Family

Wearing My Grief On My Sleeve

And somewhere in there, as my hands ached from the work, I began to grieve

Feb 07, 2023
Untangling the Horrors of Being Parented Resentfully

In the ‘Beloved,’ ‘The Baby,’ and ‘Barbarian,’ Black women grapple with vengeful mothers and children. In my life, I’ve broken that cycle.

Jan 12, 2023
An Autistic Girl’s Guide to Horses

Learning I was autistic gave me insight into my childhood fixations and hurts, into how those things have stayed with me over the decades.

Dec 08, 2022
Revenge Travel Helped Me Learn to Manage My Anxiety

Though I estranged myself from my toxic family, their hold on my mind still needed to let me go. So I got on a plane and left.

Nov 28, 2022
Taking on the Feminine Labor of Creating Holiday Magic

I can’t give up the invisible labor of making “holiday magic” because that’s how I feel closest to my late mother.

The Mom in ‘Home Alone’ Is a Messy and Magnificent Model of Motherhood

Is Kate McCallister a “good mom”? That’s beside the point. Her example shows the shallowness of such standards: She loves her kid. She proves it.

Nov 16, 2022
Instagram Makes Parents Feel More Clueless Than We Really Are

All these self-styled experts online drown out the intuitive voice of the parent and sow doubt in every decision that they make.

Nov 09, 2022
Pickles Taught Me the Art of Self-Preservation

I was not suspended in a timeless brine like my pickles. I was not a stoic javelin of cellulose waiting to strike a bored palette. My answers would not be in rigidity, in control.

Sep 22, 2022
David Attenborough Helps Me Explain the Climate Crisis to My Son

I use his favorite David Attenborough shows to help me explain my climate activism

Jul 25, 2022
The Price of Admission for Fat Bodies

Anyone who has lost and subsequently gained weight back can tell you that you will be treated differently in real, material ways. The difference is at once alluring and painful.

Jul 14, 2022
The Funk of Poverty

My poverty is the most dangerous kind of poverty. It is religious. This is what I know, what my family and community know.

May 25, 2022
How Watching 'Supermarket Sweep' Gives Me Hope After Loss

Supermarket Sweep is what gets me the closest, catapulting me back to a time when we were alive, together.

May 17, 2022
A Family History of Fear

I got a D in math and my sister got cancer. These aren’t causalities, only things that happened one right after the other.

My First Taste of Protest In a Thai Roadside Café

Will it challenge how they feel about the kingdom? The nationalistic pride of what it means to be Thai?

Apr 21, 2022
I Love You by Remembering What You Hate: A Recipe for Herby Salad

I find joy in being let into the idiosyncrasies of someone’s taste.

Apr 14, 2022
My Father Tried to Preserve Nature—And the Best of Him—In His Writing

My father has been gone for so long now. There’s nothing for me to escape anymore. I read his book to try to believe him again.

Apr 12, 2022
We’re the Last Good Girls Alive

Who will remember a girl’s pain when the evidence disappears?

Mar 24, 2022
Who Actually Wins (and Keeps) the HGTV Dream Home?

As of January 2021, only six of the first twenty-one sweepstakes winners were able to live in their Dream Home for longer than a year.

Even in a Queer Marriage, There’s the Familiar Trap of Gender Roles

The wall that divided us in those early weeks of my first child’s infancy became a continued separation.

Jan 27, 2022
How to Teach Your Child About a Disappearing World

My daughter understands object permanence—the idea that what vanishes continues to exist. As the planet warms, I worry I may have oversold the concept.

Jan 13, 2022