I first published this post in April, 2020. Today things are better, but not fixed. We have childcare, but it feels precarious. There are snow days and teacher training days and holidays and sick days. So Many Sick Days. On Mondays, public school ends at 1:45pm. ONE FORTY-FIVE! And there are still too many things […]
motherhood
My daughter has a well-loved copy of Richard Scarry’s book, What Do People Do All Day? The book, first published in 1968, shows all the workers in Busytown at their various jobs. Kids love it. Adults love it. Four and a quarter stars on Goodreads. But 1968 was a long time ago, a different era. […]
My eight-year-old daughter is a fourth-generation perfectionist. In my family, the trait is matrilineal, so I know from firsthand experience that it has a few advantages. My daughter is likely to pay her bills on time and use semicolons correctly. She will not be intimidated by details. She will have a certain baseline competence that will make her […]
Three and a half years ago, I wrote a post about my struggle to decide whether to have a child. Now I have one — a wriggling, screaming bundle of chub and cheeks. She is wonderful. She is awful. She defies description. Until four months ago, I could not have imagined how it would be, […]
Three years ago, I wrote a post about having children. I was trying to decide whether I wanted one. I wish I could say that writing that post helped clear the fog of indecision, but that isn’t what happened. I continued to struggle and debate. And when that didn’t lead to a clear answer, I […]
May 7 – May 11 To commemorate mother’s day, Cassie starts the week by wondering whether paper/rock/scissors is a good way to trick her indecisive biological clock; Making the case that Cassie should take the plunge, Cameron introduces us to the unforgettable stadium metaphor; Christie says a family of two is a family too; Jessa […]
Michelle and Jessa converse about the reasons we chose to stop at one child. Jessa: So let me check I have it right: you’re an only child yourself and have an only child as well? Michelle: That’s right, and I always thought that if I became a parent I would have an only kid. I […]
Cassie, when you proposed this series of posts—well, the truth is, I was worried. There’s nothing that seems to make a comments section ignite like someone pontificating on motherhood. And I’m embarrassed to say, I’m not quite sure if my—our—decision to have kids had much to do with science, beyond that biology might have conquered […]