If bad things really do happen in threes, then my son being hit by a car had completed our 2016 trifecta.
By Samantha Shanley
motherhood
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
Motherwhelmed is a graphic memoir about the tumultuous first years of a new mother’s life.
By Jessica Carew Kraft
I had to step back and let her stand on her own two feet—even when she was shivering feverishly under the covers.
By Candy Schulman
Why do so many kids have tutors? Are the placement requirements that lax or is everybody just trying to get a leg up?
By Francie Arenson Dickman
Caregiving, which is typically undervalued and underpaid, needs to be given the respect it deserves.
By Vicki Larson
Her son never wanted to be in the picture. Then he discovered himself behind the camera.
By Debbie Urbanski
I wondered if my daughter would grow up to hate me for forcing her to do things—like I hated my parents.
By Anna Gracia
I waited until my thirties to have kids, but there are still moments when my feelings don’t match my age.
By Ann Cinzar
Jessica Lahey’s book is an incisive and eye-opening read on the pitfalls of modern-day overparenting.
By Randi Olin
If I throw out the lunch box, will I be throwing these memories away with it?
By Daisy Alpert Florin
What do you say when your tween comes home talking about Princess Leia porn? A modern-day parody.
By Francie Arenson Dickman
After surgery, a mother comes to terms with the reality that a clean house is not the same as a loving home.
By Leslie Kendall Dye
Any guilt or reservation about a “failed” birth plan was replaced by an unwavering commitment to my son.
By Stephanie Noll
I wonder in which direction of social acceptance Charlie’s drum will lead.
By Sara Petersen
Is the mother-child bond really so fragile that it threatens to fall apart at any moment without the parents’ constant vigilance?
By Olga Mecking
I was ashamed of my pregnancy losses. I felt I had been kicked out of some elite club of women with impeccably functioning wombs.
By Stephanie Sprenger
After infertility, she’s not the parent she thought she’d be.
By Amy Klein
For now, what I hope my kids see is that family life is a team effort. We may run different plays than other families, but we’re only interested in the home field win.
By Ann Cinzar
Both my children hate being around me and water—I’m the parent whose urgent, borderline hysteria ruins all the fun.
By Christie Tate
If calling me Mrs. Badzin makes me seem more uptight than other people’s parents, I almost welcome that boundary.
By Nina Badzin
Is it possible to love being a mom without knowing why?
By Christine Organ
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
Being a mother made me a feminist, it brought me face to face with ugly truths about society I would have rather not seen before.
By Lyz Lenz
Cousins are more complicated than I’d realized. They give more than I thought possible, but they also demand more than I’d ever known.
By Antonia Malchik