Not A Hipster Mom

I’m trying not to be a yelling mom, and lately I’ve had to try a lot harder. I grew up with a lot of yelling, and I always promised myself that if I ever had a child I would not be like that. I’ve always held a deep belief that good parents don’t yell. Sure, maybe they yell every once in awhile--no one is perfect--but they don’t yell all the time, and they don’t hit. They control themselves, exerting patience, and triumphing over their basic human instincts which tell them to get angry and lash out when their children will not behave.  For the most part, I still believe this. I believe that every parent gets angry, but the “best” parents learn to remain calm when angry, and dole out punishments in a logical, non temper-fueled fashion. I never wanted to be yelling-mom Debra Barone on “Everybody Loves Raymond.” I wanted to be Clair Huxtable on “The Cosby Show;” the calm, clever mom. And incidentally, the lawyer mom, which is funny as I work at a law firm. But I didn’t realiz...

Lately, I’ve been considering a move to suburbia. All my life, I’ve always been more of a city girl. Pre marriage and child, I lived in both Los Angeles and New York City, and in both places, I tried to live as close to the action as possible. When I got married, I moved to the suburbs of Las Vegas, and while I enjoyed the quiet, safety, cleanliness, and affordability that came with living outside of the city center, it never felt quite right to me. I missed the proximity to the best restaurants, coffee shops, and bars. I missed the walkability, and the convenience of being centrally located. I even missed hearing the noise from the street at night. So when I relocated to the Bay Area after my divorce, I decided to return to my urban roots. I couldn’t swing San Francisco, so instead I moved into a small apartment in a cool part of Oakland, a city that is very much an urban center in its own right. Of course, the difference between L.A./NYC me, and Oakland me, is that Oakland m...