parenting – Whoopsie Piggle

I once knew two women whose husbands were brothers and, on the first weekend of each month, the two families and the husbands’ parents would take turns working at one of the young couples’ homes or that of the parents. Young cousins played while older cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents either worked on a project or helped cook meals for everyone.

I easily imagined one day doing the same with my own sons when they were grown.

The primary job of parents, however, is to raise children who will fledge and become self-sufficient adults who pursue their own aspirations, not those of their parents, wherever that may take them. My first two children left Ohio to pursue college degrees in the arts, while my third child went to Columbus, where they changed majors at OSU multiple times.

During COVID, all my children returned to Akron. For several months, marked more by camaraderie than lockdown stress, we again all lived together. Then, one by one, they resumed their journeys in life. My eldest went to Texas for graduate school, after which he took a job in D.C. My second son followed his girlfriend west, eventually settling in Wisconsin, while my third child left for Columbus and many other places.

But in my heart, I not-so-secretly hoped that, like so many people raised in Akron, when my children had children of their own, they would return home. For a few months last year, my deepest wish looked as though it would come true. While visiting to help with projects at my home, my son Hugo and his wife, Claudia, announced they were expecting a baby and also looking for work in Northeast Ohio. I immediately cried.

“Would you rather win the lottery,” my fourth and youngest son asked me, “or have Hugo and Claudia move back?”

“No contest. Have them move home,” I replied.

I’m sad to confirm that the reports of a flat job market − low firing rates coupled with low hiring rates − are all too true. After many months of job hunting, my son and daughter-in-law didn’t find jobs, or even any promising leads, in Northeast Ohio. And so, with an incoming baby and other good reasons to move out of their apartment, the couple bought a house in Wisconsin.

Just weeks before the baby’s due date, I stayed with Hugo and Claudia in their new home and worked with my son in a yard that’s all his. Because the housing market is incredibly tight in Madison (the world headquarters of Epic, a medical software company), the previous owners had done little to spruce up the place, which had been a rental, before putting it on the market.

Like the descendants of farmers that we are, Hugo and I grabbed shovels and started digging. We tore out an overgrown, trash-collecting privet bush, pulled up yards of sprouting fat roots from a tree that no longer exists and planted hydrangea bushes.

The work was deeply satisfying, but there was too much to accomplish in just one visit, including the removal of an overwhelming number of old bush stumps. I therefore proposed that our family descend upon the young couple July Fourth weekend. The baby would be about a month old, everyone would have holiday time off from work and, with four healthy men working together, a landscaped yard was within reach.

Holly Christensen's family members wait for their turn to hold their newest member, Flora. — Waiting in line to hold our newest family member, Baby Flora.

On July 2, my eldest son flew to Madison from D.C., while my youngest two children, their father, Max (my ex, but still family), and I arrived in a minivan loaded with goodies for our family’s new star.

For weeks beforehand, my daughter, Lyra, excitedly talked about going to Madison to see “Baby Florence.” If we’d have let her, Lyra would have held her niece all weekend, but she was up against a deep bench of stiff competition. None of us checked into the hotel until we had first met and held our wee, sweet Flora, as her parents call her.

The next morning, Max and my eldest son left the hotel at 6 a.m. to rent a stump grinder. Then, while I cooked a 14-egg frittata in a pan on the stove and sausages in the oven, the men began the yard’s transformation. For three days and four nights, we worked hard, cooked often and played several rounds of euchre.

Family members pitch in to help Holly Christensen's son work on his new yard. — Claude, Max and Leif pitch in to help Hugo landscape the yard of his and his wife’s first home.

The main ingredient in the recipe for a healthy family is showing up.

My grandchild may live farther away than I prefer, but our family remains close, held by bonds that are reinforced each time we pull together, which is harder to arrange and happens less frequently than if everyone lived in Northeast Ohio. But the extra effort is well worth it.

