Mrs. Bundy
For the mother of a serial killer, a chance to connect with victims on live TV offers a shot at redemption.
parenting
A collection of 85 issues
The Girl on the Lawn
Forget anxiety, overcaution, or just plain unhappiness. The real problem with parenting is philosophy.
Silicon Valley High
No one’s surprised in Silicon Valley when a 12-year-old runs the family e-commerce store. But going to the same high school as Steve Jobs and liking it are two different things.
Home Sweet Sweden
In a life of perpetual movement, the moment arrives when you find yourself desperate for stillness.
Do You Believe in Ghosts?
Ignore the critics: Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” is not only a serious, complex comment on space policy, it’s a heartbreaking, philosophical look at the value of time.
They Are Charlie
An American in Dijon, France, brings his country’s grasp of recent terrorism to a nation enthralled by theory, traumatized by attack.
The Gambler
In which the novelist and magician Tim O’Brien makes the author disappear, and a family funeral puts a father’s sleight of hand on full display.
Like Pushing an Elephant Into a Volkswagen
Writers who haven’t quit their day jobs, who cram in the writing hours around full-time work, discuss juggling office life, family, and creativity.
Summer Into Fall
New clothes, AP classes, middle-aged angst. A New York City mom reflects on being pulverized by the first day of school.
The Influencing Machine
When a genetic disease looms, we’re more like our parents than we’d like to believe—and when we become parents, that fear only grows.
Girl With the Old English Tattoo
A court order is found buried in a desk. A private detective is hired. But tracking down a doppelgänger is not the same as confronting one.
Let It Stop
Disney’s “Frozen” juggernaut has been criticized for “sexy walking.” But the roots of what’s wrong lie in Midwestern pageants, not hip-hop videos.
A Country’s Width
Years go by easier when there are 2,000 miles separating a father and son. Then an American flag turns up in your lap.
Essaying Through Life
A youthful pledge to become an essayist gets lost.
The Illuminated
A family that relies on the satisfactions of the logical—calculus, physics, chemistry—finds itself haunted by ghosts.
A Man Enough
Eventually a man who’s always in motion, always fixing something, will stop. Decline of the patriarch reveals an entire family’s vulnerability.
Read It Again, Dad
Good books are frequently credited with being worth reading twice. But when was the last time anyone had time for that?
No Blanket Left Behind
Across generations, when children can’t find their comfort objects—usually soft toys like blankets or favorite stuffed animals—all hell breaks loose.
After Birth
A home birth begets a crash course in DIY medical waste disposal.
White Rabbit
When illness erases the fine line between love and obsession.
Do Not Endure Verbal, Emotional, or Physical Abuse
Offered an opportunity to help a father reach out to his young daughter, a writer agrees to assist. But the challenge isn’t as simple as grammar and commas.
Send, Dad
Ever since my dad got an iPad last year, he sees it fit to multitask: Read an article, and text me about it.
Born, Still
A newborn wavers between life and something else. For the father, a walk in the woods elucidates the struggle between nature and nurture.
Our Hallow’s Eve
When dementia gets its grip on a father who always loved slasher movies, a daughter struggles to hold on—if only to the ghost of recognition.
The Complete Biography of North West
A baby is born to a celebrity couple. Meanwhile, many more babies are born to countless other non-famous couples. This is what happens next.
Heartplunger
A childhood ban on toy guns didn’t erase the specter of death from a neighborhood.
Mother, May I
Don’t let the flying matzoh balls confuse you. A visit from a dead parent is serious business—a second chance for love, and for forgiveness.
Midfield
Your opponents have something to prove, certain wishes they want fulfilled. Also, they really hope their knees don’t blow out before halftime. Welcome to over-40s soccer.
Flood-Tide Below Me
Seeking respite from a life lived in war zones—too many rebel factions, too many gunshots, too many backfiring motorcycles that sounded like gunshots—a family discovers temporary shelter in the outer edges of New York City. And then, the deluge.
It’s Complicated
Though mothers may gnash their teeth at forgotten flowers and missing brunches, the poets still sing of the worst Mother’s Day ever: that of Oedipus and his bride.
The Case of the Hungry Stranger
A man is always more complicated than his paper trail—especially when he’s your father, who walked out one day.
