Cynthia Samuels

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  1. When a Son Gets Married

    3/27/11 3:00pm by Cynthia Samuels
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    Engaged Couple

    I have always known I was blessed in the privilege of our children - not just that they exist but in who they are and how they live. And now, our second son -- our baby, has announced that he's engaged. We are crazy about his fiance and thrilled with their decision; there's no "but..." or "except for." What there is, though, is something more complicated.  Read more >

  2. Two Little Boys, Ronald Reagan at 100, and the Yankees

    2/6/11 11:00am by Cynthia Samuels
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    Remember when Reggie Jackson was Mr.October?  The guy the Yankees turned to in every World Series, and who had an impact even on their opponents - one of whom is "Sarah and the Goon Squad.".  To many kids kids growing up in Manhattan, Reggie Jackson hung the moon.  Unfortunately, he also frequently got drunk and into fights on homeward-bound post-game flights.  What, you wonder, does that have to do with Ronald Reagan?  Read more >

  3. Want a Feminist Son? Tips From a Veteran

    1/19/11 5:00pm by Cynthia Samuels
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    Feminist Boys

    Someone asked me how we raised feminist sons. I don’t have a checklist. And if I were to respond seriously, I’d start with something really corny: teach them to respect people – all people. The elevator man. The bus driver. Their best friend’s mom. The guy at the candy counter. Their friends. Their parents’ friends. Their baby sitter. They were Manhattan kids, but they were raised to think of the feelings of every person they met. Of course, that meant all women, too. That was an advantage.  Read more >

  4. Holiday Gifts for Grown Kids: What to Do?

    12/15/10 2:00pm by Cynthia Samuels
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    Pink Christmas Present

    Maybe they’re not into Santa anymore, but grown-up kids still need presents. That’s not easy. There are reasons -- lots of them -- why shopping for adult offspring can give you palpitations, especially when they live across the country or the Atlantic or some other version of far away.  Read more >

  5. Thanksgiving When All the Kids are Grown-Ups

    11/23/10 2:00pm by Cynthia Samuels
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    Samuels Family

    Life is different when your kids are grown, especially around the holidays. One of my sons lives in London with his new wife, the other in San Francisco with his cool girlfriend. We hardly ever get to be all together, and when we do it’s not for long. This year, as is often the case, it’s going to be Thanksgiving. Although I learned long ago not to get really nuts about it, here’s the truth: When your kids grow up there’s not a lot you can do for them besides feed them and not pressure them to be around when they can’t.  Read more >

  6. A New Year and a Chance to Be Better (Really)

    9/16/10 5:02pm by Cynthia Samuels
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    Pomegranate for Rosh Hashanah

    But about five years ago, my husband and I began a journey to a more observant life and came to understand that these days -- the Days of Awe -- have a deep meaning indeed. We pray that God will write us in the Book of Life for another year. "On Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed." It is a chance to think about how we live -- and love. Of what kinds of people we really are, and how we treat those around us. We repent those sins we know we have committed and those we don't realize we've done. Here's what I wrote about it on my own blog a couple of years ago.  Read more >

  7. Toddlers on Leashes, Adults Using EM Finders: What Happens When Someone You Love Gets Lost?

    8/19/10 6:20pm by Cynthia Samuels
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    elderly hand on a cane

    There was a time when I looked with disdain upon parents with their toddlers on leashes.  My mom said things about those families I wouldn’t even repeat.  But first-grader Etan Patz disappeared while I lived in New York.  And before Adam Walsh -- even before I had kids of my own -- I was petrified of those nameless dangers that hover over our children when they’re out of our reach.  Read more >

  8. Elder Blogs: The Web Isn't Just for Those Young Folks

    5/16/10 8:34am by Cynthia Samuels
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    woman on laptop

    Say what you want about the young coolios wandering around the Internet, they aren't the only ones doing the surfing. The primo “elder” site, Ronnie Bennett’s Time Goes By: What It’s Really Like to Get Older has a an elder blogroll – and last time I checked there were 350 blogs listed there. For every one of them, there are dozens who don’t like the label and write in happy solitude. And they write about everything!  Read more >

  9. Is Estrogen Out of the Doghouse?

    5/2/10 12:10pm by Cynthia Samuels
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    Sister Mary Menopause

    A first-born graduating from sixth grade –- that’s a legitimate reason to get a little weepy. And when you tell a friend you’ve been crying about it and she starts quoting the Beatles “love goes on within you and without you” and you cry some more –- that’s no surprise, either. But tie all that crying to more crying –- in the office, out in the field -- in the shower even, and something is up. That something was, for me -- you guessed it -- perimenopause: hormones on a major rant.  Read more >

  10. What Is the Difference Between a Puppy and a Baby? (This Is NOT a Trick Question)

    4/17/10 9:55am by Cynthia Samuels
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    German Shepherd puppy

    There hasn’t been a baby in this family for 30 years; our baby turned 30 in November.  Now, suddenly, we’ve got an infant –- and we’re responsible for him.  Completely.  Never mind that he’s a tiny German Shepherd; he still needs to go outside in the middle of the night, is a skittish eater, has a cry you can’t ignore and is completely, totally adorable.  Read more >

Cynthia Samuels

Full Name
Cynthia Samuels
Member Since
June 2006
About Me: 

Cynthia Samuels is currently Managing Editor of Care2/s Causes Channels, which serve 14 million members and cover 11 subject areas.  She has an extensive background online, on television and in print, with particular experience developing content for women, parents and families.  For the past three years, that experience has been largely with bloggers, twitter and other social media.  She has been part of BlogHer, for four of its five years and has spoken at BlogHer 2007, BlogHer 2008 and BlogHer DC.  Among her many other speaking appearances is the February 2009 Fem 2.0 Conference, where she joined Gen Y and Gen X women to discuss feminism, generational identity and Web 2.0.

Earlier, she spent nearly four years with iVillage, the leading Internet site for women; her assignments included the design and supervision of the hugely popular Education Central, a sub-site of Parent Soup that was a soup-to-nuts parent toolkit on K-12 education, designed to support parents as advocates and supporters of their school-age kids.  She also served as the iVillage partner for America Links Up, a major corporate Internet safety initiative for parents, ran Click! – the computer channel - and had a long stint as iVillage's Washington editor. In addition, she has developed parent content for Jim Henson Interactive and served as Children’s Book Editor for both Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com.

Before moving online, she had a long and distinguished career as a broadcast journalist, as senior national editor of National Public Radio, political and planning producer of NBC's Today Show (whose audience is 75% women) where she worked for nine years (and was also the primary producer on issues relating to child care, education, learning disabilities and child development), and as the first executive producer of Channel One, a daily news broadcast seen in 12,000 U.S. high schools.  She has published a children’s book: It’s A Free Country, a Young Person’s Guide to Politics and Elections (Atheneum, 1988) and numerous children’s book reviews in the New York Times Book Review and Washington Post Book World.

A creator of online content since 1994, Samuels is a partner in Cobblestone Associates, LLP, is married to a doctor who is now a first-year law student and has two grown sons who make video games.

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