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I watched the finale of "The Golden Bachelor" last night, as one does when it's on, the kids are in bed and your mother-in-law has poured you a glass of wine.

It was a wild ride, but no spoiler alert is necessary here: This column is about the show, but it's also not about the show.

Because whatever happens with septuagenarian Gerry and ...Read more

Dear parents,

Greetings, fellow chauffeurs, cooks, therapists and personal assistants!

Mandy Jensen here, mom to 4th-grade quadruplets McKenzie, McKenna, McQueen and McLean.

I'm sure you know who I am: The woman perpetually wearing $200 yoga pants and $250 sneakers, someone with six kids and an inexhaustible wellspring of energy, who ...Read more

How do we become who we are?

It's tough to say sometimes, but I'm convinced you can trace my path to Mrs. Zimmerman.

My family and I had moved to the U.S. from Greece, then hopscotched around the country, and though we'd been in America for years, I was still an awkward girl with a funny name whose backyard occasionally contained grazing ...Read more

In the past, as in the present, the greedy succeed through audacity.

That's what I found myself thinking as I rewatched "The Name of the Rose," a mystery set in 1327. Based on a historically accurate book by Umberto Eco, the movie follows William of Baskerville, a Franciscan monk, as he investigates a series of murders in an Italian monastery...Read more

With Halloween jack-o'-lanterns starting to mold and my 5-year-old's "cool-looking" leaf collection growing, all signs point to us being on the mudslide toward the holidays.

In our house, we're already talking turkey -- and, as it turns out, tofurkey, too.

My older son has the softest heart of anyone I've ever met, and he asked a few weeks ...Read more

As my physical therapist stretched my hip the other day, we talked about being Gen Xers.

Parenting as Gen Xers, specifically -- as the children of baby boomers and the parents of whatever generation we're raising now (Yoomers? Zoomers? Post-zoomers?) We talked with nostalgia about those weird and wonderful '90s, the Gen X glory days, before ...Read more

Skydiving can be deadly.

Just look at Dorothy Hoffner of Chicago, who died recently after tandem jumping in Ottawa, Illinois.

Sure, she was 104 years old -- probably the oldest person to ever skydive -- and the jump went perfectly, and she didn't die until passing away peacefully in her sleep at home several days later, but still. We can't ...Read more

Hello, and welcome to yet another installment of "Parenting by the Decades," the streaming talk show where parents time-travel from the past to relay wisdom from their era on today's thorniest parenting problems.

Now let's meet our panelists.

First up is Mary, from 1951. Mary is 35 and manages a household of nine -- including five children ...Read more

A collection of my columns, titled "Everything Is Going To Be OK (Until It's Not)," has recently been released in book form, but I'm re-reading "Candide."

And while I hope everyone buys my book, I recommend first reading Voltaire's, which is also pretty good.

I mean, first of all, it'll impress the heck out of anyone sitting next to you on a...Read more

I'm no one's idea of a survivalist.

My only time tent camping came at the age of 14. It rained all night, seeping into the tent where I accidentally touched the walls. We ate breakfast on an overturned log, and the pancakes were miraculously both raw inside and burned outside. On the car ride home, my friend's mom told me to check my hair for...Read more