Would you dress your son in shirts that said “I’m too handsome to read books, so my sister reads them for me,” and “Future Trophy Husband”? Come with me. Let’s open the door to a parallel universe. You unlock this door with a key of imagination, just like on The Twilight Zone. Here in this parallel […]
In many ways, my mother’s failure to protect me was much worse than my brother raping me. Trigger warning for rape. In a lifetime of moments, most are quickly forgotten. Only a tiny number are retained, and most of these are filed away in our mind, reminiscences that can be pulled out or put away […]
Oh, my girl. How can you know “how you feel” when all your life people have been telling you what you are? My girl is 8 years old. She is clever and kind and tall and strong and funny and stubborn and beautiful—well of course I think all of these things, because she’s my daughter […]
This should not be a women’s issue. It should be a parents’ issue. And it should recognize that different children will need different things, often impacted by the circumstances of their birth. Our first night with our son was spent in a hotel in Seoul, South Korea. Sudden parents to an almost-4-month-old, despite months of […]
Mothers are two and a half times more likely than fathers to cover the nightshift of caretaking. Arianna Huffington has deemed sleep the next big feminist issue, because women are significantly more sleep deprived than men. Without enough sleep, she argues, we cannot reach our full potential as a sex: “A nation of sleepy women is […]
For those of us lucky enough to have the engaged kind, the ever-present kind, sometimes the step-parent label, so wrapped in stereotype and qualification, doesn’t quite fit. I am turning 27 next week and my Facebook feed is predictably overflowing with engagement rings, bridal white, and blurry sonograms. While some friends prepare to take on […]
In defense of conscious, modern parenting. Parents today can be some of the most annoying people on Planet Earth. They brag incessantly about their kid’s first crap in the potty on Facebook, they’re overly protective to the point of making their children wear life jackets in the bath, and they incessantly praise the brilliance of […]
Sometimes your child doesn’t need you in the way you think he does, sometimes he’s more capable than you thought. “Look on the bright side.” It’s a cliché that can make my blood boil. At first glance, this is a story about looking on the bright side. Moms of kids with special needs, like me, […]
