Magazine

A terrified dad clutching a coffee mug while watching a toddler attempt to climb a bookshelf.

Rewatching The 1994 Film Babys Day Out Broke My Parent Brain

I'm pausing the TV at exactly the 24-minute mark to go check the tensile strength of our front door's deadbolt. My wife is staring at the ceiling from the couch, audibly wondering why I can't just enjoy a movie like...

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Sarah drinking coffee while baby plays safely in a wooden play space.

Why I Finally Caved and Bought a Play Area for My Kids

It was a Tuesday morning in late 2017, and I was wearing a pair of black yoga pants that had a highly questionable smear of sweet potato puree on the left thigh. Maya was seven months old, which meant she...

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Toddler looking at a blank wooden toy instead of a digital tablet screen

The Kim Kardashian Santa Baby Video Is An Algorithm Nightmare

Listen. The biggest lie they sell us about modern motherhood is the safety of the search bar. You think you can type a harmless holiday song into the television, hand over the remote, and buy yourself exactly four minutes to...

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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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Baby wearing a breathable organic bodysuit playing with a wooden jungle gym.

The Truth About Buying a Baby Lion Costume for Your Kid

I was sitting in the third row of my Honda Odyssey in a Target parking lot, sweating through my favorite t-shirt, trying to peel my screaming six-month-old out of a baby lion costume that seemed to be actively melting into...

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Toddler hands grabbing a wooden baby jesus in a manger

Keeping the Baby Jesus Out of Your Toddler's Mouth

I was in the kitchen aggressively scraping burnt porridge out of a pan when the silence hit. Any parent of two-year-old twins knows that silence is never golden; it's highly suspicious and usually expensive. I dropped the pan, sprinted into...

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A dad nervously checking the rearview mirror at a baby in a rear-facing car seat.

The real baby driver 2: A letter to my past self about car seat panic

Dear Marcus from six months ago, You're currently idling in the driveway of the Hawthorne Fred Meyer in your Subaru. The engine is running. The heater is set exactly to 70 degrees because you read somewhere that anything else will...

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A frustrated mom looking at a flexible mesh baby gate spanning a hallway.

The Blunt Truth About Retractable Baby Gates (And My Worst Night)

It was 6:15 PM, I had a half-empty jar of marinara sauce tucked under my left arm, a screaming six-month-old anchored on my right hip, and my two-year-old was actively trying to feed the dog a AAA battery he found...

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Tired dad looking confused at a laptop while an 11-month-old baby plays with a wooden play gym.

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 Maya’s college roommate, Sofia, started quietly crying over her water glass. Sofia is six months pregnant. Her husband, Leo,...

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