Reviews

“Discipline of mind and spirit, uniqueness of expression, ordering of daily existence, the most effective functioning of the human self — these are the chief things I wish to achieve.…

Catherine Newman wasn’t actually planning on having a second child. She was quite fulfilled (and occasionally overwhelmed) by the one she already had — two-year-old Ben. But, she writes, “.…

I think that I am like many people who become moms and dads. As we enter into parenting, we read voraciously on the subject, then put the books down for…

Before the arrival of my twins, I seriously considered international adoption. Several of my co-workers and friends have adopted internationally, and the idea of making a home with children from…

Chances are, you know someone with post-partum depression (PPD). Maybe she was someone in your pre-natal yoga class, someone you didn’t see much after you both gave birth. Maybe she…

I think I broke a lot of rules when I came to interview for the job I now hold, an academic job I desperately wanted. Already a mother, with a…

“What I said I would not do, what I so, so do not want to do, is write one more memoir of a white woman discovering race and racism. .…

When I offered to review Three-Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work, and Family, I felt a mild curiosity, a sense that, while I would not seek out this…

Last fall, I read Mordicai Gerstein’s The Man Who Walked Between the Towers to my sons, ages 3 and 5. The picture book, a true story of French acrobat Philippe…

Maternal acts in Toni Morrison’s eight novels are not exactly the stuff of sentimentality: mothers commit infanticide (intentionally in Sula and Beloved, “accidentally” in Paradise), severe neglect (in The Bluest…

Although I had always considered myself a creative person, it was motherhood that gave me focus and helped me to find my voice. After emerging from the haze that is…