Reader's Digest » Parenting

Does Gender Have a Color?

We outline the checkered history of pink and blue for boys and girls.

Ask Laskas: “Should I let my daughter rock a Metallica shirt?”

Help this mother daughter duo settle their argument over whether or not it's fair for a teenager to wear heavy metal shirts.

Culture Digest: The Saddest Movie in the World?

These guys aren’t mean, but they do make people cry. Searching for a surefire way to get tear samples for research, Robert Levenson, a psychology professor at…

Ask Laskas: “Is Ma’am Offensive?”

Jeanne Marie Laskas writes our magazine's monthly advice column; now it's your turn to help solve readers' problems.

The Joy of Homemade Pop Tarts

Alana Chernila knows what it’s like to try and get dinner on the table for her family, day in and day out. She was strapped for time—but also…

Mom Advice: Deal With It!

In her own way, actress Vanessa Williams' mother showed her daughter how to learn life's tougher lessons.

Mom Advice: Make Them Laugh Hard

Playwright Bertolt Brecht, known for The Threepenny Opera, once said, “From the start is has been the theatre’s business to entertain people. . . it needs no other…

Mom Advice: How to Keep Cool

The most valuable thing my mother ever told me was: “Who’s going to remember 100 years from now?” She said it a lot, often accompanied by a world-weary…

Mom Advice: How to Mix Metaphors

My mother often gave bad advice but not in the sense that she would recommend a course of action that would prove ill advised. It was bad advice…

Mom Advice: How to Be Proper

Mother would set the table properly for every meal and instruct us on the correct use of silverware, which seemed kind of useless to me. “Why do we…