This column was first published in the Akron Beacon Journal on Sunday, July 19, 2026.

All checked in, ready to board and let the good times roll!

I’ve never been a joiner. In college, I held a poor person’s disdain for sororities. I never belonged to a PTA of the schools my five children attended, though I donated. And when, like me, my only child in marching band played in the percussion section, I attended most of his performances but told him upfront I’d never be a band parent. (If you know, you know.)

Then, 12 years ago, I birthed my way into a group. When my last child arrived with Down syndrome, my need to know other mothers of children with DS was immediate, strong and continuous. Shortly after my daughter Lyra’s birth, two other mothers with children Lyra’s age started the non-profit Down Syndrome Diagnosis Network (dsdiagnosisnetwork.org).

The mission of DSDN is “to connect, support, and provide accurate information to parents – and the medical professionals who serve them – from the time of diagnosis through age 3 while fostering the opportunity for lifelong connections.” DSDN hosts several online groups for parents of children with Down syndrome, and each year a new group is formed for families of children born that year.

I am a member of the initial group and we refer to ourselves as the “Original Rockin’ Moms,” or “ORMs.” The rockin’ part refers to our kids, whom we feel rock that extra 21st chromosome. Connecting with mothers whose children with Down syndrome are the same age as my own child has been invaluable. Women across the nation immediately respond to questions about whatever issue, concern or celebration another family is experiencing.

The first years of Lyra’s life, I regularly interacted online with my ORMs. We shared countless ways in which we helped our children acquire skills that most typical children pick up with seemingly little effort — things such as nursing, sitting up, crawling, pincer gripping, walking, talking and, perhaps most of all, toilet training.

During Lyra’s first years, I felt chronically panicked about whether I was doing every thing I could, and each thing the best way possible, to help her gain the skills for a full, happy life. Starting weeks after she was born, Lyra received speech, occupational and physical therapies for five years at Akron Children’s Hospital, where she still attends speech therapy sessions. She also receives all three therapies at her elementary school.

I went to my first of many National Down Syndrome Congress conventions shortly before Lyra’s first birthday. There I attended informative sessions on early speech development (and also bought a straw kit that trained her tongue to rest not on her lips, but inside her lower jaw’s horseshoe of teeth), and gross and fine motor skills. It is also where I met many ORMs in person for the first time.

But not all parents of children with DS have other things in common. Like any large group, some members will coalesce more easily with one another than with others. Think of the people you knew at school. You may have liked most of them, but only had sleep overs with a much smaller group.

A few years ago, a subset of the Original Rocking’ Moms started an annual get-together. I missed the first three because I wasn’t paying attention. Lucky for me, a few of these women reached out this spring and begged/ordered me to join them this year on a cruise. I had never been on a cruise because I presumed, like joining groups, I’d deeply dislike a trip that was overly organized and commercial. Boy, was I wrong.

For four days and three nights last month, 15 of my favorite mamas and I ate incredible meals, enjoyed a wide array of live entertainment, visited the beaches of two Caribbean islands and, best of all, danced for hours every night (silent disco, here I come!).

At the three previous events in cities, my ORMs endured unending logistics. Which hotel? Where to go to dinner? How many Ubers to call? Who paid for the Ubers and how much does each person owe? Do we want to see a band or a comedian? Those stressors do not exist on a cruise and we determined that from now on our annual gatherings will be cruises at different ports around the country.

We also did not need scheduled discussions about our children. Most of us have known each other for over 10 years and our conversations naturally flowed to the topics now germane to most of us, such as puberty and middle school. I left the ship believing Lyra is doing fine developmentally, which can feel hard to know when few DS families in our home community have children her age.

Parents of children with Down syndrome often say that their child is everything they never knew they wanted. I feel the same about my tribe of Down syndrome mamas. I belong to a lifelong group I find in many ways to be as meaningful and important as family. Sometimes even more so.

This was first published in the Akron Beacon Journal on Sunday, October 13, 2024.