I told my kids in McDonald’s. Because when you’re about to drop that kind of bomb, really you want them to be eating french fries. By Lauren Apfel
Lauren Apfel
Motherwell features parenting essays on culture, family life, obstacles and the process of overcoming them. We are excited to announce this year’s ten most read!
Looking for the perfect parenting gift, book club recommendation or holiday read? Look no further. By Lauren Apfel
It was so much easier to ignore my own pounding heart amidst the turbulence when I was worrying about my son’s instead. By Lauren Apfel
My son is deeply comfortable with being an introvert. But sometimes I think he is too comfortable. By Lauren Apfel
Having a kid before establishing a career was part luck and part madness. By Lauren Apfel
When the children are gone will I be something flimsier, something less than I was before? By Lauren Apfel
Motherhood has become so consuming to me that I find it hard not to project onto others a desire for the sense of purpose it offers.
By Lauren Apfel
Mothers are not static entities. We evolve in this role, as in any other.
By Lauren Apfel
The sooner a child has a framework to understand the nature of healthy relationships, the better.
By Lauren Apfel
Whatever the political climate, we will continue to write about bruised nipples, maternal ambivalence, how to raise kids who believe love is love.
By Lauren Apfel
“You’re not going to be good at everything,” I say. It’s a standard line in our house.
By Lauren Apfel
Is my daughter a “tomboy” or a “girly girl”? She is neither and she is both.
By Lauren Apfel
Nobody told me while my house was falling apart that eventually I would start to see clearly again.
By Lauren Apfel
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
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.
How do we decide when a family is “complete”?
By Lauren Apfel
Peggy Orenstein’s Girls & Sex is a deftly executed, non-judgemental cultural commentary on the complexities of female adolescent sexuality.
By Lauren Apfel
It’s important for parents to let their children take big bites of independence once in a while, even if it feels scary.
By Lauren Apfel
Surely what boys and girls gain from playing together should outweigh any inconvenience of having to organize separate changing areas.
By Lauren Apfel
One of the hardest parts of parenting is deciding when to let your children come to their own conclusions and when to steer them down a certain path, in the name of transmitting values.
By Lauren Apfel
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
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
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