This post is part of our month-long series featuring different ways that parents have talked to their kids about God.

I was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, but I studied physics in college and stopped believing in God. The universe seemed wondrous enough without inventing miracles.

I married a biologist who believed in Darwin. He didn’t object to raising our children Jewish, as long as I didn’t expect them to take the bible literally. When our son, Noah, was born, I decided that the wisest approach to his education–both secular and religious–was to teach him to rely on empathy, logic, common sense, and love. Above all, I vowed never to lie to him, or expect him to put his faith in anything I didn’t trust myself. Read more →

The first thing most people notice about my 2-year-old, Shaya, is his hair.

He doesn’t allow us to brush it so we have given up and allowed his crazy locks to bloom. Straight on the top and wildly curly underneath, his hairstyle encompasses his personality completely. Baruch Hashem we only have four more months till his upsheren. We joke that no one will recognize him once he looks “normal.”

Normal is all relative, especially when talking about Shaya.

The next thing people quickly notice are his clothes. Always in black and white, Shaya likes to only wear Shabbos clothes. It’s a running joke amongst our friends and family that our 2-year-old little boy is the most religious member of our brood. My husband doesn’t even wear a black hat nor does he wear the Yeshivish penguin suit. But Shaya loves to rock it out in his t-shirt tzizis and Shabbos clothes, flopping around in his one size too big Shabbos shoes. I thought my husband would have a heart attack when we bought those for him, but what could I do? None of the others were “right.” When you sit “fixing” shoes for 20 minutes until he’s okay walking in them and now you’re late for school, appointments, etc. I’ve learned to pick and choose my battles when it comes to Shaya. Read more →

Need some Mother’s Day gift inspiration? We’re asking our contributing editors the three things they want (and the one thing they can’t actually buy). To get us started, here’s Jordana Horn’s wish list.

1. The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York by Claudia Roden

I lost my copy of this book about 20 years ago and for some reason have never replaced it. I LOVE THIS BOOK. The recipes are far-ranging and delicious, and the text, stories of the far-flung Jewish diaspora, are intriguing and would definitely cause me to burn food. I made an Indian-themed dinner for a boyfriend 20 years ago and after he took the first bite, he said he should marry me. He didn’t, but that’s neither here nor there: the point is the food is incredibly tasty.

2. DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: California

I love these guidebooks and would love to get a copy of this so that I can spend my oh-so-many idle moments dreaming away about what I will do on my 40th birthday vacation getaway with my husband this summer. That’s right folks, ONE WEEK WITHOUT THE KIDS, JUST ME AND MY HUSBAND IN BLISSFUL CALIFORNIA. Fine, there’s the kid in my uterus–I told you I can never even go to the bathroom alone, let alone on a weeklong vacation.

3. Some kind of prenatal facial/massage thing at Destination Maternity

An afternoon or morning spent in bathrobed bliss, drooling.

The one thing I want for Mother’s Day that I can’t actually buy:

A magic pill I could take after giving birth to a healthy baby by which I would immediately fit back into my pre-maternity clothes. Hell, let’s make the pill have the side effects of giving me perky boobies, a springy butt, and eradicate all traces of circles under my eyes too.

*By purchasing any of the above items through Amazon, a portion of the proceeds will go to support our work at Kveller. It’s a Mother’s Day mitzvah!*

We’ve been following along with Emily on her path to becoming a single mother by choice. She is now 32 weeks pregnant.  

For most of my life, I have had a strong attraction to men who could be described as wiry, nerdy types. I dated lots of guys who wore smaller jeans than I did and it might have seemed that spectacles were a requirement for the men I chose. In fact, at one point, when my sister and I were playing Hodel and Tzeitel in a regional production of Fiddler on the Roof, she joked that I had taken my search for a modern day Motel the Tailor a little too far!  Read more →

It was one of those things I swore I’d never do as a parent–walk my child on a leash.

