White fragility and interracial coupling do not go hand in hand — On our third date, the man who would become my husband told me, “You get it.” The “it” he was referring to was racism. At the time, I was flattered to have a Black person acknowledge my wokeness. But I’ve since realized that three dates in, I didn’t really get…

I already see what it’s doing to my fierce and prickly daughter — About halfway through the movie, my son put his arm around his friend’s shoulder. His friend did the same. They sat there like that for a good 15 minutes, their arms loosely draped around one another’s shoulders, their legs dangling, their feet not quite touching the floor. They are in…

Coming to terms with female vulnerability — It was when he veered his truck off the road that I wondered if I was going to make it out alive. Up to that point, I’d been grappling with a growing sense of unease, silently cursing myself for getting in a vehicle with a man I barely knew. I…

My longitudinal study of one yields inconclusive results — Alone time. That’s the one thing I miss most fiercely. In my pre-parenting life, I used to walk to my favorite café on weekend afternoons — first in Providence, Rhode Island, then in Washington, D.C. I’d set up my laptop in a quiet corner and splurge on an overpriced coffee…

What happened to the ties that bound us? — It sounds dreamy, in a way, to be untethered. To roam at will, answering to no one, doing what I damn please. At this stage in my life, I am rarely untethered — that is, in the liberating sense of the word. I have children and a partner. I roam…

Here goes. — I’ll admit, I’m getting sick of hearing about the patriarchy. The term has become a buzzword, bandied about to describe the root of everything that is wrong with our society, and world. In my two-plus years of writing on Medium, I myself have used it dozens (and dozens) of times. …

Smartphones were supposed to make things easier. But they have made parenting — and life — far more difficult, instead. — Remember the old days? Back in the 1900s and early aughts, when we sometimes met up with friends out in the world, and if they didn’t show up at the appointed hour, we had no idea what was going on? We didn’t know if they were just RINGL8 and OMW…

Namely, that we don’t value caregivers — and we should — When my partner called me at work, his breath sounded labored. “Is everything okay?” I asked with alarm. Everything wasn’t okay. My partner was walking home with our 14-month-old baby on his back, wearing a tank top through which he was copiously sweating. Were it summer, there would be no…

How I reclaimed the lost art of porch-sitting — It was love at first sight. I’d seen other porches during our whirlwind tour of prospective houses, but this was by far the best front porch. This porch was no hasty afterthought. It was the central defining feature of this small, old home, tucked behind a tangle of wisteria. As…