Popular articles by Rona / Sort by date

I feared that my son's adolescence would reduce me to screaming, fist-shaking fury. I had no idea that the dread teen years would be my best years as a mother. [more]

There are all kinds of ways to push the boundaries of experience. You can hike mountain trails in grizzly country. You can swim with dolphins. Meditate on your inner energy. These are quick routes to a whole new perspective. But let's talk about the long route, where how-did-I-get-into-this fears and over-my-dead-body standoffs deter all but the truly committed. It's called marriage and it's a lifelong adventure in the unexpected. [more]

Thirty years before my sister and I told our widely read story of rivalry and love in More magazine, she inspired my very first feature article. I was 28, she was 24, two young women taking their first steps toward a truce in their lifelong conflict. [more]

You don't just make friends; you keep them, one guess-what phone call or soul-baring confidence at a time. But the reality is that you can't keep a friend forever. One of you will die and the other will mourn. And the odds are that no one will send a condolence card. In the hierarchy of loss, friends are thought to rank last, even though a friend's death changes a woman forever. [more]

I'd been hoping for a daughter who would play with dolls as I used to do. Instead I had a son with a passion for trucks (the noisier, the better). It was not what I expected, but I've learned to like surprises. [more]

My new beauty role model is well into her 60s, and neither lifted nor Botoxed. She has given up stilettos, sheath dresses, eyeliner and a husband. When I'm having a bad face day, she reminds me what beauty really is: the artless confidence that comes with letting go of whatever constricts a woman's best self. [more]

When we rented a getaway cottage in Maine one long-ago summer, we pictured ourselves eating fresh-caught lobster on a deck overlooking the water. Little did we know we had rented the homeliest of yurts. [more]

A new breed of woman entrepreneur is proving that sometimes the best employee is your husband. Rona Maynard gets the inside story from four of the pathfinders. [more]