Is it possible to love being a mom without knowing why?
By Christine Organ
Author: Motherwell
What grooming habits is my daughter going to learn from me, and what will I say to her about why she might be expected to shave her legs but her brothers won’t be?
By Lauren Apfel
The chance to remember myself at that age, in a way that I often don’t when I wrangle with my own teens, was illuminating.
By Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser
What can be seen as the messy complications of a blended family are, when viewed differently, just more branches on a beautifully tangled family tree.
By Elizabeth Maria Naranjo
A summer internship might help my daughter narrow down her career options, but I think she needs a break from the stress of her freshman year. By Randi Olin
Being a mother made me a feminist, it brought me face to face with ugly truths about society I would have rather not seen before.
By Lyz Lenz
Cousins are more complicated than I’d realized. They give more than I thought possible, but they also demand more than I’d ever known.
By Antonia Malchik
What makes this an exceptional book is that it always steers its eye away from self-pity and toward a greater understanding of love and acceptance.
Abigail Rasminsky and Mira Ptacin
Children are resilient little creatures and they don’t need our eyes on them, our attendance at every single school function, to know how profoundly they matter.
By Lauren Apfel
The idea of my son scanning the stands for my face and not finding it is a horrifying thought, a cross I cannot seem to bear. By Randi Olin
My entire life had become an existential paradox: I could endure neither my love for the baby nor the idea that he could be lost to me. By Catherine Newman
If my partner and I had been straight we might have all nodded to each other in recognition, but because we are queer, our difference is what stands out.
By Jennifer Berney
Without practicing curious, respectful engagement ourselves, we can’t expect to pass it on to our children.
By Sharon Holbrook
Would having another baby after 50 salve my grief over my children leaving home?
By Andrea Jarrell
Does the minute matter? If they didn’t know about it, would Baby A tease Baby B less? Would she watch out for her less? My hunch is no.
By Francie Arenson Dickman
There’s a fine line between being proud of our kids and bragging about them. Pride keeps the accomplishment firmly in their own hands. Bragging is a more public endeavor.
By Lisa Sadikman
That little boy who would cling to me is now a teenager who opts to spend much of his time in his room. By Randi Olin
I don’t think we are a family who loves each other in some especially profound way. We have just made the words that stand for our love a part of the verbal dance we do.
By Lauren Apfel
Seven years on, my son is still a sucker, thumb mostly, but also occasionally sleeves, zippers, the pointed snout of a stuffed animal.
By Daisy Alpert Florin
I am a mother and I am a lawyer. I don’t know how to reconcile these parts of myself, and I feel very alone in this struggle.
By Carinn Jade
I can’t help feeling sad for all the things I imagined his childhood to be, but now know it won’t.
By Zsofia McMullin