Magazine
What Is An Anchor Baby? Debugging A Toxic Immigration Myth
My 11-month-old son had just figured out how to forcefully eject his mashed peas across our kitchen island when my wife Mayaβs college roommate, Sofia, started quietly crying over her water glass. Sofia is six months pregnant. Her husband, Leo,...
Surviving New York With Twins: An Albee Baby Survival Guide
Dear Tom of six months ago, You're currently standing outside a Pret A Manger in Heathrow Terminal 5, confidently holding two passports covered in a sticky, mysterious residue. Florence is attempting to dismantle a display of stale croissants with the...
How The AGT Winner Jessica Sanchez Baby Name Wrecked My Math
Don't, under any circumstances, try to write a Python script that scrapes the Social Security Administration database to find a moniker with a mathematically perfect syllable-to-vowel ratio. This is a terrible way to name a human. I know this because...
Debugging Baby Sun Safety: The Great Sunscreen Firmware Update
There's currently a streak of stark white zinc oxide smeared across the black upholstery of my Subaru, a matching smudge on my favorite dark t-shirt, and a suspicious clump stuck in my eleven-month-oldβs left eyebrow. Somehow, despite dispensing what felt...
The Reality of Dressing a Baby Without Losing Your Mind
Within forty-eight hours of bringing Leo home from the hospital, I received three completely contradictory pieces of advice about how to dress him. My mother-in-law hovered over his bassinet, clutching her coffee mug, aggressively whispering that he needed a fleece...
The brutal truth about infant wardrobes and diaper blowouts
My mother-in-law walked into my recovery room and immediately tried to put a fleece hat on my two-day-old son. An hour later, the lactation consultant breezed in and told me to strip him down to his diaper so he wouldn't...
A Letter To My Past Self About Surviving An IUGR Baby Diagnosis
Dear Tom from exactly six months ago, You're currently sitting in the windowless, overly warm scanning room at St Thomas' Hospital, entirely oblivious to the fact that your life is about to tilt on its axis. The NHS sonographer has...
My Kids, The Ice Age Baby Meme, and Freezing Winter Survival
Let me tell you about the exact moment I realized I was officially old and entirely unprepared for both internet culture and actual, literal winter. It was like, negative three degrees outside on a Tuesday in January, I was wearing...
My Coffee Disaster and the Wild Reality of Sixty-Year-Old Parenting
My feet were literally sticking to the linoleum. It's 6:12 AM on a Tuesday, I'm wearing Mark's faded college hoodie that smells permanently like old milk and vague regret, and Maya is aggressively trying to shove a plastic triceratops into...