Therapist, Know Thyself
For psychotherapists, maintaining a stable, flawless public image is critical. But when a marriage and family counselor actually goes through a mid-life crisis herself, all bets are off and here come the tattoos, affairs, and professional infidelities.
Hammer of the Dads
Joining a band at middle age can feel like a juvenile, shameful pursuit, until you consider all the gear you get to buy. A report on purchasing earplugs and playing live—but why are the crowds so small?—when you're 40.
Things That Go Fifff Striiik Bam! in the Night
The day you become a parent, your sonic world expands to include hundreds of new sounds to amaze, annoy, and terrify. A field report of 14 alarms and ambient textures.
Nicole Krauss
A chat between our man in Boston and the writer Nicole Krauss about her latest book, in which her latest book is barely discussed.
The Man Who Loved to Have Coffee With Women
From playing with childhood friends to sharing tips with other new parents, the author concedes he just gets along better with girls.
The Funny Man
When asked, focus groups describe the funny man as "untalented, successful, bad husband and father." He had been at the top, but is now heading toward the bottom. An excerpt from John Warner's forthcoming novel, The Funny Man, published by Soho Press.
The Age of Mechanical Reproduction
When it comes to in-vitro fertilization, nothing is normal. Your world is upside-down. Your doctor compliments your wife on her monkeys. Then, when every dollar and exertion has gone toward a single hour of hope, it begins to snow.
Sorry About Your Generation
Fact: Today’s young women are scared to commit because Mel Gibson may attack them. Fact: Today’s mothers should keep their opinions to themselves.
Mary Poppins Has a Tumblr
Children easily comprehend the web—almost as easily as new parents grasp fear. Exploring his computer's "parental controls" for the first time, our writer tries to preserve his innocence a little longer.
State of Play
Does your minor want to be a miner? How about a McNugget cook? Welcome to KidZania, a revolutionary theme park coming soon to the U.S. that lets kids play at corporate-sponsored employment.
The Punk Dad Manifesto
Living in the fascist stronghold of Marigold Gardens will challenge the roots of even the most hardcore. One parent’s struggle against the machine.
The Butler Beats the Old Dominion to a Metaphorical Pulp!
March Madness is not self-explanatory. To assist our coverage, a mother and son discuss over instant-message how college basketball works.
The Languid Dirge of the Hippo Father
While “Tiger Moms” may pour their energies into rearing successful children, Long Island offspring are learning to beat the tiger cubs at Halo.
Houston, We Have Contractions
A baby may be a tiny step for mankind, but it’s a giant one for new parents, especially the adult diapers part.
Oh, the Games Adults Play Now
Children play games for fun. Adults play games to crush and humiliate. An analysis of behavior on the grown-ups’ playground.
Intensive Care
Every mother worries her child could suddenly become ill. For one, motherhood requires living with the fear that her son could become just like her.
Planet Zoo
More than a generation of Americans have been urged to save the Earth. A survey of the current climate and every H.G. Wells-inspired geoengineering project shows it’s time to pray for Homo sapiens.
The Unbearable Lightness of Declaring a Liberal Arts Major
Faced with a deadline to choose her major, our writer hunts down interview subjects to learn where their studies got them, no matter her mother's loathing of the liberal arts.
Finding Positive
When pregnancy showed up unbidden, a writer demands a second test, and a third, and a fourth. But then she saw a result many women spend years searching for.
From the Annals of Motherhood
When faced with insurmountable obstacles, when all other options have been exhausted--that's when moms say the darndest things.
Brief Scenes From Our Marriage
First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the Opposite of Feng Shui. A marriage, told in four parts.
To Will a Mockingbird
Fashions come and go, but names tend to stick around forever, even hippie ones.
This Is Going to Hurt Me More Than It Hurts You
For the good of their children, parents must be able to properly—sometimes even excruciatingly—discipline them when necessary.
The Babysitter
The kids are asleep upstairs, and the sitter waits alone in a darkened house--and then the phone rings. If you think you know what happens next, think again.
Home Schooled
Home-schooling gets a bad rap from advocates of traditional education. Our writer defends his parents’ choice to create a high school at home, including a prom.
The Surrogate Life
Being unemployed, and bearing colossal amounts of debt, can drive you to rash measures. Discovering the difficulty of renting out one’s womb.
