just had a custody evaluation done. He has a very complicated mental health diagnosis that includes autism and narcissistic personality disorder. I knew he was difficult to communicate with, but now I see why. How do I co-parent with someone with this serious diagnosis?

A: Learning that your co-parent has a mental health ...Read more

When I set out to write "Wayward Girls," I was pulled into the Vietnam era. My childhood memories centered around the nightly news with Walter Cronkite. I wasn’t really focused on the texture of daily life during that seismic decade: the music, the grief, the quality of American restlessness and the way ordinary people were affected by the ...Read more

Decades ago, there was a story in Time magazine (Page 98, 1965) about a family who survived getting lost in the desert by drinking water from the car radiator and eating crayons. When that issue arrived at our house, my parents must have talked about the broken-down car, the 124-degree temperatures, and the way the kids buried themselves in the ...Read more

The start of the school year brings a familiar list of responsibilities for parents: buying school supplies, keeping track of forms, coordinating transportation and responding to a steady stream of emails from teachers and administrators.

Although many families strive to share these responsibilities, research has consistently found that mothers...Read more

Declining enrollment in California public schools is spawning a new and growing partnership that is helping to keep child-care centers in business — vacant classrooms are being filled with toddlers and babies.

From Los Angeles to Solano counties, nonprofit day-care operators see underused facilities already centered on children — spacious ...Read more

'ONE NIGHT ONLY'

Rated R for sexual material, language and brief nudity.

What it’s about: The government has banned premarital sex, except for one night a year. Can two crazy single kids fall in love?

The kid attractor factor: This is more for young adults.

Good lessons/bad lessons: It's not all about sex, even when it's all about sex.

...Read more

Q: My girlfriend travels for work, or so she told me, but I just found out she has a whole other family, including a child! I'm thinking about calling the other woman and telling her. What's good ex-etiquette?

A: Before you pick up the phone, ask yourself one question: Why am I doing this?

Are you trying to protect someone from being deceived?...Read more

Years ago, when women only a few years older than I am now announced they quit cooking, I silently judged them. I would think to myself, “How in the world do you just stop cooking?”

I get it now. They were tired — tired of chicken, tired of ground beef, tired of pork and tired of salad after salad after salad.

If a judge were to sentence...Read more

Grief does not always behave like an ending. Sometimes it acts more like a ride that refuses to stop: the same drops and turns, the same sickening return to the place where everything irrevocably changed.

In the latest entry to his “Life and Living” series, "Roller Coasters: The Life Kind," Joseph M. Lenard builds a short, intensely ...Read more

If "Murder at the Hotel Orient" were a film, it would be given an “R” if not an “NC-17” rating, as it is a quite naughty, although highly entertaining, murder mystery that would be unsuitable for church or library-based book clubs. The dedication attests to this:“For Mr. Husson, my fourth-grade teacher, who made me promise to dedicate ...Read more

'SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY'

Rated PG-13 for sequences of action/violence and some language.

What it’s about: Tom Holland's Peter Parker is all grown up and attempting to navigate adult life and the Spider-Man life with very few friends.

The kid attractor factor: The character and superhero spectacle.

Good lessons/bad lessons: We can't do ...Read more

It began as a whimsical idea that occurred to Daniel Leigh after an idyllic trip to the United States: Sell his family's five-bedroom home in England and travel the world with his wife, Lauren Vaknine, and their two children.

So he was surprised when, a few months later, Vaknine and their children, Braxton, 10, and Viva, 7, agreed to go along ...Read more

We’ve hit a rough patch over mowing the lawn this summer. The husband is temporarily sidelined with a knee injury and I cheerfully and enthusiastically (a slight exaggeration) volunteered to do the mowing.

We are now engulfed in turf wars. My mowing abilities are under intense scrutiny. The man has high standards. I call him the Sodfather.

...Read more

Q: I'm in trouble. My ex is very angry that I did not pass on a confidence that our child told me, but she asked me not to tell her dad. I want her to trust me, so I kept it a secret, but when her father found out, he hit the roof. Now he's angry and she thinks I breached her confidence. What's good ex-etiquette?

A: That's a great question ...Read more