And it occurs to me that maybe the reason my mother was so exhausted all the time wasn’t because she was doing so much but because she was feeling so much.

I snap and storm around and then spend long nights thinking of the most damaged adults I know and wondering if my particular brand of maternal fuckups are how they ended up like that.

At first parenthood was as I had expected, exhausting, sometimes heinous, and occasionally divine. I held my children close enough to feel them breathe, laugh, swallow.

Mothering you is the first thing of consequence I have ever done.

But the smell of the hospital, the sting of those overhead lights in the night, the snippets of conversations I had overheard, stayed with me and marked the beginning of how I came to know...

Raising people is not some lark. It’s serious work with serious repercussions. It’s air-traffic control. You can’t step out for a minute; you can barely pause to scratch your ankle.

The mother is the most essential piece on the board, the one you must protect. Only she has the range. Only she can move in multiple directions. Once she’s gone, it’s a whole different game.

If John Lennon was right that life is what happens when you’re making other plans, parenthood is what happens when everything is flipped over and spilling everywhere and you can’t find a towel or a...

I’ve had cancer twice and if I had to pick one fate for you, cancer or fertility problems-I’d pick cancer.