Plan B
Determining that precise instant when life starts is a big subject in American politics, but it’s rarely discussed with much nuance.
Frames Consigned
Parents love to appear unannounced on a grown child’s doorstep. Rarely, though, do they ship 12 cartons of belongings to precede them.
The Dream Vacation
When appointments and schedules get in the way of travel plans, it’s easy to think of the summer as a lost cause. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Mr. Can’t Fix It
To the unhandy, a broken appliance offers an opportunity to prove one’s mettle—and finally break the plastic wrap on that toolbox. A stay-at-home dad calls in reinforcements.
M4W: Surrogate Mother
About us: A childless couple who pines for the pitter-patter of little feet around the house. About you: Fertile, with an athletic build, and maybe a tattoo.
Girl Lessons
Mothers and daughters don't always have the easiest relationships, especially when the daughters try to recycle the mothers with the trash. A story of aspirations, generations, and pop culture quizzes.
The Bear
Being a new father of two girls takes love, patience, and the wisdom not to attack other children in their defense.
The Rules
The laws of the playground aren't just for children. New York City parents have to keep an eye out for garbage, syringes, and disturbed men bearing toys.
Sacrifice
From choosing a mousetrap to moving across the country, parenting requires tough decisions.
Room to Read: A Modest Proposal
What better way to relax after a kid-filled day than with a nice book--and what less likely scenario can many parents imagine? For page-turners everywhere, a novel idea.
My Hairy Boy
Maybe you don’t have a problem with really hairy arms, but then again, you’re not the father of a Wookie.
The Mommy Wars
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we help a frustrated mother cope: how to deal with--nevermind survive--those overly nice mothers at play dates.
Bonding in the Battlemaze
The family that plays together, stays together—unless they’re playing laser tag.
Daddies Unbound
The stereotype that dads don't show much skill or interest in child-rearing should have gone out when you were still in diapers—so why does it persist?
Namibia’s Tourism Minister Sends a Plea to Britney Spears
Just because your career takes an awkward turn doesn’t mean your baby’s birth can’t be a cherished event. Before you cancel your reservation at the Namibian birthing palace, we’d like a moment of your time.
Raisin Hell
Fitting in is hard to do. Left to your own imagination, is it better to be yourself--or be a California Raisin? A tale of fourth-grade woe.
Hoping for a Safe Return
It’s every parent’s worst nightmare: Your child goes missing only days before you try and claim him as a dependent on your tax return. A tale of loss and capital gains.
New Fathers, Round III
Are you ruining your child's chances at future employment by blogging about his poop? By becoming a father yourself, do you finally understand your own dad? A look at the challenges of contemporary paternity.
Types of Stories My Mother Tells
As it begins, you’re pretty sure you’ve heard this one before. Wait, no, maybe this time it’s different. Maybe this time it’ll have an extra nugget of sage advice. Maybe? A catalog of favorite themes.
Flying Babies
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we dive into the great button fly vs. zipper fly debate, and give advice to a man whose wife is addicted to children.
New Ways to Lose Your Lunch
Everybody barfs. But it’s an altogether different product depending on if you’re an infant or the last one standing at tequila happy hour.
A New, Old House
It's true: You can never go home again. Watching a construction team renovate the house you grew up in, and understanding why your parents wanted a new place to live.
New Fathers, Round II
Twelve months ago a number of TMN contributors were becoming first-time dads—now it's time to check in and see how they're doing. A look back at a year of highs, lows, and Diaper Genies.
Breastfeeding a la Carte
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we dive into that testy political swamp where culinary and maternal matters mix juices: When is breastfeeding (in)appropriate in restaurants?
New Fathers
For some reason not involving pods or alien harvests, a number of our writers are about to be fathers, or have recently become dads, and it seemed appropriate to convene a meeting of minds. A discussion of fears, frustrations, and why the name you've picked out for your kid will inevitably be mocked
My Father Speaks Another Language
It's been said that parents just don't understand. But what about when it's the other way around?
Branding
No longer content with acronyms or surnames, companies now hire brand consultants to name their children. The best and the worst of new-age monikers, including those easily pronounced as ass-enter.
Happy Birthday, Embryo
For good or ill, the first genetic engineering of a human embryo is one more mental adjustment in a year of Herculean mental adjustments. And 2001 started off so boring.