Dear Dana is a bi-weekly advice column for humans who engage in romantic relationships. Please send your dilemmas, issues, conundrums, assumptions, conflicts, anxieties, worriments, obstacles, complications, predicaments, queries, questions, and any other synonyms for “problems” to deardana@rolereboot.org. Dear Dana: Soon I’ll be making the annual trek back home to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving, and as […]
When a new colleague, hired just this year, came to my office for the first time, she said, “So, judging by your walls, it would probably be OK to have a photo of my stepkids on my desk, right?” Right. It never occurred to me to put my job search on hiatus while I was pregnant. […]
And then I put all of the things that made up my feelings and experiences and deeper layers of who I am away. Out of sight. Then I quite literally held on to Dear Life. A few years ago, I became pregnant with my son. We were thrilled. I was sick as a dog for […]
As a psychologist with a strong commitment to promoting gender equality, I’ve found myself re-thinking traditional parenting habits and imagining how these innovative conversations will affect the way we look at parenting. Between “gender neutral parenting” and “the Google manifesto,” there’s a recent ongoing conversation about defying traditional gender roles we can’t ignore. With powerful influencers as role models, […]
Even though it’s hard, much of the time, I feel like we’ve got this. I don’t need our family to fit into a traditional mold, because I never imagined that it would. My 2-year-old daughter E. started saying the word “doctor” in her tiny, super-soft voice, which makes every syllable sound like a compliment. She could […]
Some people make the annual pilgrimage back home even though they know their feelings will be ignored, their identities questioned, their experiences minimized. For those of you in this group, I offer an option: Don’t go. As the holidays approach, many people are making plans to visit family. Most everyone can expect some stress and […]
I can tell her what’s happened, but I can’t tell her why, because I don’t understand why, and I don’t know how we can possibly fix it. Every parent has to have that conversation with their child at some point. My daughter is only 2, but she already has questions. The longer I put it […]
I’m fat, and the fear of getting fat is no longer viable. I grew up in a fatphobic household — one that was created by my mother’s fear of getting and staying fat. Her fatphobia, often directed at me, was then reinforced by my brother, and unconsciously supported by my father. My parents were extremely […]
