Jose Luis Pelaez Inc via Getty Images Audio players allow kids to choose what music or podcasts they want to listen to from a selection curated by parents. When I was 3 years old, like many children of the ’80s, I was gifted a Fisher Price tape recorder. It had four buttons: play, forward, rewind and record. Its aesthetic would be at home in today’s popular parenting palate of sad beige, because its colors are brown and brown. I had a few Raffi tapes that I listened to on repeat during long...

I lived my teen years in a typical U.S. suburb during the 1990s, and during that time, the expected trajectory was clear: When you turned 18, either you went to college or you got a job, but you most definitely moved out of your parents’ house — and never returned. A cause to move back home was something life-altering, like an unplanned pregnancy or a disabling medical condition. If you did stay at home, or moved out and then returned, it was a source of shame both for you and your parents. A...

You’ve likely heard of love languages, author Gary Chapman’s categorization of the ways a person prefers to receive love: words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time or physical touch. Understanding your partner’s love language can help you show them that you love and care for them in the way that will most resonate for them. It may also help you see instances when a partner is trying to show you love, but you aren’t feeling it because they aren’t “speaking” your...

Sometimes an aunt is just the person you need — and if you’re lucky, she’s right there when you need her. In Kayla Miller’s graphic novel “Click,” the protagonist’s hip, child-free Aunt Molly listens patiently as her niece Olive tells her about her struggle to figure out how she can participate in the school talent show and how she feels left out by her friends. Aunt Molly invites her over for a special girls’ sleepover. The two order Chinese food and watch old variety shows looking for...