Parenting – Starshine Roshell

Saying Farewell to our Fairytale Farmhouse

Published on August 14, 2025

Casa Roshell Ready for a New Cast

I’ve been told I’m a lousy movie date; I predict punchlines, spoil plot twists, and (yawn) anticipate jump scares. As a professional storyteller who’s penned and plotted my way through five decades, there’s not much that surprises me anymore.

But this? I never saw this coming.

It was a year after our youngest son left for college, and I was puttering around our spacious family home, rearranging tchotchkes and fluffing throw pillows, like ya do. When it hit me. Hard. Exactly the way a throw pillow doesn’t.

Is Porn the New Sex Ed?

Published on January 27, 2020

The Conversations You Need to Have With Your Kids. Right Now.

Arizona and Washington are debating this month whether to provide sex education in schools. Colorado’s deciding if parents can opt their kids out of the curriculum. And North Carolina parents are protesting their high schoolers’ sex ed, saying it “encourages promiscuity” and “destroys childhood innocence.”

What none of them seem to realize is this: Sex education is happening. It’s happening. The only question is whether you want it to be accurate, or you’re comfortable with your kids getting their titillating tutelage from Alexis Texas and Kendra Lust on pervclips.com.

Period Parties

Published on January 14, 2020

Parents painting town red for daughters’ first menstrual moment

Biologically speaking, it’s never good news to discover blood exiting one’s body — and few girls would argue that getting their first period was a serendipitous splash o’ sunshine. In fact, reactions tend to range from embarrassed to freaked out to horrified.

But some moms are attempting to give the un-fun female phenomenon, um, a rosy glow by throwing their daughters “period parties.” Chronicled everywhere from the Washington Post to Parents magazine recently, the celebrations include crimson-hued treats like red velvet cake and occasionally, according to the BBC, a pin-the-tampon-on-the-vagina game. Comedian Bert Kreischer insists that his daughter’s Los Angeles friends all named their menstrual cycles at period parties; his progeny named hers “Jason” since it arrived on Friday the 13th.

I asked my friends if they’d ever thrown or attended such a fête. You know, like a bat mitzvah or quinceañera … but bodily fluid specific.

The Bullet-Proof Backpack

Published on August 20, 2019

It’s the Tactical Assault Accessory All the Cool Kids Are Wearing

Aaaaand that was “Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster the People, followed by the classic Boomtown Rats ballad “I Don’t Like Mondays.” We’re just two songs into our Calamity-on-Campus 3 o’clock joyride here on K-I-D-Z FM, where the fear — haha! I mean the fun! — never ever stops. We’ll be back, faster than a bullet, with Pearl Jam and “Jeremy” right after a word from our sponsor. Don’t touch that dial! …

[Fade in ad spot.]

“Parents, remember back in your day, when all you needed for a successful start to the school year were some sharpened No. 2 pencils, a bitchin’ Trapper Keeper, and a brown paper bag that you could origami into sweet textbook covers?

“Well, those days are over, my friends.

Escape-Room Escapades

Published on June 11, 2019

Parents Prove Useless in Puzzling Through Real-Life Adventure Game

We’re almost out of time — but I think we’re gonna make it. We’ve got five minutes left to unlock the chest that holds the ingredients to the potion that will defeat the Dark Wizard.

And then maybe grab some Yogurtland on the way home.

My husband, our sons, and I are in an escape room, and the clock is ticking. There are thousands of these adventure games all over the world now: a room or series of rooms intricately appointed with inconspicuous clues and puzzles, each one leading to another. You must solve them all within one hour to accomplish the goal: “Lift the curse!” “Steal the jewels!” “Defuse the bomb!” Each room has a unique story and aesthetic, from pirate’s treasure to haunted house.

My family loves the things; we’ve done a dozen between us. The riddles are challenging, the time element exhilarating. And when our clear-headed, collaborative solutions cause a black light to click on, a hatch to spring open, or a secret code to be revealed, it’s immensely satisfying. In a world of fragmented attention, how could you not love immersive entertainment that demands your full focus and your best self? “It’s like virtual reality,” says my 13-year-old without irony, “but without the virtual.”

Uber for Junior?

Published on April 30, 2019

Ride-Hailing Companies Recognize Parents’ Need for Kid-Hauling Help

Here’s a little secret no one tells you about raising children but so help me it’s true: The job is 23 percent parenting and 77 percent schlepping.

From lugging the buggers around in utero to hauling them here and there in Bjorns, slings, wraps, bassinets, and strollers-that-ought-to-have-turn-signals to driving them back and forth to playdates, school, lessons, sporting events, camps, medical appointments, and emergency trips to In-N-Out Burger — being a modern mom or dad is less about shepherding your kids toward adulthood than shuttling them to activities.

Sure, the most terrifying automobile ride you’ll ever take is the one home from the hospital with your firstborn child. It seems the entire world outside of your vehicle is both designed and determined to wreak calamity on the fragile human you’ve just labored to create.

Are You a Lawnmower Parent?

Published on April 2, 2019

College Admissions Scandal Reveals Dangers of Clearing Smooth Path for Kids

You’re really not a parent of import anymore unless you’ve nabbed yourself a slick motor-vehicle label. First there were Helicopter Parents, hovering figuratively over their poor children’s heads, overseeing every miserable aspect of their orchestrated lives. I never fretted much over this classification, as it doesn’t apply to me; I lack the energy to be that controlling.

But the latest sobriquet intended to shame inept moms and dads hits a little closer to home. Like the front yard.

Have you heard of Lawnmower Parents? Known in chillier climes as Snowplow Parents and in less subtle neighborhoods as Bulldozer Parents, these are the well-meaning but misguided folks who continually clear a smooth path for their children, preempting any potential embarrassments, challenges and discomforts, and removing any obstacles that might impede Junior’s success. (Some call them Curling Parents, after the Olympic sport that involves shoving a toddler, sorry, a heavy stone toward a goal while someone sweeps the ice in front of it to decrease friction.)

Secrets of a Very Catholic Daughter

Published on June 2, 2018

‘Hiding Out’ Author Talks Drugs, Deception, and Double Lives I thought my dad saddled me with some psychological baggage. He used to leap around naked in…

Raising a First-Person Shooter

Published on April 7, 2018

‘Fortnite’ Video Game Blowing Holes in My Anti-Gun Policy

The hypocrisy of my life is corroding my insides, and confession is the only cure. Outwardly — in dinner conversations, on social media, at girls’ nights — I go all frothy-mouthed about gun control, all soapbox-y on the nefarious NRA, all high-horsey over our nation’s sick obsession with firearms.
But in a dimly lit corner of my home, probably even as you read this, my sweet 12-year-old son who still orders off the kids’ menu is entertaining himself by assassinating animated strangers with a digital assault rifle — the very weapon now dominating public debate.

Theater Kids Save the World