When you’re a member of the audience, you hope to outnumber the performers.  An empty venue is disheartening for those on stage and there’s less energy in the room. Boston Public Schools (BPS) took the stage on a rainy Tuesday night, holding its latest community meeting on improving school choice. But with fewer than two dozen people attending, speakers included – we barely made it. Go ahead, you can yawn – “community meeting on improving school choice” is one boring string of words, and not an event destined to be standing room only. But I was wide-eyed, thinking of the immense task Mayor …

When it’s just a carton of milk you need, a 35-mile drive is definitely out of the way. But if you’re up for a pilgrimage, the new Wegmans in Northborough is New England’s largest supermarket and the chain’s first store in Massachusetts.  There is some psychology behind wanting to see 138,000 square feet of produce and everything else the modern American grocery sells, in a box so big that there are 30 check-out lines and a red phone right by the yogurt case, connecting you to customer service – just in case you get lost, or have a question. But it’s not just me: Wegmans’ reputation for …

Stay in your lane, pass on the left, and neither exceed nor fall under the speed limit: These are the unspoken traffic rules at Boston’s Prudential Center mall. Crowded with office workers, tourists, and locals, the busy hall off Boylston Street reminds you that you are still in the city. But pass the north-side main drag, and the aisles widen while the lovely skylight ceilings persist. Ahhh, space. It’s here that young families are making the mall their own. A landscaped garden, places indoors to linger, and now a family-oriented trio of businesses are all holding down the age of the …

Squinting into the distance, I search for my 10-year-old. With rolling backpack in tow, she’s walking ahead of me after school. The meandering pace of her little sibling was slowing us down, and big sister was eager to get homework started. “Mom, can I go home by myself?” The leash lengthens as a child grows, and that day I let it out some more. So with plenty of daylight left, I handed her the keys. My daughter is a different color, shape, and size than Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old in Florida who was fatally shot by a man on a neighborhood watch five weeks ago. But fear of harm done to …

The nurse had wrapped the baby snug as a burrito. In the darkened hospital room, my husband and I watched as she nearly tossed our bundle in the air, trying to soothe the cries of someone so new to the world that she sounded as if she regretted entry, and was wondering about the alternatives.  The way this expert dressed in scrubs knew she was in for a challenge gave me a sense of foreboding. After the safety of the maternity ward, what was to come? How wanted this baby had been, how completely grateful we were that she had arrived, did not ease the sense that I had just given birth to a …

“Mommy, I’m fat,” says my daughter, all 40-something lbs. and 40-something inches of her.  I see a perfectly smooth belly, and a body that is all little-kid taut. She looks in the mirror and manages to stick out her tummy a bit farther by arching her back. “You’re not fat,” comes my truthful response. It's a conversation that goes on.  As much as kids are their parents’ parrots, I hope my child is not copying my own body concerns – since I have my metabolism and city walking to thank and I’m not overweight. But to blame her behavior on any media is all too easy. Yet talk about fat we will – …

On the spectrum of risky behaviors, this one ranks high only if you fear the fluorescent orange envelope.  We’d just finished an errand on Newbury Street one Saturday afternoon, and the kids were waiting for me to unlock the car. As I dug out my keys, a couple was parking just in front of us. They got out of their car and headed for the “pay and display” meter, the kind that gives you a sticker receipt. I looked quickly around for someone who might disapprove of what I was about to do. I then took my own parking sticker off the window and asked the driver who was about to pay the machine, “if…

In my favorite children's books, the writer and illustrator are one; two talents residing in a single gifted artist who can create beauty in both words and pictures.Grace Lin is one of those artists. This week, for Lunar New Year, she is everywhere in our house. Not only have we been reading her picture book about the holiday, but on Jan. 21 she held a book launch for her newest novel, "Dumpling Days." When you attend a Grace Lin book launch – patronizing an independent bookstore, standing in line – you leave with not just an autographed book, but with what kids have come to expect from any …

If you ask a child, "who was Martin Luther King, Jr.?" and the answer is, "he freed the slaves" – here's a chance to teach more about one of Boston's most important alumni.  Ryan Hendrickson remembers hearing that response once, from a very young student on a tour of the library at Boston University. As the assistant director for manuscripts at BU's archival research center, Mr. Hendrickson and his coworkers are the keepers of the collected papers that Reverend King donated to BU in 1964. For the holiday in King's honor Jan. 16, special events around the city reflect the civil rights leader's…

When you bring a new life into the world, the chronicle begins. Photos of the delivery are followed by portraits of the baby with every visiting relative; a video of the baby sitting in the car seat for the trip home; pictures of days one, two, and three. Technology has made image-making cheaper and faster, and for many of us, the mechanics are as close and transportable as a cell phone. The ease with which we can make a visual record propels our compulsion to capture as much as we can.But documenting in words hasn't changed. To write, you must think, and then put pen to paper, voice to …

