This Mother’s Day Celebrate Someone Else
By Janelle Hanchett
“I am the mother who missed your kindergarten graduation. I am the mother who was drunk the morning of the first birthday party you were invited to…”
The Biggest Baby
By Natalia Cortes-Chaffin
“Admittedly, Leah’s toddler proportions were shocking, the kind of future surprise I didn’t anticipate during pregnancy, when I was worrying about random genetic disorders…”
Everything I Know About Parenting I Learned from Lou Reed
By Margot Page
“But Lou Reed always called me on it. Whenever I found myself about to sign some small person up for something ridiculous, be it baby French or a couple of paychecks’ worth of SAT prep, the bossy and unsubtle lyrics of Reed’s “Teach the Gifted Children” smacked me to my senses…”
Barren in the Andes
By Laura Resau
“Fertility is a deep and ancient craving, at once visceral and mythical, elemental and universal. This, at least, is my impression as an anthropologist, or, more to the point, as a woman who cannot seem to have a baby…”
The Blessings of a Botched Piano Recital
By Nina Badzin
“Sam started the song again, but froze at the same spot several more times. I put down my camera and glared at his teacher though there was nothing she could do…”
Hearing Langston’s Smile
By Kristen Witucki
“Because we are both blind, most of the doctors and nurses James and I encountered when Langston was born were skeptical of our parenting ability…”
My Adolescent Life
By Candy Schulman
“I began to let go of my daughter when she was three weeks old, nursing her and quickly handing her over to a babysitter, running out to teach my class and be home before her next feeding time. I let go of her when she was twelve…”
I Let My Twins Cross-Dress
By Lauren Apfel
“I like to consider myself progressive on the soft-wiring front. In a family comprised of three sons and one daughter, our toy selection, for example, is pretty balanced: cars mixed in with dolls mixed in with musical instruments mixed in with tea sets…”
Choosing Gloria
By Claire DeBerg
“It wasn’t enough? It wasn’t enough that I would, in the next day, be giving my child, a child I carried and cared for, to other people to raise?”
Because I Will Always Do It Again
By Jon Sponaas
“Though I can’t, in a general way, believe much of anything, I especially couldn’t believe that you were IN your mom’s tummy, floating around in that complicated liquid…”
