media Archives | Cool Mom Picks

The diversity of women taking over entertainment: Editors Best of the Year

by Liz Gumbinner | Editors Best of the Year, Entertainment + Media

It’s hard to even know where to start with this — each of these women could be their own Editors Best of the Year, but together, they’re even more powerful. And that’s saying something. We have to start somewhere, so, as we often do,...

Mattel’s Creatable World and other progress towards gender non-comformity and inclusivity: Editors Best of the Year

by Liz Gumbinner | Editors Best of the Year

it’s time for our annual Top 10 Editors Picks of the Year! To kick things off, I wanted to start with one of the biggest, most positive events that pops out to us as we reflect on 2019: the growing awareness of gender fluidity and gender identity, and the...

Greta Thunberg and youth climate activism: Editors Best of the Year

by Liz Gumbinner | Doing Good, Editors Best of the Year, Health, Fitness + Wellbeing

When we first started this site in 2006, eco-friendly was one of our most popular tags. Parents were concerned about where their products were made, what ingredients were in them, and how they impacted the planet. Then the recession hit. Suddenly no one wanted to pay...

4 smart, simple tips to help kids make good media choices with their screen time.

by Cool Mom Staff | Tech CMP-Style, Tips + Tricks

We write a lot about the importance of raising good digital citizens. The way we see it, the internet isn’t going away, and the older your kids get, the harder it is to start teaching them good behavior. So we start young, so that as kids get older,...

10 super easy, totally free ways to help support your favorite independent publishers + keep that content free for you!

by Cool Mom Staff | Doing Good, Tips + Tricks

It’s hard out there for an independent publisher. But here we are, like we have been for the past 13 (whoa!) years, putting out out stories, offering tips, and uncovering cool finds that we really hope our readers enjoy — all while making sure it remains...

The big college fraud scandal: One thing we need to fix that we’re not talking about enough

by Liz Gumbinner | Thinking : Parent

Surely by now you’ve heard the news about the $25 million Operation Varsity Blues bust, in which dozens of wealthy parents and coaches have been arrested for scamming the private university entrance system in the most egregious ways. If not…welcome to the...

The US Negro Nurses of WWII | Women’s History Month Stories to share with your kids.

by Liz Gumbinner | Thinking : Parent

I believe if Women’s History Month gives you an opportunity to learn even even one single new story about important women in history who you didn’t know before — and then share that story with your kids — then that would be fantastic. So I...

If you’re going to watch Green Book, read these articles first. Or, after.

by Liz Gumbinner | Entertainment + Media, Thinking : Parent

Last night’s 2019’s Best Picture award at the Oscars went to Green Book, a film based (ever so loosely) on a real relationship between prominent Black jazz pianist and classically trained musician Dr. Don Shirley, and his hired driver, Frank “Tony...

How a 13-year-old Broadway fan created the coolest Halloween door decorations

by Liz Gumbinner | Entertainment + Media

So that 13-year-old Broadway-obsessed kid? That would be my daughter. And after last year’s attempt to mashup Halloween with Broadway musicals, she improved on her artwork this year and taped it straight on our apartment door. So, proud mama that I am, I wanted...

12 year olds can be arrested for trick-or-treating and WHAT IS GOING ON | Spawned 129

by Cool Mom Staff | Podcast

So uh, yeah. Turns out that some American towns are now banning 12-year-old kids from trick-or-treating, under penalty of arrest. We think it’s nuts, of course, so we had to talk about it this week on Spawned.There are even a lot of expert reasons that...