Magazine

Mother holding a squirming infant who is chewing on a wooden teether

Why treating your kid like a tiny primate actually makes sense

Listen, I spent four months before my son was born curating a gender-neutral nursery that looked like a Scandinavian meditation retreat. It was silent, mostly beige, and smelled faintly of expensive lavender. I folded the organic swaddles into perfect little...

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Sarah drinking coffee while reading about the Skai Jackson baby drama on her phone.

The Skai Jackson Drama & Real Talk On Postpartum Stress

When I was six months pregnant with Mayaβ€”who's now seven and currently trying to teach our golden retriever how to use my husband's iPadβ€”I got three very distinct pieces of unsolicited advice in the span of one Tuesday. My mother-in-law...

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Overwhelmed mother holding a baby in a messy living room

What Three Wise Men and a Baby Gets Right About Real Parenting

My mom told me to keep him wrapped up tight in a heavy blanket so he wouldn't catch a draft. My mother-in-law, bless her heart, insisted he needed to "breathe" in the ninety-degree Texas heat and tried to strip him...

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Portland dad holding an eleven-month-old baby otter in a community swimming pool wrapped in a towel.

Debugging Infant Water Safety and the Sea Otter Parenting Method

I'm currently losing a wrestling match with a wet, angry noodle on a bench that smells aggressively of bleach. My eleven-month-old son has somehow managed to triple his body weight purely through the physics of being slippery, and the acoustic...

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A tired mother sitting in a nursery with a baby elephant wooden play gym

What I wish I knew about elephant parenting six months ago

The timer on the phone says four minutes and twelve seconds. You're standing in the dark hallway outside the nursery, staring at the baseboard, listening to him scream. Your shoulders are touching your earlobes. You know the sleep training protocols...

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My daughter Maya dressed in a farm animal costume while drinking from a cup.

The Baby Cow Confusion: Milk Rules and Adorable Bovine Trends

It was 2018, I was wearing a stained nursing tank that smelled faintly of sour yogurt, and I made the ultimate rookie parenting mistake. Leo was ten months old, we were completely out of his usual formula, and it was...

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Three men looking confused while holding a baby and baby gear

What a 1980s Movie Taught Me About Dads and Newborns

Dear Sarah from last October, You're currently sitting in the driver's seat of your Honda Odyssey in a Starbucks parking lot. You're wearing those black Lululemon leggings that have an unidentifiable crusty stain on the left thigh, clutching an iced...

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A wet baby wrapped in a towel looking annoyed at a bottle of unscented baby wash

Stop Washing Your Baby Every Night (And How to Pick Better Shampoo)

I was standing in the baby aisle of our local grocery store at 9 PM on a Tuesday, holding a violently pink bottle of "calming lavender bedtime wash" in one hand and my phone in the other. I was trying...

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A stressed mother holding her highly congested infant next to a cool mist humidifier at night

Why the "It's Just a Cold" Myth is Dangerous for Infants

It was December 2019, I was running on exactly three hours of sleep and half a pot of lukewarm Folgers, wearing a hideous green sweater that already smelled like sour breastmilk, when Dave's aunt Linda peered into four-month-old Leo's car...

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