Goodnight Mom

Needless to say, Steve and I didn’t expect to have a baby at the onset of a global pandemic. I imagined months of Max crawling around circles of my closest friends. Of nights where he slept through the noise while we partied in the basement below. Of day trips and adventures to places and other people’s houses. Playdates with other moms & babies.  The pandemic took away a lot of things that make life really enjoyable. Being around friends, sharing meals, being in crowds of strangers, feeling a sense of community at a local park, farmers’ market, or art museum.  For me, it was very challenging that the beginning of the pandemic - when we knew very little about covid - coincided with the beginning of becoming a Mom - when I knew very little about babies! Note - I took inspiration for the title of this post from collaborative writing project, Born In Lockdown , a collection of experiences from over 200 women who became mothers in 2020. Baby Moon Before Max was born, I had rea...

Racism hurts all of us. White folks benefit from systemic oppression, and we also hold society back as a whole when we do not value Black and brown people’s lives the same way we value our own. This post isn’t here to convince you why “All Lives Matter” is ignorant and offensive, there are plenty of others out there explaining this . It’s also not about why we should defund and abolish the police; you can learn about those ideas elsewhere . This post is a reflection on my intentions & potential methods as a white parent of a white child to raise an anti-racist activist. All Black Lives Matter. Recent violent murders of Black people, including George Floyd, Breona Taylor, Riah Milton, Dominique "Rem'mie" Fells and Ahmaud Abery (plus too many more!), have shaken people around the world. For months, protests and anti-racist demonstrations have filled the news. People are still out there, demonstrating, protesting. Violence and state-sanctioned murder is still happening t...