You’d think that the anxieties about the “in crowd” wouldn’t start til middle school. Or at least that’s what Ashley Ziegler assumed. She thought wrong!

“As a parent, I’ve always been aware that the problems my daughters come to me with would start to feel big at some point,” she writes. “Their troubles would progress from simple things like, ‘My friend wouldn’t share their toy with me,’ to more complex worries like, ‘Why doesn’t my friend like me anymore?’ I knew it would happen; I just didn’t think it would start as soon as second grade.” Woof!

— Kelly Faircloth, Executive Editor

“I was responsible for packing my own lunchbox growing up, and let me tell ya: School lunches quickly became the bane of my existence,” writes Emily Weaver. “My go-to school lunch typically included a boring combination of some sort of turkey sandwich or wrap, Doritos, apples or grapes, and sometimes a sweet treat if I was lucky.” But now she’s got an entirely new approach: Trader Joe’s. Some real hits, here!