What is the one holiday tradition you can't live without? Let's take family and friends' presence as a given; you get them for free on this quiz. Is it the roast beast on the dinner table? Church at midnight? Cruising the town to find the best-dressed, most brightly-lit house, threatening to blow the whole neighborhood's electrical transformer?  These traditions are evergreen, all. But my choice is the endangered species of customs – Christmas cards.This week, while most people are probably not missing the ample displays (gone) of boxed cards at their local card shop (gone), I'm waiting for …

Among the many places a four-year-old does not belong, a 40,000 sq. ft. bakery is probably one of them.Yet there we were: one preschooler, her two sisters, and their parents – roaming the cavernous, cinnamon-spiced spaces of Leo's Bakery in South Boston, on the weekend before Thanksgiving. To kick off our holidays, my husband wanted our family to do something purposeful together. With visions of helpfulness dancing in his head, he web-searched his way to "Pie in the Sky," the annual event that marries the generosity of bakeries and restaurants with pie buyers. The $25 pie purchases go to …

Jane's husband is home. No more helicopters whirring in the background of every tenuous satellite phone call, no more talking in code. No more worrying about certain Marines in Afghanistan, no more kids sharing the life-size, cardboard-cutout photo of Dad. This Thanksgiving, Jane's husband is a veteran of the war, and he's back. He's back on the streets of Boston, as a police officer for the city. That's no picnic itself, but it's not Helmand province, Afghanistan, either (to protect the family's privacy, we're not using their real names).Deployed in March 2010, Tom went to the U.S. Marines' …

If there's any group in America that gets as much done for families and kids in their community as this group of Boston moms, I'd like to know. It sounds like an exaggeration. But from its welcome baskets for new moms to the dozens of events it hosts each year, the Charlestown Mothers Association (CMA) runs on the power of sheer, optimistic volunteerism – and no money of its own. And as it turns out, it's very difficult to find another group anywhere who has the audacity to welcome its members for free, yet offer so much programming. Since 1997, the CMA has grown from a handful of moms to 1,…

Just before we admit that, by any definition of calendar or weather, summer is over, there's a family game we haul out of storage for a few days at this time of year. Seek out a place with a lot of foot traffic, and prepare to people watch. For the players, driving is better than walking, because in the privacy of your car you can shout it out: It's called Freshmen Spotting. You already know the rules: First, look for a cluster of young adults. Intent on their conversations, they're walking somewhat closely together, the better not to lose one's way in strange territory. They clutch not …

For our family, the one-man terror attack in Norway last month hit close to home in only the most self-interested sense: We were due to visit Oslo in a few short weeks, and in the midst of planning the trip, we wondered, would it be safe to take the children?  Whenever we travel, my own mother's chief worry is that I will lose one of her grandkids in a completely unfamiliar place. So taking them to the heart of the world's newest target of extremism was a fresh concern altogether.  Part of the purpose of leaving home is to try to see the world from a different perspective: How would we …

Twelve days and counting: That's all the time you have left to catch the Museum of Fine Arts' Chihuly exhibit, your best chance of getting kids and art together this summer. Yes, you still can't touch, and virtually everything in this celebration of glass is breakable. (Don't even bother with the nightmare of trying to figure out how you'd pay for that mishap.) But for sheer, entertaining dazzle, this colorful, 3-D experience is the most kid-friendly opportunity in town to inspire some creativity and learn about an accomplished living artist – and there is nothing like it on the museum …

If there's a capitalist bone in your child's body, sooner or later, it will want a lemonade stand. Selling ice-cold refreshment has it's irresistible charms, I guess, not to mention the visions of green that dance in the heads of young entrepreneurs. Icon of suburban sidewalks in summertime … wait. "Suburban"? Can you safely operate a lemonade stand in the heart of the city?    Yes, you can. And by "safely," you know I'm not talking about the health dangers of lukewarm lemonade. I'm talking about whether or not you should leave kids alone in front of your house, where vehicular traffic …

Boston shines on July 4, and there is no better place to appreciate being American than in our city on this holiday.  Many of us will take a three-day weekend to celebrate, and perhaps reflect: Monday also marks the tenth time we've celebrated Independence Day since 9/11.  "...suddenly the thought occurred that being American might not be the greatest thing in the world. The anniversary stands out for me already because 2001 was the summer I started parenthood, and the world that I brought our child into has changed so much since that terrible national tragedy.  In its aftermath was the first…

When St. Cecilia Parish first welcomed the gay parishioners from their closed South End church in 2007, it should have been an unbearably hot August morning. But I remember it this way: The day was dry, almost cool, and blessedly perfect. With our two littlest ones ready to be baptized in their white gowns, five other dressed-up kids, and two sets of godparents among us, it was a lovely day for new beginnings for the church, and our own family, too.   The atmosphere around St. Cecilia’s then was far different from this past week, as the Rev. John Unni has weathered criticism over his embrace …