I reach deep into darkness of the kitchen cupboard in search of last year’s lunch boxes. I laugh when I open Benny’s and find a moldy PBJ from kindergarten. That thing is green. I toss it and prepare new lunches, sending them off to their first days of first and third grade. As a mom, this lunch making ritual has become rote. An unassuming part of my daily routine. One I am happy to pass over to the older 2 boys once they enter high school. But on this night in May, days befo

When my older boys were younger, I heeded this parenting advice: “As a boy mom, your main job is to keep them alive.” At 15 and 13, they were skateboard fanatics. This is good, I reasoned. Sports and hobbies that involve physical activity are much better than screens and video games. But video games don’t cause death on impact. No one ends up in the ER with sprained thumbs or rotted brains. With skateboarding, my job to keep them alive just got harder. “Do you have your helme