We have plenty of coffee in our cupboard. What’s not in bloom has buds, promises, waiting. By Kara Gebhart Uhl
Family
It has to be a single leaf, floating through the sky by itself. Do you have a mom sign? By Kandace Chapple
Every night this family of five sits down together to watch a movie. Rotating who picks, no opting out. By Daisy Alpert Florin
This job is hard—physically, mentally, emotionally—it’s so damn hard. By Maureen Boesen
Every fertility journey is different. You never really know what somebody else is going through. By Amy Klein
Let your children see you trying. Let them see you cry. By Kaci Curtis
He said, “I never knew you started dinner at 4pm every weekday.” By Teresa B. Duffy
My kids are used to my loud, Jewish-mom complaining—but not this unkindness. Not this anxiety-fueled rage. By Hannah Grieco
We want to hear from you. Motherwell is here to tell your stories.
I ignored her recipe for many years as a way to avoid the loss. By Marcia Kester Doyle
I’m surprised by how many moms give me the thumbs-up for “letting” my daughter be a pirate. By Mimi Lemay
After bursting into tears, you text your brother-in-law: “Sorry, this is awkward, but make sure she doesn’t use a tampon for the bleeding.” By Lorren Lemmons
As much as I love Christmas, without Santa I felt only glee and relief at the massive reduction in my December workload. By Michelle Deininger
I’d raise my family differently, not because of the mistakes I made—though I certainly made my share—but because time means so much more to me now. By Melissa T. Shultz
They arrived. One after the other. In snowstorms. On holidays. From foreign countries. In succession—as inevitable it seemed as midterms and finals. By David Joseph
My eyes focus on my abdomen, the bulge pregnancy has left behind. My inner critic opens her mouth…but then I take in the whole picture. By Chrissie Dunham
Cell phones do not work here, and on a good day it takes only ten minutes to open email. By Mindy R. Roll
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
My parents grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust. Neither one of them knew how to tell me what had happened, so instead they said nothing. By Elissa Jacobs
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
These words by Joan Didion summed up my twenties, but they also capture the predicament of my current midlife crisis. By Elizabeth Newdom
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
Actions speak louder than words. Take your kids to the library once a week or make regular outings to your local bookstore. By Regan McMahon
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
My sister had asked me to bake. “Keep her busy” was the secret code among my family members that season. By Nancy Payne-Hambrose