‘A World Where Mothers Are Seen’ By Vanessa Martir Feature Vanessa Mártir introduces Writing the Mother Wound, a series of essays on mothering presented in collaboration with Writing our Lives and Longreads.
How to Survive a Vivisection By Rachel Somerstein Feature After a traumatic experience with childbirth, Rachel Somerstein struggles to bond with her newborn daughter.
Cut From the Same Cloth By Myfanwy Tristram Feature Artist Myfanwy Tristram was irritated by her teenage daughter’s extreme fashions — until she took an illustrated journey into their origins.
Prayers to Lucia By Heather Quinn Feature When a high-risk pregnancy jeopardizes their eyesight, Heather Quinn explores the expectations of motherhood and finds common ground with a patron saint.
After Three Children, Reclaiming My Body and My Mind By Ukamaka Olisakwe Feature In the wake of childbirth and postpartum complications affecting her mental health and her marriage, Ukamaka Olisakwe picks herself up and starts over — in grad school.
In a World Full of Cruelty and Injustice, Becoming a Mother Anyway By Eliza Margarita Bates Feature A visit to Auschwitz makes Eliza Margarita Bates only more determined to have a baby, despite her painful chronic illness.
How Do You Move Past a Dad? By Sara Fredman Feature Pamela Adlon’s Better Things is not a riff on the antihero show so much as it is an antidote to it.
Holding the Pain By Amye Archer Feature Amye Archer explores her own relationship with the shooting at Sandy Hook as she works with survivors to tell their stories.
All the Obstacles in a Mother’s Way By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Everyone has something to say about this mother’s body, career, and parental choices.
And What of My Wrath? By Sara Fredman Feature Cersei Lannister could have been a great antihero, but she was on the wrong show.
Becoming Family By Jennifer Berney Feature Jennifer Berney explores how queer families challenge traditional notions of heredity and paternity.
Game of Crones By Laura Lippman Feature It wasn’t entirely Laura Lippman’s idea to become a mother in her 50s. But when it happened, she leaned in hard.
Does the Woman in the Painting Have a Secret? By Longreads Feature In the wake of her mother’s passing, Dylan Landis wrestles with unanswered questions about love and art, and imagines different possibilities of what could have been.
Bracing for the Silence of an Empty Nest By Michelle Cruz Gonzales Feature As her son finishes high school and prepares to leave for college, Michelle Cruz Gonzales looks back on his early years as a pianist and anticipates a future without the sound of his playing filling the house.
Wonder Woman By Longreads Feature Of all the genes parents pass down and values they instill, how does one take hold so much stronger than the others?
Everything is Fine By Sara Fredman Feature Sara Fredman thinks about the voices in her life as she raises young children and reckons with her fading father.
Mothers of the Future By Thea Prieto Feature In a new memoir, Sophia Shalmiyev attempts to reunite with her missing mother through scraps, signs, and surrogates.
Labor Pains: A Reading List By Sara Benincasa Reading List No one ever said expelling a tiny human our of your body would be easy — or if they did, they shouldn’t have.
A Reading List to Celebrate World Breast Pumping Day By Cheri Lucas Rowlands Reading List Here’s a reading list to celebrate World Breast Pumping Day on January 27.
What He Left Behind By Kira Martin Feature Kira Martin struggles through her connection – both emotional and physical – with her troubled and destructive son.
The Indignities of Poverty, Compounded by the Requirement to Prove It By Longreads Feature In an excerpt from her debut memoir, Stephanie Land recalls being poor, and moving with her young daughter from a homeless shelter to transitional housing.
Motherhood: ‘Thank God I think I love it??’ By Krista Stevens Highlight “We are experts in our own lives, but ignored by the world at large.”
‘She changed my heart. And that changed my mind.’ By Krista Stevens Highlight “There was so much I could have given her, but it pales in comparison to what she gave me.”
Dress You Up in My Love By Doree Shafrir Feature Doree Shafrir reflects on how Halloween changed for her after struggling with infertility.
A Birth Plan for Dying By Hanna Neuschwander Feature Hanna Neuschwander grapples with ending a wanted pregnancy, and finds that “right” or “wrong” fail to describe the moral reckoning.
Mega-drought and Me By Zoe Fenson Feature As California gets drier, a woman entering her 30s reflects on PCOS, pregnancy, and her desire to have children.
An Introduction To Death By A.M. Homes Feature Raising a teenager of her own offers author A.M. Homes a glimpse into her mother’s experience of raising her.
The Slow Regard of a Difficult Past By Krista Stevens Highlight “In my family, love was the slow accumulation of moments in which I was not subjected to great harm.”
How to Stay Married After Your Baby is Born, or, I’m not Divorced Yet By Longreads Feature An excerpt of ‘Now My Heart is Full,’ Laura June’s memoir, about the challenges new parenthood placed on her and her husband — and their marriage.
