Leggings, spaghetti straps, midriff shirts—what’s the harm? Motherwell’s cultural conversation with parenting experts Lisa Damour, Jessica Lahey, and Peggy Orenstein.
Author: Motherwell
Is my daughter a “tomboy” or a “girly girl”? She is neither and she is both.
By Lauren Apfel
The swings she used to ride are still moving, but she’s long gone, and I realize it’s only the wind.
By Robin L. Flanigan
We’ve raised three children of our own, but still have a little parenting left in us.
By Julianne Palumbo
The doctor finally looked at me and said, “We can’t hold her down. She’s sixteen.”
By Laurie Lichtenstein
We were unwittingly showing our daughter that being a mother excludes other possibilities.
By K.C. Willivee
Nobody told me while my house was falling apart that eventually I would start to see clearly again.
By Lauren Apfel
None of the parents I know are copping to having a kid who is average.
By Christie Tate
I want my children to be part of a college community that is more in line with the ideologies of #Imwithher than #MAGA.
By Randi Olin
My daughter loves her little brother dearly, it’s just that she’s outgrown him.
By Elizabeth Maria Naranjo
Yes, moms need to fight the current political situation. But they also need to take care of themselves.
By Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco
We will fight, my daughters and I. In our black stretch pants and pink pussy hats, we will take our stand.
By Francie Arenson Dickman
In an age of instant gratification, we are all losing the ability to focus on larger amounts of text—and that’s worrisome.
By Lauren Apfel
It made me spitting mad, the way the daily duties of parenting and home ownership began to rest entirely on me.
By Hope Edelman
I cling to the knowledge that if I have given her anything, I have given her hope. I see it in her smile.
By Jenn O’Connor
Planned Parenthood is one of the last vestiges of hope in this country.
By Abigail Rasminsky
I can’t imagine spreading my legs and letting doctors make quick work of this loss.
By Nicole Piasecki
If actively fearing for your children’s safety is a natural instinct, my maternal hardwiring must be faulty. By Lauren Apfel
Motherwell publishes provocative, evocative essays on all aspects of the parenting experience. Here are our most-read pieces from 2016.
I can’t help but think ideas about simplicity mask ideas about masculinity, and what it is, and isn’t, okay to feel.
By Ashley Lefrak Grider
Our carefully curated selection of must-read parenting books from the last few years.
By Lauren Apfel
I’m postpartum. Without a newborn. At 20 weeks of pregnancy, my baby didn’t make it.
By Jenn Press Arata
What shocked me most about online dating was the absolute scorn for women who wanted, or already had, children.
By Dena Landon
If bad things really do happen in threes, then my son being hit by a car had completed our 2016 trifecta.
By Samantha Shanley
Photographs suggested a future, a future in which we would look back at this moment, but a future where our baby might be gone.
By Yvonne Spence