Skip to content

Starshine Roshell Posts

13 Reasons Why Parenting Is Frightening

Published by Starshine Roshell on June 4, 2017

With Wisdom Comes Age … And Fear

Last month saw the launch of two unrelated cultural phenomena that enchanted teens and horrified adults: the Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino and the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why.

The frothy, rainbow-swirled beverage was mercifully short-lived; ashes to ICEEs, fluff to fluff. But the controversial television drama lives on as the most-Tweeted-about show of 2017.

13 Reasons Why tells the story of a high school girl who committed suicide by slitting her wrists in a bathtub. But first, she recorded audiotapes detailing why she was ending her life and instructed that these tapes be passed around to the friends and classmates whose particular cruelties stung her so badly — the people “responsible for my death,” as she puts it.

The show has experts crying foul. Schools are advising parents not to let their kids watch it. New Zealand created a whole new rating category for it; those under 18 are forbidden from watching without an adult. Mental-health experts say the series — which depicts the bloody death in horrific, drawn-out detail — glamorizes suicide and could inspire copycats. Netflix met the backlash by adding more warnings to the first episode.

But no one listens to warnings.

Continue reading13 Reasons Why Parenting Is Frightening

Trump Plump: Post-Election Stress Eating Is a Thing

Published by Starshine Roshell on April 3, 2017

You used to be fun, they say. You used to make us titter with your escapist jaunts into the lighter side of life. What happened, a few restless readers have asked, to the ribald soccer-mom confessions and largely superficial rants about bass players and fallopian tubes?

Trump happened, you guys. He golden showered all over the fun.

I’m sorry if I’ve been weighing you down with ponderous political tirades. Now more than ever, we all need a moment’s respite from the political onslaught. And I want to offer you lighter fare; I do. But I’m just … heavier than I used to be.

See, I’ve put on a few pounds since Election Night from stress eating. And, okay, stress drinking. My husband deemed my new squishiness “Trump Plump,” and purely because I enjoy a good rhyme and a snappy hashtag, he is still among us. But I’m not alone in my plight. Though Lena Dunham claims election despondence killed her appetite and left her svelte, my friends and I have inhaled every last crumb of Lena’s untouched food and then some.

Continue readingTrump Plump: Post-Election Stress Eating Is a Thing

Parenting Under a Toddler-in-Chief

Published by Starshine Roshell on February 12, 2017

When you’re a kid, they tell you the greatest thing about this country is that absolutely anyone can grow up to be president and, even someone you’d never imagine.

And then he does.

Putting politics aside for a moment because I literally can’t even, let’s ruminate on basic human character, or the atrocious lack thereof. As a parent, the election of a pompous and petulant bully into the highest office in the land sets a tricky example for the spongy, observant little pre-people we are trying to usher thoughtfully into humanity.

We fear for immigrants and minorities, our health care, our press, and our planet, yes, yes, yes. But any parent who denies also being terrified of the long-term impact this clown’s clamorous invectives and derelict appointments will have on little Logan’s and Chloe’s psyches is telling a whopper of Trumpian proportions. I mean big league.  HUGE.

Continue readingParenting Under a Toddler-in-Chief

Why Uber Drivers Hate You

Published by Starshine Roshell on December 26, 2016

I love Uber. During a recent family trip to New Orleans, we took 10 Uber rides over five days, hopping in and out of strangers’ cars, zipping anywhere we needed to go at any time of day. Our friendly, efficient drivers regaled us with Mardi Gras stories, shared jambalaya recipes, and told us where we could buy the cherry-scented air freshener that was rocking my son’s world.

Continue readingWhy Uber Drivers Hate You

Fake News: The 'Post-Truth' Pact

Published by Starshine Roshell on December 18, 2016

Come, now. Don’t act so surprised. You didn’t really think it was going to be free, did you? You didn’t believe the extraordinary privilege of being alive and plugged in during the digital era would come without a cost — that having a handy portal to the sum of all human knowledge in your jeans pocket would be devoid of downsides.

You know how this works: Just as puppy kisses are edged with needle teeth and peanut-butter cheesecake brownies require a penance of kale and burpees, all exquisite things demand something unpleasant in return.

Continue readingFake News: The 'Post-Truth' Pact

Post-Election: The 7 Stages of WTF?!

Published by Starshine Roshell on November 16, 2016

This isn’t how it was supposed to be. A week after the election, we were supposed to be celebrating in the streets, a jubilant, enlightened populace congratulating ourselves on having elected the most sensible, knowledgeable, and experienced candidate. Having spoken out for respect. And inclusiveness. One nation under Her, indivisible, with taco trucks and pantsuits for all.

Analysts will spend years unknotting how we got this so wrong; it may wind up in history books. What’s clear is we underestimated Americans’ dissatisfaction with the status quo — and overestimated their concern for anyone besides themselves.

So now we sit, slumped, humiliated as the rest of the world stares slack-jawed at our crude windbag of a choice. Our swaggering snake-oil salesman. Our callow narcissist. (Hi, Trump’s NSA. Are we doing this yet?)

Continue readingPost-Election: The 7 Stages of WTF?!
The contents of this site are © 2022 Starshine Roshell. All rights reserved.