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Mother’s Day is a pretty complex day–full of pain, annoyance, and sadness for a lot of women for a whole host of reasons, as well as fun memories and love...
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Dear Kennedy, Marin, and Stuart, Mother’s Day is tomorrow. Mother’s Day is not my favorite–for a whole host of reasons I’m quite sure y’all know about because I tend to...
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Last night while I was running, I had the idea that we should put together a slideshow of pictures of mothers or grandmothers or other mother-figures. Or of ourselves as...
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As Mother’s Day approaches, it’s the usual time I psychologically rent a limo so I can take my inevitable guilt trip in style. Leading up to this day of celebration,...
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A few months ago, I was lucky enough to spend three blissful days reading, writing, walking, jogging, eating, and mostly gabbing for hours with four amazing women. (Before this weekend,...
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For the past few years, I’ve been a part of a wildly ambitious ward project that my friend, Lia Collings, spearheaded. It started out as a modest collection of essays,...
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I learned a painful civics lesson tonight: go to school board meetings. I went to a meeting tonight to sign a mandatory “consent” form that will allow my daughter to...
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Last night I saw Les Miserables. Hugo’s work has endured because ideas and principles pulled from the story still apply today. This movie made me think. This movie made me...
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I’ve been following the Boy Scouts of America’s anti-gay policy . . . and then their almost-change-in-policy . . . and then their non-decision. The BSA suggested today that, “due...
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Wow. I just read this article that says the national Boy Scouts of America organization is considering ending its ban on gay Boy Scouts and gay leaders. This would be...
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The church has finally updated the curriculum for the YW/YM’s programs. At long last. We published two comparisons of the YW/YM lessons in 2012–both written diligently and conscientiously by Laura...
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I want my daughters (and my son!) to be able to read about other women’s struggles. How did they go about deciding what to do and when?
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I stumbled across this Facebook meme a couple months ago and sorta fell in love with it. I want to put it in a frame next to my girls’ beds...
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I was pregnant with Stuart, my third (and last) child when I decided I wanted to get a Ph.D. By the time he was three months old, I had already...
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I was born and raised in East Texas and have spent most of my adult life living here or Louisiana. But my parents are originally from California, which means that...
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Today’s guest post is written by Marilyn Mehr. One year ago today, I stood on the steps of the Bronx County Courthouse with my spouse, Betty Walker, celebrating our marriage....
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Today’s guest post comes to us from Andy Richardson. I count myself among the minority of viewers who walked away more troubled than inspired by Half the Sky. This may...
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Today’s guest post comes to us from Karin Olson of Huntsville, Texas. Yesterday I cast my vote for Barack Obama for president on the first day of early voting in...
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Unfortunately, this side-by-side comparison similarly shows that there are differences in the way we speak to both YM and YW and their teachers, and those differences appear to be deliberately...
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Some people have Superbowl parties. Others have March Madness parties. We have a presidential election party. We love politics. We love to talk about debates, polls, and pollsters. We roll...
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Today’s guest post is written by Caitlin. My first week of grad school ended in an emotional break-down, not unlike one of an adolescent who came to a new school...
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A high school friend recently messaged me to say that—after reading my Facebook posts and my blog posts (as well as other Doves and Serpents posts)—she wondered why I stay...
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Today’s guest post comes to us from Nik Rasheta: About a year ago I read a book that helped me gain some needed insight in order to survive my career...
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I was born with a seemingly infinite number of machine parts in my head – springs and sprockets and gears and levers and wires and nuts and bolts. They were...
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Our oldest daughter is approaching the magical age of 16. When I was her age, I took a semester-long course at school during which we learned all the rules and...
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I’ve read some really sad things lately and have been experiencing some of my own sad moments (hey, I’m 39, so it’s time, no?), so I’ve been thinking a good...
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I would like to preface this story with the statement that I love both my parents deeply. In my home growing up, Mom was the disciplinarian. Dad worked graveyard shift...
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When I was a teenager, I kept a journal. I wrote in it a lot. I sometimes worried about my parents reading it, so I hid it—in various places, to...
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Politics is like blood sport at our house. We love it. I have a picture of Kennedy as a newborn, sitting in one of those vibrating rocker seats, “watching” Meet...
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I teach some combination of undergraduate teacher education courses and graduate education courses. Most of my students are college juniors, so they’ve had a couple years of experience before they...
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On one of the nights in the last two weeks when the Olympics were on, I got up from my home office chair, left the computer, and went into the...
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There’s an awful lot of “hate” being thrown around on-line and in the media these days. Mormons and evangelicals hate gays. Chick-fil-A (the business and apparently, every employee of the...
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I’ve been really enjoying watching the Olympics the last few days. The kids planned an opening ceremonies party on Friday night. They made “patriotic eagles,” red-white-and-blue strawberries, and Olympic rings...
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Stuart started participated in Cub Scouts last year when he turned 8 (which is when Mormon boys start participating in scouting. We have our own troops and we kinda play...
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Growing up in the Olson household, playing the piano was just something you did—kinda like breathing or eating. There were four of us—two older sisters, then me (four years later),...
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When I was a tween/teen, we didn’t ever really get punished—at least I don’t remember being punished. We didn’t really have rules per se, either. We were all motivated by...
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My Stuart is a pretty cautious kid. (That’s a nice way of saying he’s scared. Of pretty much everything—except for peer pressure pertaining to the fact that dance is his...
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We’re on a family trip. Notice that I didn’t call it a family “vacation” because that implies rest and relaxation, which this experience does not include. We travel about once...
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Last week I read this comment in an online Facebook group: “My daughter’s handout from Young Women’s today: Your greatest role in life is to be wife to your “sweetart”...
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I recently went to the doctor to discuss my “blood pressure issue” (read = I have high blood pressure). My regular physician recently had a baby, so her husband (with...
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If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that my perspective on life is limited. Life itself is complex and multi-faceted, and the more I am able to listen to other...
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I’ve read two things recently that bothered me—perhaps especially as the wife of Mr. Cheap Seats. Exhibit A: An article in the Deseret News titled “When children have chosen another...
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Today’s guest post was originally published by Marion Jensen on his personal blog: The Open Author. Our gratitude to Marion for letting us share this with our readers and to...
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[This is me sighing.] I’ve written a few times here about modesty. Some might think I sound like a broken record. There is some truth to that claim. However, in...
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I’m nearly 20 years removed from the dating scene, so it goes without saying that I do not have my finger on the pulse of the dating world these days. ...
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I’m not a fan of censorship. Don’t even get me started on book banning. So when I saw these two pictures side by side, my censorship flag went up! The...
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Mother’s Day is not my favorite for a number of reasons. Sometimes I wish that Mother’s Day meant I could hole up in my bedroom in my PJs, a couple...
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Last week our little town had a kerfuffle (although some would say it was much more than a kerfuffle). Here’s what I’ve been able to piece together. (Please recall that...
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Two dumb things happened to Stuart this week. Exhibit A: Stuart and Marin participated in a dance competition in Dallas (3+ hours away). [Brent took the kids because I was...
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This is a pretty tired subject, I realize. I’m a professor in a teacher education program, so we talk about No Child Left Behind and its consequences a good bit. ...
