The Real Losers in the Mommy Wars: Everyone Else | Jezebel "By framing the conversation about motherhood in “choice,” we aren’t talking about any of the very real problems faced by parents and children across this country. We aren’t talking about the number of children in foster care (nearly 400,000) or growing up in poverty (22% of American children). We aren’t talking about lack of education and employment opportunities for women in general and women of color in particular. We aren’t talking . . .

Be color brave, not color blind | Melody Hobson at TED2014 It’s time,” says Hobson, “for us to be comfortable with the uncomfortable conversation about race. If we truly believe in equal rights and equal opportunity in America, we need to have real conversations about this issue. We can’t be color blind, we have to be color brave.” Why should we be color brave, raising the question instead of ducking it? “Not just because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it’s the smart thing to . . .

In Which This Is For The Ones Leaving Evangelicalism | Sarah Bessey Your pet evangelical gate-keeper isn’t the sole arbitrator of the Christian faith: there is more complexity and beauty and diversity of voices and experiences within followers of the Way than you know. Remember, your view of Christians, your personal experience with Christians is rather small sample size: there are a lot more of us out here than you might think. A lot of us on the other side of that faith shift, eschewing . . .

477 Child Deaths: How Florida Preserved Families But Lost Kids | Tampa Bay Times Rather than go to court to force parents to get treatment or counseling, the state often relied on “safety plans” — written promises by parents to sin no more. Many of the pledges carried no meaningful oversight. Children died — more than 80 of them — after their parents signed one or, in some cases, multiple safety plans. Parents were given repeated chances to shape up, and failed and failed and failed again, and . . .

Please Reconsider That [Orphan] T-Shirt | Tara Vanderwoude Then add the presence of one of the t-shirts, pushing him into the spotlight further and without his consent, and it screams, “THIS KID WAS AN ORPHAN!” It makes the child, even if unintentionally, the poster child for international adoption or for orphan care. Yes, the child instantly becomes an advertisement for adoption. Top Easiest Ways To Emasculate A Dude (And Rule The World) I don’t think anyone should be emasculating anyone . . .

Old Houses Are Like This | Girl's Gone Child But my silence is a ravine against his mountainous loud. And suddenly we are standing on either side of the Grand Canyon, communicating only through letters that cannot be delivered by post. “I feel like I’m alone,” he shouts against the borders of my whispers. “You don’t understand me,” I whisper into the margins of his cries. 'I Am Still Called By The God I Serve To Walk This Out' | Ta-Nehisi Coates For The Atlantic She wanted you to know that what . . .

Why Mom's Time Is Different From Dad's Time | Wall Street Journal Complicating matters, mothers assume a disproportionate number of time-sensitive domestic tasks, whether it’s getting their toddlers dressed for school or their 12-year-olds off to swim practice. Their daily routine is speckled with what sociologists Annette Lareau and Elliot Weininger call “pressure points,” or nonnegotiable demands that make their lives, as the authors put it, “more frenetic.” These deadlines have unintended . . .

We Don’t Start With A Needle In Our Arm | Renegade Mothering Does this make you uncomfortable? Does it make you sick? Yeah, me too. But this is it, people. This is what it is. Most of us start out good and decent and wanting a real life with kids and a house and job, and we start out fooling around and maybe we’re a little overzealous but by the time we’re really, really in trouble, we’re dying, and we’re powerless, and the chances for recovery are really, really freaking slim. Most of us rot . . .

Don’t Call Him A Freak: Colin Kaepernick Opens Up On Quarterback Sociology, Tattoos, Adoption | TIME.Com “My parents told me from the time I can remember that, ‘yeah, you’re adopted. But this is your family.’ I can remember my mom, she tells me this story: when I was little, I was looking at her and I was like, ‘why isn’t my skin the same color as yours?’ She was like, ‘oh, you’re adopted, but I wish I had pretty brown skin like you.’ That’s something that – [pause] – they made me feel like . . .

Relational Repair For "The Difficult" | Jen Hatkmaker I’ve been a jerky, irritated, short-tempered, impatient Icky Mom to this child for a few weeks. I’ve been my worst self. Where loving attention was called for, I gave short answers. When a simple answer was required, I sighed. When the last dregs of daily parenting just needed a short book and a few (more) minutes of conversation, I said we didn’t have to read on Christmas break and hollered in a six-second prayer from the other room. It’s . . .