My Jenn-eration

The most 2018 thing about 2018 is the constant daily, never ending, and always changing cycle of outrage. There is something inevitably new and fresh every day that enrages one group of people which provokes the other to rush to the defense of the first group and around and around we go. On the whole, 2018 is, if nothing else, quite mentally exhausting. But yesterday's dailyoutrage (or at least one of the things we were all supposed to be either outraged about or defend) was an Instagram post by Ivanka Trump lovingly embracing her son.  "Tone deaf!" shouted one side, as we read story after story of mothers and their babies being torn apart at the border. "Oversensitive!" shouted the other. It is a mother and her child. Why can't we all appreciate that? I sat staring at that photo of Ivanka for a while, and of the one before it on her Instagram page, where a young Theodore sits politely with a napkin on his lap at the world's most beautifully ...

The other day on an unusually brisk May morning at the bus stop, my friend and fellow mom stuffed her hands in her coat pockets to keep warm. She pulled out two erasers, a lollipop stick, a defunct key chain, and a band aid wrapper. In my coat pocket at that moment I had four hair ties and a spare pair of underwear for my daughter. We laughed of course, because as any mother will tell you our pockets are regularly stuffed with all sorts of hallmarks of our children and parenting, their trinkets and treasures and whatever they need or didn’t. The thing about us mothers is that it somehow always falls to us to be the ones to help carry their load. Mother’s Day is fast approaching and the stores and cards and Internet are full of ideas of all sorts of things we think a mother might want or need. But there is one thing we need more than anything and it's not a bigger bag for all of the stuff we carry. Tell us to empty our pockets. Mothers carry everything with the...

I wobbled into May 2 nd kind of like this. I opened my eyes to a text message from my travelling husband telling me how much he missed and loved my mother. I sent some happy birthday emojis to a dear friend.   I made a note to call my father later and wish him a happy birthday. And then I went in to wake up my sleeping son and then I stood there and watched him for a few minutes as he stretched into the day. God a lot changes in ten years. On the morning before the day that marks ten years since I last held my mother’s hand, I did what she most would have wanted me to do: get a pedicure. Manicures and pedicures and the general maintenance of womanhood were of the utmost importance to her. Even as she herself was actively dying and too weak to drive, she insisted that someone take her to get her nails done before flying up to see her doctor. If she was going to go anywhere including death itself, it would be on her terms and with flawless polish color that had some sort of ...