My child is not a dog! He will not walk on a leash any more than he will howl at passing helicopters or sniff other children’s butts. I will simply teach my child to walk alongside me, holding my hand and smiling up at me like a ray of sunshine.

Uh-huh. Read more →

As part of our month-long God series, Abby Sher tells us about her relationship with prayer.

I have prayed every day for the past 25 years. Often obsessively, locked in a closet for hours at a sitting. My mother, my therapists, friends, boyfriends, even reporters have asked me to show them what this compulsive ritual entailed. I’ve refused them all. I’ve always felt like if I explained my thoughts or connection to God, I would sound stupid, or worse, irreverent.

I was raised in a reform Jewish household, where matzah balls, Maneshewitz and Oy, what tsuris defined my heritage. I began praying in earnest when I was 11 and my aunt and father died in quick succession. I was sure I’d made them die, and I had to atone before I struck again. After Mom tucked me into bed at night, I recited the Shema five, 10, then 50 times. I soon added a song of thanks and a list of sick people whom I needed to heal. In high school I snuck into dark closets not to kiss boys but to chant psalms. I once ran away from home just to pray behind the synagogue in a pile of soggy leaves. True worship, in my mind, had to be secret in order to be sacred. Read more →

All the Jewish celebrity parent gossip you (n)ever wanted to know.

- Uh oh. It looks like Rachel Zoe’s son Skyler Berman was spotted in the same orange romper that Kourtney Kardashian’s son Mason Disick was photographed in a couple of weeks earlier. I imagine this is majorly embarrassing for a celebrity stylist such as Zoe. (People)

- We’ve seen Sarah Jessica Parker take her kids to school. And we’ve seen Matthew Broderick take his kids to school. And now we can see them taking the kids to school together. What a week. (Celebrity Baby Scoop)

- Adam Sandler was seen out and about with his wife and daughters Sadie, 6, and Sunny, 4. I don’t have much to say about them except that they look nice and I like Sunny’s skirt. (Celebrity Baby Scoop)

- Ian Ziering (who played Steve Sanders on Beverly Hills 90210) just welcomed his second daughter, Penna Mae, who was born on his first daughter’s second birthday. (People)

- This headline doesn’t need much explanation: “Bethenny Frankel Shows Her Love for Minnie Mouse.” (Babble)

Ten years ago, just before I turned 30, I left my nuchal appointment for my first child, went straight to my work computer, and quickly banged out an “I’m Going To Be A Mother!” email to send to my 5,000 closest friends.

Few of my friends back then were married, let alone having kids. I was a pioneer (I later went on to become a pioneer among my peers in divorce, of course), and an oblivious one. It didn’t occur to me that other people’s reaction to my news could possibly be anything but happiness (mildly uncomprehending happiness, perhaps, but happiness nonetheless). Read more →

When people find out I’m a mom and a stepmom (my partner, Joseph, has three children with his ex-wife, and he and I have two children of our own), they’re curious about how we make it work.

I’m lucky to have three lovely stepkids whom I adore, but we’ve had our fair share of bumps in the road.

A child of divorce myself, I brought my own baggage into the dynamics of our relationship; maybe I thought that being the “perfect” stepmother would help me heal the emotional wounds of my parents’ divorce and my own difficulties with my dad’s new family. I also rushed into my role as do-it-all stepmom without taking the time to let everyone (including me) adjust to our new, extended family. Read more →

First up in our month-long series all about God is author Ben Greenman.

Before I talked to my kids about God, I talked to God about my kids.

That was tricky as I did not believe in him. It was 2000, and my wife was pregnant, and one day after dinner we were watching TV, probably something terrible, and I was overcome by a sense of what at the time seemed like dread but which I think, in retrospect, was awe. Both of those are biblical notions anyway and I cannot guarantee that they are not the same thing seen from different angles. I excused myself. “I’m feeling a little tired,” I said. She was happy to keep watching TV by herself–a little too happy. Read more →