Despite the Instagram-worthy scenery, the women of ‘Big Little Lies’ are in pain, and rarely is succor found in their spouses. I had no bridesmaids in my wedding party because my husband and I had no wedding party. We made the decision to stand solo at the altar for several pragmatic reasons, not the least […]
I cannot give myself over to a cycle of inadequacy and shame. So, what can I do? If you receive news from as many sources as I do — New York Times, Washington Post, Facebook, Twitter, that gun control group I joined four years ago, the Islamic Cultural Center I once donated to, the Southern Poverty […]
On my worst days, I feel that my atheism — a byproduct, no doubt, of my education and racial privilege — has cost me my place in this country. Donald Trump’s inaugural address broke from recent tradition in several ways, and was his most religious to date. His speech stressed unity and solidarity as the […]
If you believe your right to buy an AK-47 this afternoon is more important than reasonable gun control legislation that simply supports background checks and magazine limits, then you should rethink your “pro-life” identity. Early last Thursday morning, the Senate approved by a vote of 51-48 a “budget blueprint” in Republican efforts to repeal the […]
We of the far-flung families share a situation where we have to look to each other for help because there is no one else, and nobody can do it alone. The scene: Christmas Eve in Boston. The weather is rainy and unseasonably warm, the dregs of paltry December snowfall washed away in a March-like, sooty […]
It’s likely this all sounds very selfish. And in some ways, it is. When you’re prone to holiday depression, though, the next few weeks are often distilled to basic survival. I don’t remember exactly when I started to hate Christmas; I know it wasn’t always that way. My parents’ divorce was a contributing factor: my […]
Appropriating a non-mainstream identity, especially for our kids, is not only deeply misguided, but a further dehumanization of the identities we’re appropriating. Living with an almost-3-year-old means hearing every variation of the word no 214 times a day. It means shoving an unconscionable amount of requested-then-rejected food down the garbage disposal, hearing the disintegration of […]
The oldest of the parallel universes are the gender universes that leave so many men and women wondering how the same place—Earth—can be experienced so differently. We live close together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things—it’s all just a different kind of the same thing.― Susan Glaspell, Trifles It’s been […]
The more alone you are in parenthood, the more alone you are in parenting. One hundred years ago you’d have a child surrounded by other women: your mother, her mother, sisters, cousins, sisters-in-law, mother-in-law. And you’d be a teenager, too young to have had any kind of life yourself. You’d share childcare with a raft […]
If we are to talk frankly about the conditions that lead us to use terms like rape culture, then perhaps we need all sides to take ownership of the experiences that add up to something so big and insidious and normalized. Even now, over 20 years later, I can’t bring myself to use his name, though […]
Feeling sexy in a body my culture deems unsexy, while also believing that body should dutifully service someone else’s pleasure doesn’t make me want to slip on a silk teddy and give it the old college try. In a small examination room at my doctor’s office, I sit on the narrow table wearing a papery […]
The social stigma of spending money, particularly when you’re not wealthy and especially on “non-essential” items has a note of arrogance to it. It believes the future is an equitable given. When I was 12, my mother liquidated my modest college fund so that we could buy a 23-year-old ex-racehorse named Fancy. No, this wasn’t […]
