My mom took off her scarf and revealed her bald head. We all braced ourselves, but the woman at the shop didn’t flinch. By Kandace Chapple
Category Archive: Parenting Challenges
I always thought depression came like a fog. Postpartum depression came on differently, like an 18-wheel truck slamming into a cement wall. By Laura Cline
I didn’t have my therapist hat on when my son went through his grief—I was just his mom, muddling through it alongside him. By Lori Gottlieb
My father was an every-other-weekend dad, then a once-a-summer dad and, finally, a phone-it-in dad. Then we lost touch. By Stephen J. Lyons
In the summer, I put my sunbaked arm down next to his hoping he will notice it’s not so different. By Adrienne Sciutto
These words by Joan Didion summed up my twenties, but they also capture the predicament of my current midlife crisis. By Elizabeth Newdom
We asked, you answered. In three words.
As parents sometimes it’s a struggle to carve out even a few minutes to breathe. By Steph Auteri
This year is different. Maybe it’s because I’ve had the miscarriages. Maybe it’s because we both recently turned 42. By Angela Kidd
Our bond is like entangled particles—if he feels something in his heart, I feel it too, instantaneously. By Darcie Whelan Kortan
Next to Orion’s Belt are two dimmer stars. These are the babies I lost, one before each of my sons. By Julia Pelly
We already lived paycheck to paycheck, how in the world would we scrounge up the money to stay in even a cheap hotel near our daughter? By Anna Whitlock
Why in the world had I even brought the kids to the store? I just wanted to go home, have a good cry and forget about autism for a while. By Jennifer Jones
Our daughter asked good questions—what about the other baby? Were we sad? Why did it happen? By Cynthia Nuara
We can try to compare miseries, heartaches, injustices but, in the end, it becomes impossible. By Diana Kupershmit
Our married life was no longer comfortable. There was no indulgence, no whispered promises of sweet dessert. By Hannah Grieco
I sent you a bowl of black stones because of the hardness of loving a child for exactly who he is. By Brianne DeRosa
I wanted to believe that bringing teenagers into our life would make it easier to let them go. I was wrong. By Meredith Gordon Resnick
This has become our routine: reliving each event point by point, trying to trigger a memory. By Amy Roost
Motherwell publishes on all aspects of the parenting experience—from the poignant to the humorous to the thought-provoking. Here are our most-read original pieces from 2018.
If my belly was round and full of baby, would I hate my body less? This body that betrayed me. By Brittany Wren
“Oh, relax,” he says, ruffling my daughter’s wispy blonde hair. “We’re just playing.” By Lisa Norgren
My sister had asked me to bake. “Keep her busy” was the secret code among my family members that season. By Nancy Payne-Hambrose
It had been a long time since I’d heard her laugh. It felt like clouds parting. By Stewart Lewis
I tell my mom I’m eating everything I’m supposed to. But she sees through this immediately. By Allison Richards