Weekender #256

✈️ Airfare jumped 25% in a year, so book holiday flights before Halloween.

✨ Mules and dramatic brooches are the fall trends worth shopping now.

🤖 Nine AI recruitment tools that handle the resume pile so you only meet the shortlist.

🌿 Aura House’s cold-air diffuser makes your home smell like a 5-star hotel. Use code ASSIST10 for 10% off.

I’m a mom of two: a 10-year-old and an almost-13-year-old, and if you’d asked me years ago what I wanted most for them, I’d have skipped past grades and manners and landed here: that they’d never be afraid to come to me.

We started early, before they could even talk back. Every day, we said “I love you” out loud. Hugs that lasted a beat longer than necessary. And somewhere in there, without a single big speech about it, they just knew no matter what they did, said, or asked, our love wasn’t going anywhere.

That part matters more than people think. Kids come to you with the hard stuff because you’ve spent years proving that your love isn’t a reward for good behavior. Being a good listener in the moment is the easy part.

So when both of our kids came to us with questions about sex and how babies are made, we didn’t flinch or hand them off to a book. We sat down and explained it like a biology lesson: clear, calm, a little clinical, exactly as curious as they were and not more. It’s something we tell them no matter what they ask or admit to us: nothing will ever change how much we love them, or how we look at them. No drama attached to the questions meant no shame attached to asking them.

The same goes for the harder emotional stuff. When either of my kids is struggling or confused, we don’t rush to fix it or brush it off. We sit in it with them. We tell them their feelings are valid before we tell them what to do about it, and we remind them we want this information coming from us, not a friend, not Google, not a video some algorithm picked for them.

But, I have to admit we don’t have this figured out. Not even close. This is our first time parenting, too, and we’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way. What we try to model for our kids is that adults mess up and recover from it, out loud, without pretending otherwise. If I want them to be okay with their own mistakes someday, I have to be okay with mine first.

None of this means we’ve skipped discipline. There are still consequences when they need to happen. But we’re careful to separate them from love. A consequence exists to teach them something, and it never doubles as a punishment for who they are.

One small habit that’s done more than I expected? I stopped asking “how was your day” and started asking specific questions. Who did you play with? What made you happy? What made you upset? What’s one new thing you learned today? The specific questions get specific answers, and specific answers are where you actually learn what’s going on with your kid.

And then there’s just… showing up for what they love, even when it’s not your thing. My daughter is deep into K-pop right now. She’ll want to show me the posters, play me the songs, and I sit there and listen, even though it is genuinely not my music.

My son is obsessed with soccer, and his dad plays with him every day. He also fell in love with cooking, so now that’s our thing, the two of us in the kitchen, no big lesson happening, just time.

If you’re deep in the teenage years right now (or bracing for them), I’d love to hear what’s working for you, and what isn’t. Hit reply and tell me. I could use the advice as much as the next teen-wielding mom 💛.

Kristel (TA Marketing)

There’s a specific kind of tired where cooking feels impossible and takeout feels expensive.

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📚 Read: Empire of AI by Karen Hao

Hao reported her way inside OpenAI to trace how a nonprofit research lab became one of the most powerful companies on earth. Thorough, well researched, and told with the kind of storytelling you don’t usually get in a book about a tech company.

📺 Watch: Reacher Season 4 (Prime Video)

Reacher’s back at it again, and the formula still works: one very large man, one very bad conspiracy, and a lot of people who should have picked a different target.

🎧 Listen: LOVE DESTROY ME by HONEYMOAN

Eleven tracks of hazy, moody indie pop that move through in under 35 minutes. Good company for a slow Saturday, and it still holds up if you actually sit down and listen properly.

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Meet Pacer, a 12-year-old who beat parvo as a puppy and has been proving he has a very human soul ever since. He’s a master of leisurely walks, intense sniffing missions, and a single look that says ‘don’t even think about leaving without me.’ His human says it best: she’s just living in his world.

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