KJ Dell’Antonia, Jill Smokler, Jordan Shapiro, Janelle Hanchett, and Jessica Lahey weigh in on how much is too much when it comes to writing about our children.
It doesn’t seem quite right to just toss these pearly whites in the trash (no matter how much I thanked them, with all due respect to Ms. Kondo). By Anne Brinser Shelton
YouTube, Apple Music, Netflix. Kids seldom watch, listen to, or read anything these days they didn’t select themselves—or that wasn’t suggested by an anxioius-to-please algorithm. By Mary Janevic
I was 10. I loved my cat, Gizmo. And I killed him. By Michael Gentry
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 imagined my three daughters coming to me, full of their own insecurities, trying to explain they are beautiful the way they are, my fake boobs staring them down. By Katherine Prince
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
I saw him as I thought he was, an elegant young man for whom I could buy something expressly male. How wrong I was. By Penny Wolfson
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.