Magazine

A tired dad holding a sleeping baby in a dark nursery thinking about lullabies

The midnight debugging of the rockabye baby lyrics

It's exactly 3:14 AM. The rain in Portland is doing that aggressive, sideways thing against the nursery window, and my son is currently running his four-month firmware update, which apparently means his system has completely forgotten how to execute a...

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A confused dad looking at the back of a prenatal vitamin bottle in a grocery store.

What Thalidomide Babies Taught Us About The Placenta Firewall

I was standing in aisle 14 of the Hawthorne Fred Meyer at 9 PM on a Tuesday, aggressively squinting at the back of a ginger supplement bottle while my pregnant wife dry-heaved in the passenger seat of our Subaru. She...

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An exhausted dad looking at his phone while holding a sleeping baby in a dark room.

A 3 AM Deep Dive Into Sleep Coaches and 19th-Century Babies

The thermostat on the baby monitor says exactly 69.8 degrees, which is supposedly the good thermal threshold for an 11-month-old human, yet my daughter is currently thrashing against my chest like a malfunctioning Roomba. It's 2:14 AM. We're in the...

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A soft pink swaddle next to natural wood teething toys on a white rug

Why the baby pink hex code is a total scam for your nursery

I was standing in the middle of the paint aisle at a home improvement store, thirty-eight weeks pregnant and sweating through my maternity leggings. I held forty-two different swatch cards that all claimed to be the definitive pastel blush. My...

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Exhausted dad staring at a laptop spreadsheet while holding a crying baby

Raising A Baby Hitler: Why I Stopped Tracking Cries And Held My Kid

Dear Marcus from exactly six months ago, It's currently 3:14 AM in your timeline, and I know exactly what you're doing. You're sitting in the glow of your laptop in the nursery, holding a screaming, five-month-old Maya, and you're logging...

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Tired mom filling out birth certificate paperwork on a hospital bed

What nobody tells you about the most popular baby names 2024

My mother-in-law told me I had to pick an astrologically aligned name or my son's digestion would be ruined forever. The lactation consultant at shift change whispered that giving a kid an 'A' name makes them aggressive. Then my husband's...

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A pediatric nurse explaining the history and medical reality behind 90s prenatal exposure myths.

The 90s Crack Baby Myth: What Prenatal Exposure Actually Means

When my cousin adopted a beautiful little girl from the grow system, the unsolicited opinions rolled in like a bitter Chicago winter storm. A neighborhood aunty whispered over cold chai that the child would be permanently broken because of her...

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Exhausted mother comforting a baby in a dimly lit nursery

The Morbid Truth About Rock a Bye Baby and Why It Still Works

Don't open up a search engine at three in the morning to research the origins of nursery rhymes while bouncing a screaming infant. It's a terrible idea that only leads to weird historical rabbit holes and more anxiety. I know...

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Vintage nursery window next to a modern smart baby monitor and organic cotton clothes.

The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping: What Modern Parents Actually Learned

My mother-in-law told me to let him cry until he throws up because it builds character. My pediatrician, who looks like he hasn't slept since the Obama administration, muttered something about responsive attachment and vagus nerve development. Meanwhile, my favorite...

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