NEW YORK — Only 10 percent of children receive “high quality” day care, says the National Institute of Child Health Development.
The median yearly salary for day care workers is less than $20,000. Day care is more expensive than rent for families in 22 states. These are the depressing — but not shocking — statistics writer Jonathan Cohn...
Q: We are redoing the landscaping in the front of our house. I’d really like to buy landscape fabric to prevent weeds, but it’s so pricey. Is there a frugal alternative?
A: Many people overlook a very basic, inexpensive resource when it comes to weed prevention: the newspaper. Nothing fancy, just the...
Every now and then, for no particular reason at all, do you find yourself feeling good? Not giddy, not happy and certainly not high, but just feeling comfortable in your own skin?
Even though there are still issues to deal with, you have an inner sense that you will handle them and that it will all be OK. While you are in this emotional...
I enjoy reading a good biography now and then. My current reading material, “Consider the Fork,” (Basic Books, $26.99), isn’t the history of a person, but of cooking and eating tools. Written by British food writer and historian Bee Wilson, it shares the evolution of those simple forks, spoons,...
CHICAGO — An infant’s first laugh is among the most intoxicating moments in parenting. When each of my sons laughed for the first time, I felt like they’d come to life all over again. I felt like Descartes: It laughs; therefore it is. And then I reminded myself to stop calling the baby it.
If you are the sort of parent who overthinks...
