David Minerva Clover

No, I’m not a heartless evil mother who never wants her child to have any fun. But he will not be going. Not for a school field trip. Not with grandma. Not for a playdate with a friend. My child is not going to the zoo. Full stop. End of discussion.

The whole concept of salaries for stay-at-home moms reveals both the classism in parenting culture and what we really think about poor people.

Babies, while awesome in so many wonderful ways, do not give a single shit if you really need another hour of sleep. If the baby is up, you’re up. So we were up.

I’m not scared on the street very often, but y’all, this time I was scared. But if there’s one thing I know, it is that you do not answer these guys, because that only makes it worse. So I held my breath and hoped that if I didn’t engage, he’d drive off eventually. I felt for my cell phone in my pocket, wondering how quickly I could get ahold of someone if I needed to.

I am at the bar, working on a piece about kids’ books, while my wife stays home to mind the baby. The lady next to me strikes up a conversation about this and that. Then she notices that I’m still casually clutching a copy of Guess How Much I Love You?

I am not middle class. Tiny houses are touted as an affordable solution, but they’re still more house than I can afford.

I mess up and do things very differently than I want to sometimes. When that happens, I have one rule for myself: I stop and apologize to my kid.

Once upon a time, the only thing to consider was “Does your kid watch too much TV?” But now it seems like nearly everyone can agree that kids these days spend far too much time looking at screens of all sorts.

Get creative! There's a wide range of passive-aggressive, and aggressive-aggressive, comments you can make as you hand over the dough. Whatever you choose, remember that your goal is make them wonder if having their electricity shut off is actually any worse than having this conversation with you.

The way we as a society discuss genitalia is already messed up and confusing. When the word “vagina” is used to mean everything from, well, “vagina” to “vulva” to “the entire female reproductive system — yes, even including the ovaries,” it’s no freaking wonder we don’t know how to talk about this stuff.