media Archives | Cool Mom Picks

A study about the ignorance of teens + young adults around the Holocaust + anti-Semitism is disturbing. Here’s what we can do as parents.

by Liz Gumbinner | Books for Kids, Doing Good, Kids, Thinking : Parent

This morning I woke up to the study that’s making the rounds on Twitter: Nearly 2/3 of US young adults are unaware that 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust — some get the numbers wrong, some didn’t know at all. Dig deeper into the survey results...

The best presidential election resources for kids: Reader Q&A

by Liz Gumbinner | Entertainment + Media, Kids

Q: I’m looking for good resources for talking to my 11- and 12-year-olds about the presidential election, like candidate platforms that are kid-friendly reads. – Monica, via our Spawned Podcast Community. A: Well, this certainly sent me down an enjoyable rabbit...

The long-awaited Hamilton film is coming this summer to Disney Plus! Here’s how to watch.

by Liz Gumbinner | Entertainment + Media

It’s hard to argue the fact that Hamilton has done for musical theater (and for American history) what Harry Potter did for reading a decade or so before, turning an entirely new generation of kids — and especially kids of color — into fans of the...

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...

Hi! We’re Kristen + Liz!

Kristen Chase + Liz Gumbinner of Cool Mom Picks

We started Cool Mom Picks in 2006 to help make life cooler, more meaningful, and more fun for parents of all kinds.

Trivia: It was called Cool Mom Sh*t for the first two days. (Yeah, we rethought that.)

We had no idea our site would grow to become a major lifestyle network, that we'd end up sharing our finds with the TODAY Show and Martha Stewart, that we'd be able to make a real difference for so many small businesses and women-run companies, or that we'd end up with an incredible community of the coolest readers on the planet. (If we do say so ourselves).

We did.

And we still love what we do every single day.

We're so glad you're here.