Parenting

Parental Guidance Suggested

by Edith Pride,

From a speech delivered in September to the Boca Raton School Board, in Florida, by an elementary school teacher concerned about the behavior of parents during their children’s remote-learning classes.…

Other People’s Children

by Edward Sandford Martin,

When we are asked if we like children, we are used to saying that it depends upon the child; that we like some children, just as we like some grown…

The Donor

by Emma Donoghue,

He’s been a central character in the story for as long as Chris and I have been telling it to the kids. “We had Emma’s egg but we didn’t have…

On Being a Stepparent

by Ellen Rosenbush,

In my mid-forties, I married a man who had joint custody of two children, both boys, from a previous marriage. The boys, Jed and Jason, were nineteen and fifteen. Not…

Fever

by Karl Taro Greenfeld,

My eleven-year-old daughter, Lola, is short for her age, wiry, and fast. Her body type and skill set are not ideally suited to basketball, yet this is the sport she…

In Praise of Boredom

by Claire Messud,

The world into which I was born no longer exists, of course. I’ve been around for almost half a century, so it was inevitable. My parents — one French, raised…

(Untitled)

by Tamara de Lempicka,

How to Be a Parent

by A. Balkan, Sarah Manguso, Rivka Galchen, Pamela Druckerman, Michelle Tea, Emma Donoghue, Ben Lerner, Ellen Rosenbush, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Claire Messud,

These are tough times for parents. Not because child rearing has gotten any harder — it’s the same as it ever was — but because we are newly overrich in hand-wringing books…

The Grand Shattering

by Sarah Manguso,

I never wanted to be a mother. I wanted to be a person. My identity crisis began at age three, when I wanted to be Popeye but realized that I…

Curling Parents and Little Emperors

by Pamela Druckerman,

Soon after my book Bringing Up Bébé appeared, in 2012, I discovered an animated video made by a company in Taiwan. In it, a woman who’s supposed to be me…

Self-Portrait with Daughters

by A. Balkan,

It was summer and I was a new father, to eight-month-old daughters. I was the pilot of a car trip: New York City to somewhere near Lake Michigan — a…

From the Archive

Got it! Thanks for signing up!