Mama at the Movies

I met my husband Tony on a blind date during which we mostly talked about our dads. It didn’t strike me as strange, how quickly we found common ground via…

I took myself off to see Rabbit Hole alone, tissues at hand, ready to handle the weepy. Nicole Kidman plays Becca, whose four-year-old son Danny was struck by a car…

My boys, as I tell them regularly, are incredibly lucky with their school lunch program. It wasn’t always this way. My husband went to the same school, in a time…

A boy from my sons’ school moved to Moscow this year to dance with the Bolshoi. When I heard this, I felt that familiar parental stew of conflicting emotions: selfish…

About halfway through watching Casa de los Babys, I put down my pen and stopped taking notes, mesmerized. John Sayles’ 2003 film tells the story of six women living in…

That Race to Nowhere (2009) became a kind of homework project for me is appropriate, because Vicki Abeles’ powerful movie documents the mad pressures of homework on American children. And…

They say “Little kids, little problems; big kids, big problems.” The expression really bugged me when I was the weary mother of little kids; who’s to say my sleepless nights…

Recently a couple mom-friends joined me to see the beautifully-filmed new documentary, Babies (Thomas Balmès, 2010) and because of the company, I found myself thinking more about the film’s moms…

Faced with his child about to go college, Doug Block decided to make a movie. In fact, he has been filming his daughter, Lucy, her whole life; as he puts…

My son Eli’s stuffed doggie got married last month. Out of the blue, Eli announced the engagement, and then looked through the pile of stuffies to find Doggie a suitable…

I must have been in second grade when I first thought about how old I would be in the year 2000 — 32 — and what my life would be…