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Barbara's Mailbag:
Santa-phobia

My 3 1/2-year-old son is afraid of Santa - so much so that he doesn't want Santa to come to our house.

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Parenting Traps:
Family tradition that doesn't try too hard

Traditions don’t have to be as contrived as a mushy side dish. Sometimes they just happen.

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Family Filmgoer

One might want to dismiss "The Blind Side" as just a phony feel-good story in which an African-American youngster from the projects is rescued by idealistic white people and given a bright future. In this case, however, the story happens to be true and it's mighty involving and entertaining, even if director/screenwriter John Lee Hancock lays it on a little thick.

your kids

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featured blogs

Race and identity: Do parents of biracial kids face special challenges?

November 18, 2009
When social scientist Marion Kilson's children were born, in the 1960s, she assumed that they would identify as African American, like their father, not European American like herself. "I was still in graduate school," she remembers. "I wrote my term...

Boys will be boys, and that's OK

November 23, 2009
For this month's Books We Like installment, I offer up one that made me less worried about raising a serial killer. The Way of Boys: Raising Healthy Boys in a Challenging and Complex World by Anthony Rao tells moms...

While She Naps

I've had this book, Soft Animals A to Z by Carolyn Vosburg Hall, for a while, and although I'd read all the patterns I had never sewn anything from it.

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barbara's mailbag

Santa-phobia

My 3-1/2-year-old son is afraid of Santa - so much so that he doesn't want Santa to come to our house even if it means foregoing presents.
-- O's mom, Needham

Voices

Mom vs. Mom

Anxiety fuels mom competition to score swine flu shots for their kids.

Parenting Traps

Family tradition that doesn't try too hard