Mama at the Movies

Hollywood movies from Cinderella to Stepmom typically represent stepmothers as problems, or much worse, but The Sound of Music (Robert Wise, 1965) is the only film I’ve seen that solves…

When my mom went back to work full-time she had to make a choice. But we shouldn’t have to make that choice. There should be time for childrearing, breadwinning, bread-making,…

Laura Linney’s Joan is pale and unglamorous, the very portrait of the weary mother-writer. She doesn’t want marriage anymore, but she doesn’t apologize for what she does want: her home;…

Christmas Eve, 2002 It’s my first Christmas as a mom, and I as sit rocking infant Ben to sleep in the darkened room, I realize that the ubiquitous Christmas telecast…

It took me one month to get pregnant. It took me 38 1/2 weeks (gestation), 5 hours (labor), and 37 minutes (pushing) to become a mother. My route to parenthood,…

Ben used to wear a shiny yellow clip on one side of his head and a whale spout of a pigtail on the other. He called it “dress-up hair.” His…

You’re a twenty-three year old mother of two. You’re married to the only man you’ve ever kissed, a sweet guy you met at Nirvana’s last concert. Your dad’s in prison,…

You know the look. You’re at a party, having a perfectly fine conversation with someone you don’t know, when they ask what you do. If your answer includes the words…

Ah, summer in San Francisco. Breezy days, foggy nights, covering the children in paradoxical layers of sunscreen and fleece. But on an uncharacteristically balmy night recently, Tony and I headed…

“Da!” Eli announces when I fetch him after his nap. “Da! Da-daaah!” “Mama,” I answer. “Mama.” I know I shouldn’t take it personally – he’s just using the one sound…

On my first day of maternity leave, I took myself and my basketball belly off to a matinee. From the theater lobby’s plate glass windows, I looked down on the…