Family Favorites 1998

Minnesota Parent, as an advocacy publication, must reveal many "secrets" that aren't always uplifting: why spanking is bad, the extent of chemical contamination in food, news on serious pregnancy complications, how to handle sickness and death . . . parenting isn't all fun and games. As Garrison Keillor said, more or less, if you're a parent, you've already blown it.

But sometimes, especially during the hot and heady months of summer, parenting can be mostly fun and games. Sometimes, summer can be enough to convince you that maybe you haven't blown it, after all. In keeping with the levity of the season, we dedicate every July issue of Minnesota Parent to our favorite family spots, activities, outings, games, foods, festivities, and so forth. We print the lucky local winners of our annual readers' poll of favorites, and we hound our contributing writers relentlessly for their own selections for the mix. This year, our writers truly combed the Cities (and beyond) and scratched around in the depths of their imaginations to come up with some really cool things to love about being a parent in Minnesota. They even shared guarded family recipes and top-secret parenting tips.

In this zany issue, we've given you pages and pages of ideas for having fun with your children, and not a single article telling you what you'd better do or not do for them before it's too late (if it's not already). Enjoy the season.

--Jeannine Ouellette Howitz

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for the 1998 Minnesota Parent Family Favorites!