Amber Kinser, Ph.D.

I was talking with a friend at dinner last night and she told me that another friend of ours hosts a family reunion at her place in the mountains that is so huge, she has to rent port-a-potties.  Suddenly my 20 person gig seems tiny.  When everyone was here though, from Thursday to Sunday, it sure didn’t feel tiny.  And in the days preceding when I was filling tiki torches and repainting my Adirondack chairs and grocery shopping, grocery shopping, grocery shopping, it sure didn’t feel like a tiny thing.  And when I went upstairs just before they arrived and realized ...  Read more

I am hosting a family reunion this weekend and there will be 20 people at my house. Not as huge as some reunions, to be sure, but much to organize and plan and cook just the same, not to mention bedding to organize. My mission was to think really, really hard about the meals in the hopes that, after all that thinking, I’d figure out a menu that did not have me in the kitchen most of the time the family was reunioning. Of course that required an immense amount of planning and work on the front end and I’m pretty exhausted at the moment…a bit of a drag given that the fam will start to present Thursday afternoon and I’ve a long way to go before I’m ready…but I digress. Anyway, about missing out on things while trying to create an atmosphere that is perfect for doing all the things and having all the conversation I’ll be missing out on...  Read more

It is difficult for me sometimes to keep my deep resentment of “the state” and its intrusions into my family life at bay.  I can feel those dark waters starting to churn this week as my son heads back to school (I know, right?  Summer?  Anyone?  Help a sister out here).  We are on a year-round school program which, instead of giving an 11-week summer, gives a 6-week summer and places the other 5 weeks at other spots in the school year.  This plan would work better if schools in general were on such a schedule, because it would mean that there would be more options for summer programming and camps and the like during that sorry-excuse-for-a-summer we get and it would mean ....Read more at the M.O.M.

I ended up writing this month about food because I’ve been thinking about how different stages in the life of my family have resulted in changing patterns of eating, especially around dinnertime.  I have talked some in my published writing about my ambivalent feelings regarding the family dinner, about how I grew up with a mother who worked full time like my father did, and who also put much effort into preparing the evening meal, and typically a lavish one on Sundays.  She may have been able to do this fairly routinely because...  Read more at the Museum of Motherhood

Visit my weekly blog, "Thursdays with Dr. Mama" at the Museum of Motherhood:

I've heard lots of talk over the years and a good bit of it recently, lamenting the decline of time around the dinner table.  And I get concerned about the mothers for whom a sit-down meal with multiple bowls of steaming food passed between family members seated together in the dining room amid lively and joyful conversation may be elusive.  Or may prove to be an immense amount of work with very little gratification.  Or may end up...   Read more

My daughter just finished her first year in college.   A terrific year for her and, I’m happy to say, not a fiscally draining one for me.  I sure hope the next “three” years go this way (the quotes are there because few graduates get through the Bachelor’s degree in 4 years).  She is supported, as a Tennessee resident attending a public college, by the “Hope Scholarship” (funds generated by lottery revenue) and by her own ...  Read more

This post is for mothers of non-babies.  This post is for moms of non-toddlers, non little-leaguers, maybe even non-science fair contenders.  It’s for the mother who has younger people in her house who get their own lunches, who do not need supervision while swimming, who (she chooses to believe) typically remember to brush their own teeth (and reveal when they forget by asking for gum on the way to school).  This is for moms of younger people who don’t care much for one-on-one time with her these days, for moms who don’t read books on mothering...  Read more at the Museum of Motherhood