There is a particular practice that some families adopt, and that I have, in the last decade of watching the adults around me, started to
I have been watching my friends raising kids, and it has me thinking about my own childhood for the first time in a long time.
The calls that happen for no particular reason are usually the most meaningful ones. Not the holiday check-in or the call prompted by some news,
Imagine sitting down with your toddler and making a silent pact before a single crayon is touched: the goal is the ugliest drawing possible. You
The old version of parental knowing required contact. Your mother did not know you were fine until you told her you were fine. The phone
There is a version of this upbringing that gets described as a good thing. No-nonsense. Resilient. You learned to handle your feelings quietly, you did
The friendships that survive into the eighth decade aren’t held together by milestones or grand gestures — they’re stitched, slowly and unspectacularly, by something almost everyone under fifty has been quietly training themselves out of doing.
The woman I am thinking of knew the price of every item she regularly bought. Not approximately. Exactly. She could tell you what a bag
“How are you?” “Fine, yeah. Not much going on.” “Work okay?” “Same as usual.” “How are the kids?” “Good. They’re good.” It lasted maybe four
Last week I was making focaccia and Emilia, who is nineteen months old and apparently has strong opinions about baked goods, reached up both arms
I am thirty-eight and I have, in the last few years, been watching my parents retire. The watching has been, on every external measure, a
There is a particular conversation that older adults sometimes find themselves having with their adult children, around the dinner table or in the kitchen after