Magazine

Mom looking through a dusty plastic bin of 90s stuffed animals

The Brutal Truth About If Your Old Beanie Babies Are Worth Money

My mom hauled a dust-caked Rubbermaid tub down from her attic last Thanksgiving, slapped the lid with a triumphant thud, and announced she was handing over my children's college tuition. We were standing in the garage, dodging wasps, while she...

Read more

A tired dad holding a baby looking confused at a television screen

What Bridget Jones’s Baby Got Wrong About Real Parenting

Don't, under any circumstances, boot up Bridget Jones’s Baby at 11 PM on a Tuesday when your wife is 34 weeks pregnant and already convinced every random abdominal twinge is a catastrophic system failure. I learned this the hard way....

Read more

Exhausted dad staring at a television screen while holding a sleeping infant

Brooke Shields Pretty Baby: A Dad's 3 AM Digital Privacy Spiral

The digital clock on the microwave said 3:14 AM. The rhythmic, tiny puffs of air from my 11-month-old daughter were hitting my collarbone like a metronome. She had finally stopped fighting her sleep cycle, her tiny system crashing after what...

Read more

A tired mom holding a coffee and an organic cotton baby onesie in a city apartment.

Mom Truths: Those Brooklyn Baby Lana Del Rey Lyrics Explained

It was 2017. Maya was roughly six months old, and I was sitting on the severely scratched hardwood floor of our third-floor walk-up in Park Slope. My hair was twisted into a greasy topknot that was probably 40 percent dry...

Read more

A tired mom holding a cold coffee mug next to a baby watching a bright screen.

How to Survive the Cartoon Baby Phase Without Losing Your Mind

Three days after we brought Leo home from the hospital, my mother came over, took one look at my unwashed hair, and told me to just prop him in a bouncy seat in front of some classical music animation so...

Read more

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...

Read more

Stressed mom holding a coffee mug while looking at a tablet screen in confusion

A Letter To Past Me: That Cry Baby Movie Was A Huge Mistake!

Dear Sarah from exactly six months ago, Right now you're standing in the kitchen. It's exactly 6:14 AM on a Tuesday, and you're wearing those awful gray maternity sweatpantsβ€”yes, the ones with the mysterious bleach stain on the left thigh...

Read more

A tired dad staring at a laptop spreadsheet of baby names in a dark nursery

Reverse-Engineering Adorable: The Baby Name Spreadsheet

It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, roughly two weeks before our son's scheduled launch date. The only light in the half-finished nursery was the cold glow of my dual monitors. My wife, Sarah, was sitting on a deflated birthing...

Read more

A camping tent in the woods with scattered baby gear and a wooden play gym

"A Dingo Ate My Baby": How A 90s Joke Became My Parenting Nightmare

The digital clock on the nursery wall reads 2:14 AM. The temperature monitor is holding steady at exactly 68.4 degrees. My 11-month-old son is currently using my left collarbone as a mattress, drooling a small puddle of milk onto my...

Read more