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Brooding

Deep thoughts on modern family life from Kathryn Jezer-Morton.

parenting

We Can’t Let Family Life Become a Political Pawn

 Family life is where radical change can take root — MAGA doesn’t own it.

More From ‘Brooding’

  1. Why Isn’t Halloween Scary Anymore?Being spooked by adults is one of my favorite childhood memories. But terrifying children for sport is not as socially acceptable as it once was.
  2. Should Our Children Identify With a Political Party?Today, parents teach their children who to like — and who to hate. Maybe that’s not such a good idea.
  3. Welcome Back, Social-Media FallThe vibes this time of year used to be serious, even disciplined. Now the season is defined by cheap and cheerful nostalgia.
  4. Are Phone Bans In Schools Good for Parents?This fall, parents will have to adapt, emotionally and logistically.
  5. Is Affirmation Culture Sabotaging Our Friendships and Ourselves?We’ll do anything to avoid seeming mean, even going so far as to validate each others’ bad decisions. There has to be another way.
  6. Can Divorce Make You a Better Parent?Separating can force parents to discuss how they actually care for their kids.
  7. Is Homeschooling Isolating Us Too Much?Relationships make up a lot of — sometimes most of — what happens in school.
  8. Are You Being a Good Guest?Experiencing hospitality is one of the central pleasures of civilization, and sometimes it feels like we’re forgetting how to enjoy it.
  9. Should Parents Gas Each Other Up More?All my husband had to do was explain to our children how hard I work to give them a good life. To my astonishment, they began to notice it.
  10. Why Do Parents Obsess Over Kids’ Athletics?Being a committed Sports Parent™ is a path toward absolution of any guilt.
  11. The High Stakes of the Group-Family VacationTo be fully seen, in all your dysfunction, and to stay friends afterward? Terrifying! And sublime.
  12. How Do French Parents Raise Their Teenagers?Bringing Up Bébé is entering its teens. Author Pamela Druckerman discusses what’s changed about French parenting.
  13. Mother Is a VerbMother’s Day should be about celebrating the mothering that we give and receive from other moms.
  14. What Motherhood Looks Like in ‘Florida!!!’The matriarchs of Taylor Swift’s favorite state defy the identity scripts the rest of us are used to.
  15. Parenting Through Our Control IssuesRaising our kids with too much control — of their moods, their consumption, their safety — makes it harder for them to transform and change.
  16. When Kids Are Addicted to their Phones, Who Is to Blame?Parents can’t change their kids’ relationships to screens without also addressing their own.
  17. Why Are Parents On TikTok So Angry?The barrage of online advice from experts promoting a “gentle” approach to child-rearing is getting to them.
  18. How Should You Discipline a Kid in Trouble at School?There has got to be a way for nonauthoritarian parents to raise children with structure and respect for authority while maintaining their trust.
  19. Can Parents Prevent Their Sons From Sliding to the Right?It might feel dangerous to let a teen explore reactionary and unformed pseudo-ideologies. But no one should get canceled at the dinner table.
  20. How (and Where) Are Parents Supposed to Get it On?Being a highly engaged parent in a nuclear family, fulfilling as it can be, often requires that some intimacy between parents gets lost.
  21. Why Are Parents Fixated on Core Memories?It’s supremely hubristic to assume that you can stage-manage the content of your children’s memories.
  22. A.J. Daulerio Is Embracing Sober ParentingThe writer talks about recovery, becoming a father during the pandemic, and staying present.
  23. The 10 Most-Read ‘Brooding’ Columns in 2023The stories from Kathryn Jezer-Morton’s series on parenting that most captured Cut readers’ attention this year.
  24. How Much Nostalgia for the Holidays Should We Have?At best it’s a state of arousal that makes your life more vivid. At worst, it’s an unscratchable itch — a jones for a fix that does not exist.
  25. What Do Kids Lose When Preschools Are Segregated?Sociologist and race scholar Dr. Casey Stockstill discusses the ways both affluent children and poor children of color miss out.
  26. Why Does the Internet Tell Us to ‘Raise Good Humans’?The phrase is so general it becomes meaningless, but it has sinister, grandiose, and defensive undertones.
  27. Does Anyone Feel Like an Actual Adult?Or are we all just cosplaying adulthood?
  28. Childhood Independence Is a Mental-Health IssueWhat if we are inadvertently contributing to a decadeslong crisis?
  29. Why Are We Always on Call for Our Kids?My children very rarely have to wait for anyone for very long — is it time to establish stronger boundaries around my alone time?
  30. What We Owe Our Families — and What We Don’tJenisha Watts was raised by people who did not keep her safe. Here, she talks about parenting her own child in the shadow of that history.
  31. How Will We Cope When the Elder Care Crisis Comes for Us?And you thought you had it bad with the childcare situation.
  32. Is Tradwife Content Dangerous, or Just Stupid?The visual appeal of homesteading and hand-making overrides the conservative ideology living in the background — and that’s the point.
  33. ‘My Mom Is Selfish. Do I Still Have to be a ‘Good Daughter’?’Having a living mom, no matter how self-centered, is important, writes Brooding columnist Kathryn Jezer-Morton. Even if frustrating.
  34. When Lonely Children Go Viral, Should We Rejoice?GoFundMes and positivity will not actually help a child make friends — even worse, sharing feel-good content about them risks causing harm.
  35. Will Teens Always Be Daredevils?It seems like an impulse that’s on the wane lately. Is that a good thing?
  36. On Parenting Regrets and the ‘Right Time’ for KidsThis isn’t an advice newsletter — but you have questions anyway. So here are some answers.
  37. Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ Is the Best Parenting Book of All TimeWhen all of the accouterments are stripped away, what does it mean to care for a child? That’s what McCarthy was really writing about.
  38. Director Nicole Holofcener Can’t Tell You How You’ll Mess Up Your KidsStill, the You Hurt My Feelings filmmaker continues to be my guide to adulthood.
  39. Is Going ‘Camel Mode’ Inevitable for Parents?When you’re caring for young children, you are crossing a metaphysical desert of the self. It’s emerging from it that’s the hard part.
  40. Learning How to Parent from a Warhol Factory Girl at the Chelsea HotelAlex Auder’s mother Viva Superstar was a Warhol girl. As a parent, she thinks kids need less micromanaging by adults.
  41. What Exactly Is the Magic of Disney World?Adults who love Disney hear a siren song returning them to a time they fully lived inside a secondary world. This is nothing to laugh at.
  42. Busking As a Family BandAfter a spate of troubles finding housing, The de la Mottes, a family ensemble of nine kids who all play string instruments, have landed in Harlem.
  43. Bless This Mess(y Fridge)Where better to display the uncurated floatsam of our actual lives?
  44. Are Helicopter Parents Actually Lazy?Maybe they’re soothing their anxiety, maybe they’re just choosing the path of least resistance.
  45. Are New Dads OK?Male loneliness can make for a powder keg of bad vibes.
  46. Cup of Jo’s Joanna Goddard Opens Up About Her Divorce“There’s something really nice about waking up in a house alone. It feels kind of quietly revolutionary.”
  47. What If You Just Didn’t Clean That Up?Our ideas about cleanliness are stuck in the mid-20th century. Today, women can afford to care less.
  48. How Am I Supposed to Teach My Kids to Be Generous?Especially when “paying it forward” is just a quid pro quo turned outward.
  49. What If We Make Affordable Child Care About Wellness?Then we might finally see some change.
  50. Was ‘Adulting’ Actually Good for Us?If the self-help top-seller were written now, its lessons would look a lot different.
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