Magazine

A wooden toy block and a soft baby blanket on a messy living room floor.

Spielzeug ab 3 Jahren: The Brutally Honest Guide for Parents

There I was, barefoot in my own living room at 6:30 in the morning, stepping squarely on a tiny plastic firefighter hat that came with some massive, overpriced fire truck my oldest got for his third birthday. I’m just gonna...

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A highly unamused toddler sitting on the floor wearing stiff boys dress pants

Why buying boys dress pants is a specific kind of modern torture

I'm currently wedged next to the sanitary bin in the disabled toilet of a twelfth-century Surrey church, sweating completely through my only clean wedding suit, attempting to wrestle a screaming two-year-old into a pair of miniature, fiercely rigid navy slacks....

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Marcus's 11-month-old baby reaching for a wooden block on the living room floor.

Why I Stopped Trusting the Internet About Early Development Toys

When my son was about four days old, my mother-in-law bought us a plastic command center that flashed strobe lights and yelled the alphabet in a robotic British accent. "He needs cognitive stimulation," she told me with absolute certainty. The...

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Dad trying to put a quarter-zip sweater on a squirming 11-month-old baby boy.

A Letter to Past Me About Surviving The Boys Sweater Phase

Dear Marcus from six months ago: You're currently standing in the baby apparel aisle holding a tiny, adorable, heavily patterned wool pullover. Put it down. Seriously, drop it right now before your wife sees it and you both convince yourselves...

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A dad nervously watching his twin toddlers tangle themselves in a loose cot covering

The Messy Truth About Giving Your Twins a Toddler Blanket

My mother told me that if the girls weren't under a thick wool quilt by November, I was essentially committing child neglect. My aggressively modern NCT friend, on the other hand, strongly implied over flat whites that introducing any loose...

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Mom folding a bamboo toddler sleep sack in a nursery

Why the Toddler Sleep Sack is the Only Way We Survive Bedtime

It was 2:13 AM on a random Tuesday when I heard the unmistakable, bone-chilling thump coming from the nursery down the hall. I dropped the Etsy shop packing tape I was holding, sprinted down the hardwood floor expecting the absolute...

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Toddler girl wearing organic cotton pants crawling over gravel without scraping her knees

Why I Exclusively Buy Boys Cargo Pants for My Feral Twin Girls

My mother cheerfully informed me that little girls should be dressed exclusively in floral smocked dresses, which is a lovely sentiment if your children sit perfectly still on a velvet cushion playing the harp. My extremely intense NCT group leader...

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Confused dad holding up a tiny organic cotton bodysuit in a baby clothing store

The Absolute Biggest Myth About Finding a Good Baby Clothing Store

The greatest lie ever sold to expectant parents isn't that you'll eventually sleep again (though that's a massive, highly documented falsehood). It's the entire concept of the baby clothing store. Before the twins arrived, I had this hallucination of wandering...

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Toddler running in garden wearing sustainable boys apparel and a sun hat

Why the clothing industry is completely wrong about little boys

There's this incredibly persistent, borderline dangerous myth floating around the local playgroups that dressing male children is somehow the easy way out. The working theory goes that while parents of girls are trapped in a complex matrix of tights that...

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