parenting

Ain't I a Mommy?: Bookstores Brim with Motherhood Memoirs. Why Are So Few of Them Penned by Women of Color?

Shortly before the birth of my first child nine years ago, while browsing the bookstore for mommy wisdom, I discovered Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year and fell in love with the author and the book. More than any parenting truisms the book might have... Read more »

Mom's the Word: Yummy mummies, alternadads, and other literary offspring

At the turn of the millennium, Bridget Jones and the Sex and the City girls heralded a new era of fun, fearless singledom. Chick lit, accompanied by memoirs and anthologies about single womanhood, made it whimsical for an otherwise-capable woman to be vain, proud of her missteps and mistakes, and... Read more »

Alpha Mom, Omega Journalism

With all the world in strife, one might think the moms of New York would cut each other some slack…. That motherhood, in short, would serve as a safe house where civility and mutual respect rule. Think again. Motherhood, for all its well-documented joys, has become a flash point for envy,... Read more »

Muddy Daughters

The year my oldest daughter turned 4, her little sister was born, and that spring, in desperation, I let her play more or less unsupervised in the neighbors’ yard. When I came up for air from the endless diaper changes and nursing sessions, I’d catch a glimpse of her through the family-room... Read more »

Five Conversations About One Thing - Joe Kelly

Years ago, Joe Kelly noticed a Maidenform ad reading “Inner beauty only goes so far” on the side of a city bus, and was hor­­ri­fied to imagine one of his young daughters as the subject of it. As one of the founders, with wife Nancy Gruver, of New Moon: The Maga­zine for Girls and Their Dreams, an... Read more »

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What I Learned About Gender and Power from Sailor Moon

My life began in 1995 — the year I turned eight and became a divorced kid.    Read more »