The way we approach parenting in our society—as a wholly individualistic enterprise, each family left to figure out their own path—means that only parents with financial resources are realistically able to parent the way they want to. Telling parents “If you don’t like it, do something about it” only perpetuates the issue. Every time I […]
My paycheck and the health insurance it includes is my biggest contribution to my family. Don’t marry another academic, people told us. The market is brutal on couples. But in our mid-20s, Jason and I were thinking in romantic, not pragmatic terms. We met in our graduate creative writing program, the faculty of which included […]
It’s a lot easier to put baby’s needs first when you’ve got the money to do it. When we discovered we were pregnant, like so many other parents, we turned childrearing into a graduate-level research project. I spent hours studying breastfeeding, cosleeping, and attachment parenting. I read studies—I choose to believe some experts (Dr. Sears) […]
