This originally appeared on Eat The Damn Cake. Republished here with permission. “What made you decide?” asked my friend Brenda, on the phone. “Um,” I said. I thought for a while. “I should figure it out,” I said. “I should try to think of the moment.” It eluded me. I could explain the reasons not […]
Parents can not always control what happens to their kids, but they can help them cope. When my daughter came out of my body and was placed on my chest, bloody and blue, ears stuck to her cone-shaped head, eyes that were open but saw nothing, I whispered something to her. Tired, sore, and on […]
Single mom Katerina Zacharia shares her self-care strategy for the new year. Three years ago, a child therapist asked, “So, what are you doing to take care of you?” I wanted to leap across the table and strangle her throat. “What the heck kind of question is that? Why would you ask something so ignorant, […]
Laurie Cunningham became a first-time mom just days shy of her 40th birthday. She shares why she refuses to worry about all the risks associated with older parents. A few days ago I was Christmas shopping with my friend, Erin, when we stopped at a café to grab lunch. For the two hours we’d been […]
Lynn Beisner discusses the risks of parenthood in the wake of the deadly Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting. Like most parents, I felt a huge wave of sympathetic grief last week when I learned of the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. A friend of mine with children in school called to talk about how anxious she […]
Lynn Beisner shares her method for getting her kids to share (and love) their gender-specific toys. What sensitized me to the problems of gendered toys was not any feminist ideas about how we teach gender. I had yet to be exposed to any of those ideas. What got me thinking about the gender toy trap […]
Lyla Cicero is all for equal parenting, but a part of her still wanted her kids to think of her as #1. Only when my twins were 20 months old did they master the correct use of the words “mama” and “dada.” They took quite a long time to even say these words, despite beginning […]
As an adult, Chanel Dubofsky now sees that many of the lessons she was taught as a child were products of her mother’s and grandmother’s own insecurity. I think often of what my mother would say about this life I’m living. I think about it when I’m at home, (where I live with many people, […]
What works for one parent, may not work for all. But learning from your mistakes should be universal. “In the ’70s, we played outside, ran around, rode our bikes without helmets, and if we talked back to our Dad we got our asses beat. Click like if you think spanking never hurt you.” (Paraphrased from […]
Annamarya Scaccia says she’s an amazing person today because she grew up with two moms. I remember when my mother came out to me. I don’t remember the date or the time. I don’t even remember my exact age (I was either 10 or 11). I do remember that we were in the basement of […]
Tina Traster knew early on that something wasn’t right with her adopted daughter, but admitting it meant possibly admitting that she’d made a mistake. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt make it look easy. They adopt kids from all corners of the world and the media broadcasts images of perfect Kodak moments. They’d have you believing […]
If Emily Rapp was a man, would people still ask her annoying questions about writing about her terminally ill son? Since I began writing about the experience of parenting my son Ronan, who is almost 3 years old and dying of a terminal illness, I’ve been asked this question several times: Don’t you feel strange […]
