I stopped writing and talking about my children for a few reasons. I started to understand the damage I was doing to their privacy and my youngest, the one who appeared in my work the most, needed the time and silence and space in order to make it through adolescence. The piece I write today is the product of that aforementioned time and space, lots of conversations, mutually agreed upon privacy parameters, therapy, and because this is Jess Lahey writing, animal helpers.
Read More
What are the predictors of substance use among kids in early adolescence? We have a study for that!
Read More
I expected Sandwich to be great because I love everything Catherine Newman writes, but it was a balm for a wound I did not realize I was nursing.
Read More
The confluence of guns and alcohol consumption are far more deadly than the sum of their individual statistical parts.
Read More
I was so looking forward to my birthday this year. I’d cleared almost an entire week of obligations and planned to give myself the gift of six whole days working in the woods and garden. I’ve been building a new stone wall, cutting and splitting a black cherry tree that came down in a storm, and tending to my vegetable gardens.
Read More
There’s a reason we Laheys don’t celebrate Mother’s Day (or Father’s Day or Valentines Day)…
Read More
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I have the coolest work gig in the world. My job is to get curious about something, spend a couple of years researching it in my dark hermit hidey-hole office, then translate all the technical, jargon-tastic, super nerdy research into something other people might want to read or listen to.
Read More