I no longer have a baby: I have a child. How do I know? She has started to ask the tough questions. I officially entered a new zone of parenthood the moment I heard the words, “Mama, are we all going to die someday?” It was evening, and we were in the throes of the bedtime routine. My three-year-old was…
This week we will be featuring articles related to motherhood. I never felt that a person had to be a mother in order to celebrate Mother’s Day. I celebrated it when I became an aunt, before I had my own children, and now I even include my dog in the festivities. Mother’s Day is an opportunity to step back from…
Before I had children, I thought I knew love. I certainly knew what it was to love my family—my parents, brothers, grandparents—to love friends, and to love my husband. But loving a child is different. There is no choice in it. I believe I would do anything for the people I care about, but I’m aware that it would be…
Gender generalizations make me uneasy. But after practicing psychotherapy for many years with women from diverse racial, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds, there’s one that is unfortunately consistent: most women struggle with genuine self-care. Genuine self-care involves building into your life what you need to flourish—from providing an accepting home for your feelings, to pursuing your passions, to creating harmony between…
My independence from in-house imprisonment quickly ended when my freelance writing business dried up in 2008 while the bills continued to pour in. I landed a job as a copywriter at a pharmaceutical ad agency and girded myself for the adjustment to a 9-to-5-and-then-some world. But I was caught off guard by the age gap, made apparent during my first…
