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 […]
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 […]
Parental leave and workplace flex time, while extremely important, only go so far. It’s clear that the one thing facing all families today is that parents are struggling to do it alone and do it well. In 2001, Andrea Yates, a Houston mother suffering from postpartum depression and psychosis, drowned her five children in the […]
How can we shape the evolution of families so that they best serve the next generation? Over the weekend, an article in the Washington Post confirmed what many of us have known for a very long time: that marriage is either dead or in critical condition with little hope of long-term survival. At the very least, […]
This originally appeared on Mamamia. Republished here with permission. When women with husbands in high-powered jobs complain of their long work hours, it can be hard for a single mother to sympathize. At a party, a social gathering, or simply chatting to a parent in a park, if a conversation goes for long enough, eventually I […]
