Tatsiana Volkava/Moment/Getty Images Last week I was walking into church with another late-arriving mom. I hesitantly asked (as we do these days living in the Washington, D.C. area), “How are you doing?” Dressed in jeans and a bright top, she sighed and looked at me as we climbed the steep hill from the parking lot. “My child is no longer recognized by the US government. So it’s been a week.” My stomach flipped and I felt my hand move to my heart as I imagined the conversations she was having with her high schooler at the breakfast table. There are...
What We Can Learn From The Chaotic Parents Of '90s TV
ABC Television raised me. I mean, not literally; my parents raised me — but television had a real hand in it. Maybe because I was a chronically indoor kid, or maybe because I was a young, impressionable tween wildly critical of own parents’ "oppressive" rules (likely a little of column A and a little of column B), I took considerable interest in the parental characters on my favorite shows: how they reacted, taught, evolved… and how they messed up. And the parents I loved on TV messed up a lot. Rewatching some of my favorite shows now, I realized something:...
Dairy Queen Has A New Dipped Cone That's Going Viral With Teens & Tweens
Dairy Queen/Instagram Every once in a while, my tween daughter tells me we have to do something. Because everyone is talking about it. It’s how we got matching Owala water bottles, and why we saw Inside Out 2 on opening night— sometimes the tweens just know what’s cool before everyone else. Last night, she told me we have to go to Dairy Queen or she would die. Since that sounded kind of dire, and since I never minded getting ice cream, I agreed. But why was it so urgent? My daughter explained that they have a new dipped cone called...
We Want To Live In This Chinese Postpartum Hotel
TikTok Here in America, we often describe the immediate postpartum period as “being in the trenches” and it’s easy to understand why. Hospital stays are brief — between 24 and 48 hours for a vaginal birth and about two to three days for a c-section — and paid maternity leave is, famously, non-existent if your job doesn’t provide it for you. Looking for social support like baby nurses, home visits, or doctor’s visits beyond one six-week checkup? Get your head out of the clouds, you silly dreamer! As such, many moms have a rough go of this time, but physically...