A longtime magazine journalist

I'm the "Momfidence!" columnist in Woman's Day magazine and a contributing editor to Parenting and Babytalk. I've been on the family beat since my second job out of college, when I edited a magazine for pregnant women called Pre-Parent Adviser (there's a warm and fuzzy title). I'd never once held a baby at the time. Since then I've written more than 300 features and essays (usually while holding a baby and typing with one hand) for national magazines, including Parents, Redbook, USA Weekend, Family Life, The New York Post, Glamour, and Health.

Tantrums, naps, picky eaters, discipline, kids who like to strip naked--you name it, and if moms worry about it, I've written about it. I even once won an award from a prestigious magazine association for an article about potty training.  Other writing awards include a  2006 Media Award from the American Speech Language Hearing Association.

Previously I was a magazine editor in New York City and in Knoxville, Tennessee.

A book author

Momfidence! is my favorite. But I also specialize in collaborations. I've written books with bestselling pediatrician Harvey Karp (The Happiest Toddler on the Block), with ob-gyns at Duke (Consciously Female and Body, Soul, and Baby) and Harvard (The V Book), and with Arizona State learning expert Jill Stamm (Bright From the Start).  In the 1990s, I wrote three volumes of a Parenting Magazine series: The Parenting Guide to Your Toddler, The Parenting Guide to Positive Discipline, and The Parenting Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth. See www.paulaspencer.com.

I'm also the proud author of two cute gift books: The Pregnancy Journal and Parenting: The New Mom's Handbook (both Peter Pauper Press). My essays appear in the anthologies The Experts Guide to the Baby Years (2006) and Guideposts for the Spirit: Stories for Sisters (2003).

A family "expert"

I use quote marks because I'm always a little suspicious of experts who supposedly have all the answers. As a journalist I'm used to asking the questions. But when you write--and live--the same subject for as long as I have, you develop a certain POV.  My 10-cents has been quoted in magazines such as Real Simple, Ladies Home Journal, Parents, Fit Pregnancy, and elsewhere; on websites such as ParentCenter.com, and ToddlersToday.com, and on numerous radio and TV programs , including "The CBS Early Show" and North Carolina Public Radio's "Charlotte Talks." 

I've been a Babies & Toddlers "Expert Mom" at ClubMom.com.  And I also cover the opposite end of the age spectrum, reverse parenting (caring for aging parents, the next hot topic in American family life) as a founding senior editor of the exciting new website Caring.com.

A "mom-lit pathbreaker"
Or so I was once described in The New York Times Book Review.

A no-longer-nervous speaker
Keynote talks have included the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association annual meeting, Charlotte Parent's 10th annual Moms@Work Luncheon, Carolina Parent's Women@Work Breakfast, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, Women Today Expo, Southern Women's Show, American Library Association, others. I teach writing workshops, too.

A real-life mom

Making me a true expert, of course, are my four kids--Henry, Eleanor, Margaret, and Page. (No, we did not deliberately pick names that would form the acronym "hemp.")

A loving wife

Can't omit that one.

A big fan

Of Jane Austen and Owen Wister; the color orange; dark chocolate; Upper Michigan; sock monkeys, Ceramika Artystyczna pottery from Poland; milk chocolate; Scrabble; Macs; Gordon Lightfoot (to my children's dismay) and Neil Young (recommended for labor); the Outer Banks of North Carolina; the Iowa Hawkeyes; almond M&Ms; cashmere; peanut M&Ms; train travel; plain M&Ms; dark chocolate M&Ms, newts.

As a mom, I'm partial to smocked rompers and dresses; handmade cards and gifts; sippy cup lids; DVD players; baby dolls; Richard Scarry books; microwavable instant brown rice; hair detangler; Teletubbies; foosball; Nancy Drew Mystery Stories (cool stuff here); "Sleeping Beauty;" wooden Plan Toys dollhouses; bedtime hugs and kisses (but only the first three or four times); and bedtime.