Last week’s episode featured the clever parenting trick of using code words to deceive your children. This week, we see yet another childhood staple—kids plotting with one parent to deceive the other. It’s not as evil as it sounds—I’m talking about surprise birthday presents here, not anything with malicious intent. Shane conspires with Paige’s son […]
Today is Rosie O’Donnell’s birthday, and I want to wish her all the best. Always outspoken, often controversial, she is nevertheless a champion of LGBT families and children in general, and one of the most visible lesbian moms in the U.S. Love her or hate her, she’s one of us. I can’t condone everything she’s
The first episode of Work Out, Season Two, starring lesbian fitness trainer Jackie Warner, is available now—two days before premiering on television—for free download on iTunes. (Thanks to After Ellen for the tip.) I’m a fan of the show, despite its editing for melodrama. Jackie is a successful woman with a good business sense as
Children are minimal this episode, but it nonetheless touches on one of the great arts of parenting: hiding parts of a conversation from your kids. “I’ve missed you,” Paige tells Shane as they sit at a table with Paige’s ten-year-old son Jared. “And I’ve missed our, um . . . our, um story time. That
Showtime has announced it has ordered a fifth season of The L Word, promising us lots more of the lovely ladies in Los Angeles. Because I’ve been writing a series that reviews The L Word from a parenting perspective, I thought it would be appropriate to acknowledge Season Five with a song about the letter
“I’m his father. Any court will look favorably on that.” (Warning: spoilers below.) So says Shane’s ne’er-do-well father Gabe, who has reappeared from nowhere after running out on his family at the end of Season Three. Gabe wants to take back his son, Shane’s nine-year-old brother Shay, whom Shay has been parenting for some months
The common thread in the parenting narratives this week is time. Children show that Bette and Jodi have been spending time, Helena and Catherine have no time, Shane and Paige are trying to find the time, and Shane’s dad has bad timing. (Warning: spoilers below.)
Melissa Etheridge can now add an Academy Award to her two Grammys. She won the “Best Original Song” Oscar last night for “I Need to Wake Up,” the theme song to An Inconvenient Truth. (You can purchase and download the “I Need to Wake Up” song or video from iTunes here.) The television coverage showed
(Minor spoilers below.) Shane is livin’ la vida loco parentis this week. Her nine-year-old brother Shay and his friend Jared got into a fight with some kids who teased them about their moms being gay. Shane goes with Jared’s mother Paige to meet with the school principal, and they argue that the school must teach
Parenting as excuse, aggravation, interference, curse, and finally blessing. This episode has it all. In the opening scene, Shane tries to get out of the launch of her Hugo Boss underwear campaign by saying “Well, I don’t know if I can get a babysitter in time.” She ends up going, however, and leaving kid-brother Shay
