Selected Essays

IN PRINT

Mothering and Blogging: The Radical Act of the MommyBlog Edited by May Friedman and Shana L. Calixte, Demeter Press, 2009. My essay, Beyond Cute: A mom, a blog, and a question of content, was included in this anthology. Bloggers willing to write with transparency about motherhood provide a place of community for readers; within that community, blogs are often consciousness-raising; and, when taken as a group, these blogs change our understanding of normative motherhood. The personal motherhood blog is political. (152)

AVAILABLE ONLINE

Wanted
If you were to look into my kitchen right now, you would not notice the floor that needs mopping, or the dishes filling the sink and spilling onto the counters. You wouldn’t be distracted by the ceramic fruit bowl full of browning bananas… At this moment, in my kitchen, the only thing you would notice is the screaming toddler.
At Literary Mama. [link] [pdf]

Creative Anxiety
I don’t want to squelch their imaginations. But the four of them do move through the house like a compact tornado, changing direction faster than I can track. I’m living in a pit of creative playthings, and there’s nowhere to set down my teacup.
At Mamazine.com. [link] [pdf]

More
The truth is, right now, today, I feel full. As in: I am operating at full capacity.
At Mamazine.com. [link] [pdf]

Olympic Experience
My kids may not know what Nickelodeon is. They may have never set foot in a McDonald’s. They don’t know Miley from Britney. But by golly, they will have seen Michael Phelps collect gold medals like bottle caps.
At Mamazine.com. [link] [pdf]

Day One
I can’t fake an unflappable fun mommy façade for one whole day, and Dane’s going to be gone all week?
At Mamazine.com. [link] [pdf]

The Big Family
I’d prefer to imagine that Ms. Opinionated and Company are trying to inquire after my own well-being—my mental health, maybe, or my level of fatigue (I’m fine, thanks)—but the message they’re conveying is not so much one of concern as of distaste.
At Mamazine.com. [link] [pdf]

Birth, Choices
I read Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born years before having my first baby. Not yet a mother myself, the idea of mothers choosing to reclaim authority over their births from medical professionals seemed radical and perhaps even a bit dangerous. Yet it appealed to me as a practical act of protest available to any pregnant woman willing to insist that she maintain authority over her own body and responsibility for her own choices, and willing to require that her caregivers respect both.
At the Mothers Movement Online. [link] [pdf]