I’ve always been proud my hands look just like my mother’s, even though we’ve had a strained relationship for most of my life. That’s because my mother’s hands look like her mother’s ...

It was November of 2020 and I was under the blue skies of Palm Springs, alone for the first time in nine entire months. I was experiencing that particular brand of tired and dumb that only comes ...

I was flat on my back under fluorescent lights, bellowing. The epidural had failed. The nitrous oxide had made me puke. Nurses in training had given me rough cervix checks. Labor was dragging me ...

As a child of the ’80s, I spent my summer breaks either babysitting or being babysat. Teen sitters held a mythical status for me. I was in awe of the neighbor who walked me to the library ...

My 8-year-old has been begging me for a puppy, and I worry I am losing my resolve. Part of me thinks it could be sweet and give him some good company; part of me thinks it will ruin our lives.

Sixteen weeks into my second pregnancy, I had a miscarriage alone at home on an otherwise unremarkable autumn afternoon. I had officially entered the supposed “safe zone” of the second ...

Twelve years ago when my daughter was born, my parents were there in the hospital room with me to welcome her. My mother cut the cord and my father announced, “It’s a girl!” The three of us ...

A few months ago, I was enjoying an adult beverage with my newish friend Julia when she mentioned that every Monday she goes grocery shopping at the Berkeley Bowl, a beloved East Bay institution ...

“I knew it would be bad, I just didn’t know it would all happen so fast,” Hannah Baker*, a 32-year-old mother of one in the southeastern United States, tells me. “I had already made up my ...

This year, my 9-year-old daughter was assigned her first research report at school. She was excited to learn new facts about her topic, and she was very glad she’d been partnered with a specific ...

Let’s get one thing straight: My well-worn copies of Emily Oster’s books Expecting Better and Cribsheet are dog-eared and underlined, and The Family Firm is currently on my nightstand.

Elizabeth*, 32, has been taking stimulants since the third grade. During her first pregnancy in 2020, her doctor told her she had to stop taking her medication, and she struggled, but felt she had ...