7:20 A.M.

My husband’s alarm wakes me up. I can’t believe I’ve slept in this late. With one bleary eye still closed, I grab my phone and open the Nanit app to check on E, my 2-year-old (! how is she 2!). I don’t even want to say how great she’s been sleeping lately because every parent knows that talking about how well your child is sleeping means it will end. So all I’ll say is: all three of us had a restful night and E is still snoozing away.

I go into the kitchen and start my day by chewing a prenatal gummy and pouring some liquid IV and a ton of ice into my water bottle. I take approximately three sips of cold brew even though I know I’ll throw it up. (I have hyperemesis gravidarum, which in my case, means I throw up 5-7x a day every single day of pregnancy, after every time I eat or drink, and sometimes even when I don’t.) I sit down on the couch and decide to put some make-up on while I wait either for E to wake up or for it to be time for me to wake her up.

I have an appointment today to get the thickness of my C-Section scar checked. As I understand it, second C-Section is scheduled for 39 weeks but if the scar is thinner than the doctors would like it to be, I may need to deliver at 38 weeks in order to avoid an increased possibility of uterine dehiscence or rupture. Now that I’m in the (knock on wood) safe zone of being past 36 weeks, I do hope that I get to have this baby early. I’m so, so ready to not be pregnant anymore.

8 A.M.

I turn off E’s sound machine and she immediately wakes up. It’s kind of crazy how Pavlov-ed she is by that thing. I go into her room and open the blinds and ask her how her night was and all she says is “I want dada” so I call Alex in. He gets her out of bed and we do our morning routine of brushing her teeth and getting her hair done. Alex’s mom, my angel of a mother-in-law who has been trading off with my own mom taking care of us in the last few months of pregnancy while I struggle with HG, a full-time job, and parenting a toddler, comes over. Alex leaves for work with a promise of meeting me at my appointment later and E and my MIL start making breakfast. By 8:20, I’m sitting at my desk starting on my work for the day. I only have another week of work before my nesting time off starts at Yahoo (you can read my work there here) which then rolls into maternity leave.

9:15 A.M.

My MIL makes me a smoothie and I drink it then promptly vomit. I work on some story edits and then log into a work meeting.

10:00 A.M.

E and my MIL leave for the park for the morning. She says “bye, Mom!” and walks outside and I swallow my instinct to chase her and just hold her for hours. The more pregnant I get, the weirder it feels for E to not be constantly by my side. I think it must be hormonal but even when she goes to a park half a mile away with a trusted caregiver, I miss her so much I sometimes cry.

Back inside, I grab a Diet Coke and a pack of crackers for my hour-long meeting. I hope I can wait to vomit until after the meeting is done. I’m so tired I feel like I could fall asleep on top of my keyboard. I’m not sure if this level of exhaustion is an HG thing or a 9-months-pregnant thing but I’m dreaming of my bed.

11:00 A.M.

I vomit again as soon as my meeting ends. My hands are shaky – I think from low blood sugar – so I eat a handful of sour gummies and hope that tides me over slightly. I put in another 45 minutes of work even though I feel like a ghost just tapping on a keyboard.

11:45 A.M.

I curl up on the couch with my book (The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett) and resolve to read and rest until my daughter gets home from the park around 12:30. I fight the urge to ask my MIL to bring her home early. It’s insane how much I miss E when she’s away from me but also, I know that she’s having more fun running around at the park than she would be having hanging with me at home, especially when I’m this tired.

12:15 P.M.

E and my MIL get home from the park, with my FIL who is also visiting for a few days. E snuggles up against me on the couch and tells me all about her day. When my MIL tries to straighten up the living room and touches my book, E says “that’s Mama’s book” and gives it to me. She’s very into rules these days. There is a pillow on the couch that she won’t let anyone but my MIL use.

We hang out for a little while then E tells me she wants milk, which is her way of saying “I want you to give me milk and cuddle me and put me to sleep.” As we walk into her bedroom, she says, “oh! my glasses!” and rips them off and tosses them to the floor. We settle into the chair in her nursery and chat more about her day. She makes a list of people she loves and includes my MIL, my FIL, my sisters, and her dad. It is very sweet. At the end of the list, she just keeps saying “And I love Mama too” and my heart just… almost bursts. I love her so much it hurts.

12:45 P.M.

I lay her down in her crib, where she’ll chat to herself and play with her stuffies for approximately 15 minutes before falling asleep. I vomit again then look for clothes that are vaguely comfortable at 36 weeks pregnant. I end up wearing some stretchy shorts and a bra-less Abercrombie tank that barely covers my belly, figuring I’ll throw my jean jacket on top and it’ll be fine. I gather my supplies (book, wallet, water bottle, barf bag) into a tote bag. I toggle between podcast episodes, wishing I hadn’t already listened to the new This American Life this morning while I was working then remember that Spotify has this new feature where you can scan the page of the book you’re reading and it’ll bring you to that part of the audiobook. I try it and the app perfectly finds my spot. I don’t drive much, so the idea of getting to listen to my book on this 35-minute drive is so nice.

1:15 P.M.

I get in the car and drive to my C-Section scar appointment, listening to my book. On the way, I go through the McDonald’s drive-thru and get a small McFlurry and medium fry. Even though I’ll vomit them up, I get a quick blood sugar boost that makes me feel like I’m at least half-alive.

2:00 P.M.

I’ve checked into the appointment and am waiting to be called back. I take a quick trip to the bathroom to vomit and by the time I get out, my husband is there. He kisses my forehead and gives me the sweet, pitying look he always gives me when he can tell I just threw up.

2:30 P.M.

We’re called back. My blood pressure is taken (it’s fine, thankfully) and we wait for the ultrasound tech to come in and start the scan. I check the Nanit app on my phone and watch E sleeping in her crib. The tech comes in and starts the scan and I alternate between watching the screen where my second daughter is wiggling around and watching my husband watch the screen. I love the look on his face when he looks at his babies. The tech is lovely and warm and asks us if we’re sure about when I got pregnant because the baby is measuring pretty big. This is astonishing to me both because I’ve been literally starving for 9 months (“the baby takes what it needs,” the tech assures me, as my doctor has this entire time) and because babies in my family are uniformly only ever 6 pounds.

The scan takes about 20 minutes and then we wait for the doctor to come in and review the results and check my scar. Because I’m such a miserable pregnant person, I’ve been vaguely hoping that my scar has thinned out enough that they’ll want to reschedule my C-Section for 38 weeks instead of 39 weeks but when the doctor comes in, she says everything looks great and we’re set for the end of June. This is, of course, technically good news but I’m so hungry and so tired and so depressed from being so hungry and so tired that the idea of having to make it through three more weeks in this state makes me feel panicky. I tell myself this is what’s best for the baby and for me. I just hope that I don’t go into labor before my scheduled C-Section.

Alex and I leave the office and drive home separately because he met me there from work. On the drive home, I call my mom and update her and use voice-to-text to do the same with my sisters before listening to my book.

4:00 P.M.

I park outside our house and when I walk into the gate, E is waiting for me. She squeals and hugs me and I melt. I ask her what she’s been doing with her grandparents and she tells me in the toddlerese I love so much. Back in the house, I throw up again and suddenly feel myself drawn to bed as though it’s a magnet. I text Alex and my MIL, “okay if I rest?” and fall asleep before they text me back that of course it’s okay. This is being 36 weeks pregnant.

5:30 P.M.

Alex sits on the edge of our bed and puts his hand on my shoulder to wake me up. I can’t believe I actually fell asleep in the middle of the afternoon but I feel so much better. Our bedroom door opens and E walks in. “Wake up, Mommy!” she yells and I assure her that I am waking up.

Alex, E, my MIL and FIL and I sit down to a dinner of leftover pizza from the night before. E is not at all interested in eating and I’m too tired to fight her so I let her go play while we eat. She had a big lunch and at 2-years-old, she’s kind of an either-or kind of girl. I figure she’ll tell me if she’s hungry later. I eat a piece of pizza and drink a La Croix then excuse myself to the bathroom to throw up.

While Alex and his parents are finishing their dinner, E and I sit on the couch together and read. Although I prefer reading on my Kindle, I always try to make sure that I have a physical book I’m reading at any given time because I have this feeling that E can’t really tell the difference between my phone and my Kindle and I don’t want her looking up at me and seeing me staring into a screen. Right now, my physical book is a galley of the incredible The Parisian Heist by Jo Piazza and I can hardly put it down. E settles into the crook in my arm with her own book and turns the pages, occasionally exclaiming to me about what she’s ‘reading’. Moments like this are a dream come true.

6:00 P.M.

With dinner finished and cleaned up, Alex turns on the NBA Finals. We are a Big Basketball Family, to the point that the other day, E said, apropos of nothing, “I love basketball.” As Alex turns on the game, he asks her who we’re going to watch tonight and she says “Wemby!” The only screentime she gets is when basketball is on and even then, she kind of pays attention for a minute or two and then walks off to play with some toys or chat with us. She wanders off and we hear some splashing and my MIL gets up to find her trying to scrub the toilet with the toilet brush, doubtlessly imitating her dad who scrubs the toilet every day to make sure I have a nice place to vomit. It is both very cute and very sad.

6:45 P.M.

Alex gets E in her pajamas and she gets out the last of her pre-bedtime zoomies. She is twirling in her nightgown and laughing hysterically.

7:00 P.M.

My FIL takes E into her bedroom and reads her a few books. This is something he always dreamt of doing before he became a grandfather and I love that it’s his reality now.

7:15 P.M.

Daddy is requested by E. He sits with her in the rocking chair in her room and they talk about her day. “More talking,” she says when he seems to be slowing down. I listen to them chat from the living room while I watch the basketball game and read my book. Life is really, really good despite how incredibly brutal an HG pregnancy is.

7:30 P.M.

E requests I go in to finish up the bedtime routine. My anxious mind can’t help but count how many days we have left of doing this before our lives change forever when the new baby comes. It’s this weird pre-grief that’s mixed with excitement and it makes my chest hurt. I hold E and we laugh and joke and after about 10 minutes, I tell her it’s time for bed and that I love her and I’ll see her in the morning. I lay her down in her crib with her approximately 35 stuffies and rejoin Alex on the couch, where we watch the rest of the basketball game. The Spurs win. E is asleep. My MIL and FIL have left and it’s just me and Alex, like it was for so many years.

8:15 P.M.

We watch an episode of Widow’s Bay which we’re really enjoying. I love Matthew Rhys from The Americans so it’s really fun to see him in another role. I didn’t expect Widow’s Bay to be laugh-out-loud funny but it is.

9:00 P.M.

I throw up one last time (I’ve lost count but I think it’s been 6 or 7 times today which is par for the course) and get ready for bed. Alex comes in and tucks me in and gives me an ice pack for my aching head. I try to find a comfortable position and settle in with my Kindle to read.

9:20 P.M.

I tuck my Kindle under my pillow and marvel at the fact that, just a few weeks from now, there will be a bassinet next to our bed with a newborn in it. I fall asleep with the distinct feeling of standing on a precipice.

Fortesa Latifi is a journalist and mom based in Los Angeles. She is the author of Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online.

You can buy Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online anywhere you get your books, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Bookshop, Hudson Booksellers, Target, and Walmart.

Follow The Pomegranate on Facebook, Instagram and Bluesky for more, and join our subscriber chat here on Substack. If you enjoyed this post, please forward it to a friend! Interested in writing for us? Check out our submission guidelines.

Happy Monday, friends! Today we’re bringing you a link roundup for Media We’ve Been Enjoying Lately.

recommends…

I loved reading Mad Mable. It was excellent storytelling with the perfect amount of mystery and suspense.

I'm also loving Olivia Rodrigo’s new album! Sometimes you just need to dissociate to some teeny bopper bangers.

recommends…

This excellent piece on matrescence by .

Fortesa Latifi

motherhood literally rewires the brain. why don't we know the word for it?

When my daughter was born, it felt like my entire brain reorganized itself. I didn’t recognize the self I had been before I became a mother. The world was changed, and I felt raw inside of it…

Read more

23 days ago · 6 likes · 7 comments · Fortesa Latifi

Audrey Burges is always hilarious and her satirical take on her teen's perception of her typical day had me snort-laughing to the point that my own children wanted to know what was so funny.

This piece by on grief, wisdom and dissonance. Though it touches on a well-known influencer who is currently in the news, I appreciated that it is respectful and gentle, not salacious or trying to capitalize on someone else’s grief.

Andrea Holme Writes

Dear Jen Hamilton

Dear Jen…

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5 days ago · 4 likes · 2 comments · Andrea Holme

recommends…

This summer has gotten off to a rocky start in our household. The same week my kids got out for break, we had to put our beloved dog down. When I’m not managing chaos, I’m navigating my own grief. As a result, nearly everything I have consumed has been a form of disassociation.

This week I have finally started to crawl out of my bubble and explore new things, gravitating toward the gentle in all that I seek. Kevin Morby’s album, Little Wide Open, has been exactly what I need. It is a record filled with such warm instrumentals and thoughtful lyrics, you feel as though you might melt into the music. As a fellow Missourian, I resonate heavily with his love letter to the heartlands. “Badlands” has been playing on a near-constant loop, and the mimicked tornado sirens following the second verse is one of my favorite moments in recent releases.

I started slowly pecking away at my library holds pile, starting with the novel If You Love It, Let It Kill You by Hannah Pittard. The book itself is…fine. It falls into the same category as Miranda July’s All Fours where an author bases the writerly main character loosely on herself. There are times when I feel as though I want to protect her from the cynics of the world. Most of the time, I feel as though I would like to fight her in a grocery store parking lot. Novels like these always feel like disaster tourism where I get the chance to watch her blow up her life from afar. And unfortunately, that is my favorite category.

Now that the NBA Finals have finished, I also intend to dive back into the novel Three Ring Circus by Jeff Pearlman. I have an entire shelf of nonfictional books based on all the American wars, but this is the most dad-lit book I own. The book tells the story of the Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal years leading the Lakers to victory. If you love explosive inside stories and the chance to finally understand the difference between a Flagrant 1 and a Flagrant 2, it’s the perfect thing.

What have you been enjoying lately?

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Follow The Pomegranate on Facebook, Instagram and Bluesky for more, and join our subscriber chat here on Substack. If you enjoyed this post, please forward it to a friend! Interested in writing for us? Check out our submission guidelines.

Listen. I am not a sociologist. Or an economist. Or a statistician. I am just a millennial mom, a Christian who wants to love her neighbor, not storm the Capitol, trying to help my family thrive in a culture and country that seems, increasingly, to be stacking the odds against us. And I take issue with the idea of having more kids than you can afford.

Recently, Erika Kirk spoke at the Hillsdale College commencement in Michigan. Erika Kirk, for those who aren’t familiar, is a former pageant queen turned right wing influencer. She is also the widow of Charlie Kirk, podcaster and culture war agitator, who was assassinated last September at Utah Valley University. Erika, the mother of two small children, has taken the reins of her late husband’s organization, Turning Point USA, for which she travels the country, schmoozes with top bananas of the Trump administration, and speaks to packed arenas on the importance of preserving Western civilization and traditional gender roles–like being a submissive wife and a stay-at-home mother who is focused on domestic felicity and doesn’t concern herself with matters outside her household.

You’ll have to just imagine me staring into the camera like Jim from The Office. Blink, blink.

For a deeper breakdown of what Erika Kirk had to say at Hillsdale, I recommend Sara Petersen’s excellent essay on Kirk’s speech (and, yes, I did watch the speech in its entirety for research purposes, and then I contemplated a sip of bleach). Today, I want to focus on a single sentence: her injunction to the class of 2026, quoting her late husband. “He [Charlie] would also say to have more kids than you can afford.”

Now you can imagine me grimacing like Michael from The Office. “Nope. Don’t like that.”

(Neither did her audience, by the way. She paused and chuckled after the statement, but no one else did.)

Let me be very clear: I am not against having kids (I have two!), nor against trusting God to take care of your family (in fact, as a Christian I am very much for this!). But I am indubitably against the idea of encouraging young people to make plans they know they have no way of seeing through, in order to fulfill some nebulous idea of “rejecting modernity, embracing tradition,” especially when that encouragement comes from someone who is flying chartered jets around the country.

As I see it, there are two major problems with the idea of having more kids than you can afford:

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Recently, a mom of boys wrote the post above, and it went viral. Some said it was satire, pointing out the problems with emotionally enmeshed “boy moms.” Others maintain it never claims to be satire and that the photos Jenny Mollen posted on Instagram (of herself tussling with/embracing her 12yo son) were inappropriate. On Threads, a few users threatened to report Mollen to CPS.

What do you think? Is Jenny Mollen using cringe humor and absurdity to highlight some real feelings mixed with a larger societal problem? And what is it about self-proclaimed “boy moms” that so quickly ventures into uncomfortable territory? Where do we draw the line between goofy jokes and being creepy about children?

Leave a comment

P.S. wrote about one particular aspect of being a mom of boys (not a #boymom) earlier this year, and you might find it interesting in light of this topic.

5:52 am: Woken by my 4-year-old, in bed beside me, whose first words of the day are “Egypt is really hot because Africa is there.” I guess that’s right…almost. Good morning to you too.

6:00: I count the number of children coming to the party (18).

6:01: The 4-year-old asks me if the candy I ordered for the pinata arrived last night (yes it did).

6:10: We are still in bed. The questions from the 4-year-old are coming thick and fast. “When is my birthday gonna be? One day?” She has vetoed Rice Krispie buns and reminds me once again how she DOES NOT want Rice Krispie buns. I tell her I’m gonna make them for the grown ups because I’d like one with my tea. 4yo: “Nope. If you make them, I’ll CRUSH them.” Bit aggressive but okaaaaaay.

6:25: The 6-year-old, who is also in bed beside us, wakes up and tells us she was making a dream out of our voices.

6:30: I get up, make coffee, make the kids’ breakfast. Referee a fight between them. Broker peace.

6:50: Do the laundry while noting I’m particularly irritated by the constant “Moooom” requests today. Pour my own coffee and have breakfast. Tidy our bedroom. Continue with laundry.

7:50: shower

8:05: As I’m making the lunches, the 6-year-old asks us to guess her charade. She claps her hands over her head and between us, my husband and I guess “Jumping jacks! Waving at a concert! Drowning!” She tells us she was a scissors.

At 8:15, we leave the apartment. “Enjoy the day,” the doorman says to us, “It’s gonna be a comfortable one.”

The three of us walk to school with the 4-year-old in the stroller and the 6 year old scooting along beside us. I drop one kid off at Pre-K (8:30) and then the other at first grade in another school (8:45). Between the two schools, the 6-year-old and I discuss topics ranging from her tooth coming out to colonialism.

This sounds unlikely but it’s come up a lot over the past few weeks, ever since they asked why there’s so many Irish people in America and then why Ireland was so poor for so long and then why Irish people don’t speak Irish. I’ve responded with what I hope are age appropriate (but truthful) answers (i.e. just say: ‘England’). It means my kids seriously hate on England now but if you can’t pass on your prejudices to the next generation, what’s the point in having kids?

8:50 With both kids deposited at school, I see a text from my husband to call him. It sounds urgent but when I call him he suggests we get coffee and also asks me what the weather is like and what he should wear. I look around and summarise the outfits of everyone around me: shorts, t-shirts and Birkenstocks and we agree to meet in Tartinery at Columbus Circle. We are there for 9:05 and both have juice.

At 9:40, we walk together down Broadway and part at Times Square - me, for a hair appointment and David to go buy jeans. I arrive at 10:06, 6 minutes late for my 10am appointment but it’s OK because my stylist is coming in behind me. A friend put me onto this hairdresser last year. It is low-cost, low-frills. No frills, I dare say. Forget your free champagne, coffee or even a glass of water. You’ll be lucky to get a smile in here…and it suits me down to the ground.

Today’s hair stylist didn’t get the memo that the place is to be deathly silent. She chats away and asks what I’m doing for the day, asks about the theme of the birthday party (KPop Demon Hunters), asks to see a picture of the kids, tells me they are adorable and that they clearly get it from me. She looks exactly like a blond version of the Nanny from the 1990s sitcom of the same name and she is really nice.

10:25: My colour is in and I’m stewing under the heater when I suddenly wonder if my scalp is burning? Definitely tingling.. is that a burn? (This is the price you pay for low cost hairdressers. I say nothing). In the chair, I check my email. There’s an invitation to a Knicks game next week which I gladly accept and there’s an email from yet another Dublin school to say they are full up for September. A family of 3 kids has also confirmed their attendance at the party since this morning, bringing the kid total up to 21. I remember a kid in our building I forgot to ask and I text his parents, hoping it doesn’t sound too much like an afterthought.

10:38: The kid in our building accepts so we are up to 22.

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11:02: The blond Nanny asks how much I want off and I say to my shoulder. She is shocked and asks in disbelief “Are you sure you want THAT much off, coming into summer?”. I know the reason she can’t picture anyone having hair that short is because she is in her twenties... but the level of her shock influenced me sufficiently that I agree to her suggestion of “Okay, let’s just do two inches”. She holds up what she thinks is two inches but which is definitely only one inch and I say “Actually, three inches” (hoping she’ll cut two).

I kind of love this Nanny lookalike. Her name is Jennifer.

I bumped into a woman I know at the salon! A mom of a friend of my 6-year-old. She didn’t recognise me straight away, which was very gratifying as I said hello to her while I had the hairdresser cape on and colour in my hair aka the ugliest you will ever look in your life. I contemplate inviting her boys to the party too and try to figure out if I could manage that without it seeming like an afterthought. It would bring us up to 24 kids but feck it, I may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb at this stage. And they did invite us to their 5-year-old’s party. (I often feel like my role since I gave up my job and moved to America to support my husband’s career has been “diplomat’s spouse.” As you can see, I am not very good at it.)

I decide I will ask her but when I go to leave, she is inside the fumigation room and it looks like I’d be taking my life in my hands to enter it. (This place is just so cheap you seriously don’t ask any questions). Instead I text her as soon as I leave and she responds immediately that they would love to come. We are now up to 24 children and as many adults.

11:42: I’m feeling peckish and decide I’ll get lunch even though it is not yet noon. I head for the Halal Guys cart on 53rd, which I’ve never had before because there is always an insane line but surely in the AM I will beat the line. There is no line! I order a chicken platter (11:53) and walked toward Bryant Park to meet David for lunch.

12pm My Fitbit buzzes to let me know I’ve done 10 thousand steps. I will miss all this walking when we leave NYC.

12:05: I’m starting to get a bit stressed about the number of kids coming to the party now. 24. Shiiiit. The only entertainment I have is 40 colouring pages of KPop Demon Hunters, some tattoo transfers and a toy tunnel for kids to crawl through (which I’m hoping will do some seriously heavy lifting on the entertainment front on the day). After that, we have a pin the tail on the Derpy game and Pass The Parcel. I was going to leave out Pass The Parcel as it is just a LOGISTICAL NIGHTMARE ever since they introduced a present into every layer. The stress of organising it simply cannot be overstated. But the 7 year old down the hall told me she is really looking forward to the party “especially the pass game” and that one comment alone has pressured me into keeping it in my party games repertoire.

At 12:19 I arrive at Bryant Park. It is so pretty! David already has a poké bowl and he admires my chicken platter but suggests pork would have been a better option. I tell him there was no pork option at the Halal cart.

When we’re finished around 12:50, we wander up 5th Avenue and part ways outside Aritzia (1:01). David never noticed my hair. Good thing it didn’t cost a lot. (It still cost $200). Aritzia’s new shop is so nice! I must leave the house to shop more. I buy this shirt which I love.

At 1:26 I leave Aritzia and get the D train home. Pour myself a big glass of Robinsons, crack a can of Diet Coke, crank the aircon and jump into bed for 45 minutes before I have to collect the kids. (I’m not explaining British cultural references to American readers. You have to figure it out yourself like we spent our whole lives doing. Here is a picture as a context clue for Robinsons):

1:40: I needed some downtime before the afternoon ahead of me because I know it is a busy one. “Downtime from what? You didn’t do a single thing to progress the party one bit,” you might say, and you would be correct. But constantly counting up kids and wondering if we have enough cake (which I also haven’t bought) to go round...it’s exhausting.

2:34 I leave on foot for the ten minute walk to collect one kid from school and then the other. The 4-year-old and I stop into Duane Reade between schools to buy some small toys for Pass the Parcel.

The kids have activities after school every day of the week and today it is speech therapy and fashion/sewing class! There was only one day this year I wasn’t able to do the school pick-up and a babysitter had to step in. I wrote a detailed set of instructions for school collection for her and right as I typed out the line “then get a cab to the Upper East Side and drop the 6-year-old at her fashion class,” I had an out-of-body experience where I realised our lives are ridiculous.

3:15: We hail a cab, as per my instructions, to the Upper East Side. At 3:50, the 6-year-old jumps out for her sewing class where she is making a skirt (with pockets!) and the 4-year-old and I continue on to her 4pm speech appointment. At 4:30, we are all finished and have an hour to kill before collection at fashion school. We call into a toy shop to buy more gifts for Pass the Parcel. The 4-year-old asks me for a Labubu while we’re there and I say no but when she’s not looking, I secretly buy it to add to the present we got her for tomorrow (a bubble gun). We stroll towards the sewing class and kill more time waiting at reception there where I do the same (secretly buy a sequinned hairband she admired). At 5:30, the 6-year-old appears and the 3 of us Subway down to 57th street and then walk home. In the subway elevator out of the station, the 4-year-old petted a dog while the 6-year-old told me about a parent who came to school today to share with the class their family tradition (Shabbat).

At 6:15, we’re walking in the apartment door and I start on the kids’ dinner (pasta and meatballs). Now the party prep begins in earnest. I start to wrap the gifts for Pass the Parcel but the kids want to help me and not just help me but actually wrap the presents themselves. The thing is though, they are APPALLING at wrapping and refuse to accept the role I keep trying to give them: simply passing me the sellotape. It was disastrous. In the end they stress me out so much, I put them in front of the TV with their (now made) dinner.

At 7:10 Dave got home and I asked him to fill the pinata with candy with the kids. I asked the 6-year-old to pick a card from the birthday card box for her sister and to put bun cases on a tray while I melted chocolate for rice krispie buns. I asked the 4 year old to put out the toy microphones I bought and she said: “Actually, I don’t have time. I have to hop.” (This is not a colloquialism, she literally had to go hop on one foot).

At 8 o’clock, David put the kids to bed while I arranged a colouring station, hung up the pin the tail on the Derpy and searched Netflix for KPop singalong songs. I prepared the party bags and realised I managed to buy 30 party bags but contents for only 12. I raided the pinata to pad them out, adding unblown balloons I decided we no longer needed at the party too.

At 9:05, I popped out to Whole Foods, bringing the stroller for storage, to buy a birthday cake, berries and wrapping paper for Pass the Parcel because the three rolls I bought were not enough!! I pick up a prepared birthday cake but worry it is not big enough so buy a few dozen cupcakes too. I pick up some sugar-free lollies at the till to go into the party bags which are still a bit light. I call in to Target on the way home because Whole Foods had no wrapping paper but Target doesn’t either!!! I decide I’m calling it a night. I’m dead on my feet. I’ll go get it in the morning.

I get home at 9:47 but the takeout David had ordered still hasn’t arrived so I continue tidying up and preparing for the party until it does. David declares the place is “in pretty good shape” and plonks himself on the couch. I point out plenty of things still to be done and any time his arse gets anywhere near the couch, I give him another specific job. At 10:32, while he is washing the dishes that I told him to, I plonk MY arse on the couch.

I write a list of things I have to do tomorrow which is very little: wash the fruit, set the table, finish Pass the Parcel… aaand I’m done. 23,128 steps taken today. At 10:40pm, our takeout arrives and we split a Thai curry for dinner on the couch before bed.

When I first heard the price of the standard 90-minute birthday party at the local soft play centre where we spend most weekends at other kids birthdays ($1,500 and you have to bring your own cake), my soul near left my body.

But you know, I spent a good chunk of this day thinking how I would happily pay $1,500 if it meant I never had to organise a game of Pass the Parcel again. I wouldn’t have to do a thing (except order the cake).

This is a note to self that I am NOT hosting a home birthday party next year. But then, I say that every year....

Aisling Marron is a SAHM as well as writer of bestselling weekly newsletter, “Notes from New York“, where she writes about bringing up kids and day-to-day life in NYC.

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A follow-up to this holiday piece.

Hey mama, looks like we’re having a little bit of a meltdown over here. Have you tried some deep breathing with your kiddo? How about you sit down with them and help them co-regulate. Not over there, though, you’re disturbing other people. Remember that your child shouldn’t be disruptive in a public place—the world doesn’t revolve around them and their needs! Obviously don’t say that to your child, though. An offhand remark like that could create a wound that EMDR can never heal.

Whoa, okay, we’re not going to touch things in this store, friend! We’re going to keep our hands to ourselves. Mama, have you ever heard of saying no? Don’t say it too much, of course, that’s not supportive or nurturing. Consider guiding your kiddo’s consciousness to a different activity, through the power of your own calm demeanor. Definitely do not force your child to sit and stay buckled into the shopping cart! That is restraint, which is essentially abuse. Educate yourself.

You know, when I was that age, I obeyed my mother without question. Her word was law! I wouldn’t dream of acting like an entitled brat the way kids these days do. All my mother had to do was LOOK at me and I snapped to attention. Your children simply don’t know who’s boss. Be firm! Stop trying to be your child’s friend.

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Okay, leading with fear is never the answer, so I’m really concerned that you’re telling your little one not to run into traffic because they might get killed. You are the parent and it’s your responsibility to hold onto them and keep them from running! Excuse me, is that a LEASH? Do you view your child as an animal who needs to be choked into obedience? Interesting.

Hey, mama, let’s try to move our language to a positivity-based approach! I’m hearing a lot of negativity coming from you and that’s not helpful to our friend’s development. Have you tried reinforcing the behavior you want to see rather than cruelly deriding the behavior you don’t want to see? Don’t say “good job” or “I’m proud of you” though. That puts the focus on you, and nothing is less important in the parent-child relationship than you. Be sure to sign up for my course on how to navigate this crucial relationship—only you can authentically shape your child’s future emotional, mental, spiritual, and digestive health.

Excuse me? EXCUSE ME? Did I hear you tell this precious little bean that they would not get candy after dinner if they hit their sibling again? I can’t believe you would engage with such a regressive and harmful practice as withholding food. Genuinely contemplating a call to CPS right now. Kind of concerning that you’re allowing this child candy at all, however. Red Dye #40 is the leading cause of aggressive behavior in kids this age. Have you considered making healthier choices?

What? You’re considering not bringing your child to this big church service/family dinner/marriage celebration/holiday event? How are they ever going to learn to interact with people if you keep them in your house seeing no one but you all day? Wow, that’s not how we behave in public, friend! You’re at a 10 and I need you to be at a 0. Maybe your mom needs to teach you how to behave at home before you come to an important day like this. Kids really shouldn’t be allowed in restaurants with expensive glassware and frail elderly patrons. If they must be in the restaurant, can’t you entertain them somehow? Not with an iPad—are you insane? When I was their age I was content with half a broken crayon and a dirty Subway napkin, and I was thankful.

Hey there, are we having some trouble sharing? Mama, why on earth would you let our friend here bring their own toy to the park? That’s just asking for a tantrum. You can’t expect other children to not want to touch it. But just so you know, you really do need to give them agency in choosing small stuff like taking toys to the park, because otherwise they will feel smothered by your coercive control. Don’t make them share with other children! Would you like it if some strange adult came up and wanted a drink of your coffee? I didn’t think so. Children are people, in case you didn’t know.

Speaking of which, I don’t think you’d tell your spouse to go sit in their room alone if they were having a bad day. Solitary confinement is NEVER the answer to big feelings. You’ve probably already started a volcano of shame in their impressionable little brain. But you’re the parent—you can’t be a pushover wuss who allows your kid to continue throwing a fit and hurting other people! Get them out of this space right now. Stay with them while they calm down. Stay with your other children at the same time! Answer that work call. Keep dinner from burning. You’ve got this, mama. No, actually you definitely don’t. That’s the smoke alarm. Could you turn that off, please? The level of noise in here right now is overstimulating me.

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As a mom of kids under 6, this graphic caught my eye on Instagram. My boys share a room, and though we try to get them to sleep by 8 pm, this usually doesn't happen. They're in bed between 7:30 and 8, but the actual falling asleep often doesn'thappen until 8:30. I've debated trying to push this earlier in the evening (I'd certainly relish the opportunity for a little more time to myself at night!), but my husband doesn't usually get home from work until 7 or 7:30, and they would risk not seeing him at all. Plus, as a decidedly not-morning person, the thought of them potentially waking up earlier than 6 or 6:30 fills me with a cold and sinister dread.

Once again, I'm reminded that best practices are just that—an ideal, created in a vacuum, that may or may not be accessible to the average family.

What do you think? Do your kids follow the bedtime guidelines outlined here? How have you made that happen—and if not, why not?

—Amy

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Today I saw an Instagram Reel from a local real estate agent advertising a home for sale. The main selling point? “A Backyard Built for a 90s Childhood.”

Spend any amount of time on social media these days and you’ll probably be hit with no less than 37 posts about “being a 90s mom” or “giving your child a 90s childhood.” It has quickly become a popular content strategy for moms who publicly say they aim to give their kids a simpler, slower, less screen-y childhood (like the one they had) and now apparently one for realtors as well.

One notable theme I see is this idea that motherhood was easier in the 90s. I can see where they are coming from. I’ve thought this many times myself. Moms in the 90s didn’t have to worry about iPads, internet gaming, or pervs trying to befriend their teenagers on snapchat.

I was born in 1990 and feel like I grew up in the sweet spot of having a 90s childhood and an early 2000s adolescence. I had the sleepovers, the nights picking out movies at Blockbuster, and I played outside for hours with my friends in our neighborhood without ever checking in with my parents. I didn’t have a sip of water during the summers that didn’t come from a sort of rusty garden hose in someone’s backyard. My bike tires wore out faster than my dad could replace them. My sister and I watched whatever was on TV, racing to grab snacks during commercial breaks and get back in time for the show. It was not perfect, except it was a little perfect.

When I was a kid and my mom needed a break, she could sit us down in front of the TV and put a VHS tape in the VCR. For a run time of 93 minutes, she knew exactly what we were watching. We couldn’t switch it to a movie she had never heard of on another streaming platform without her knowing. She didn’t have to keep coming back to make sure we were watching what we were supposed to. Now, when I want to let my 7-year-old watch a show so I can fold some laundry or get dinner started, I would only be a responsible parent if I checked back every so often between folding t-shirts to make sure he hadn’t navigated over to a show I didn’t know about. And that’s in addition to the 2-3 hours researching and setting up parental controls before we even turned the TV on. Being able to pop in a VHS tape and forget about it? Dare I say, the 90s beckon me.

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When I became a mom in 2018, I did what every mom-to-be does: I went to the internet to learn what I should buy and what I should do and what is the best car-seat-stroller-combo in my budget? I found answers to questions I never knew to ask. This led to years of taking any question I had to the internet, looking for another mom who was smarter and wiser than me and would help me know what to do to prevent the inevitable traumatization of my children due to giving them red dye 40, or whatever. This is when I realized I could know what other moms were doing all the time, and what their houses looked like, and see the perfectly nutritious meals they were feeding their kids. This is also when I discovered we aren’t supposed to be saying “Good job!” to our kids anymore. It’s going to destroy their intrinsic motivation to complete tasks, or something. