“It’s easier to be angry at a presence than an absence. It’s easier to push against the person who is doing things wrong than the person who is doing nothing at all.”
mothers
Posted inEditor's Pick
Space to Breathe
“I can suction while gathering my spirits, while holding out for my son’s right to exist, to be present, to take up space, to interrupt ‘usual’ life.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
On Mother Trees: What Old-Growth Trees Taught Me About Parenting
“I was helpful, but unlike the giving tree, I was not entirely happy.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Hungry Ghosts
“I think of all the hurts she can never outlive — the ghosts that can never be satisfied, no matter how much of herself she feeds to them.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Taken Under Fascism, Spain’s ‘Stolen Babies’ Are Learning the Truth
“Thousands of Spanish children were taken from hospitals and sold to wealthy Catholic families. This is Ana Belén Pintado’s story.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
4 Dead Infants, a Convicted Mother, and a Genetic Mystery
“Kathleen Folbigg was found guilty of killing her babies. One scientist suspected the real culprit was mutant DNA—and went on a tireless quest to prove it.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
My Mother’s Other World
“Motherhood had always been her path. In exchange for it, however, the woman before me had surrendered her keys to the world.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
My Mom Believes In QAnon. I’ve Been Trying To Get Her Out.
“The irony gnawed at me: My entire vocation as an investigative reporter was predicated on being able to reveal truths, and yet I could not even rustle up the evidence to convince my own mother that our 45th president was not, in fact, the hero she believed him to be.”
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Nonfiction, Story
Out There I Have to Smile
Heather Lanier explores the pressure to perform happiness.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Britney Spears Was a New Mom and No One Tried to Help Her
“I’ve never met a woman who did not at some point, in those first early weeks of motherhood, break down.”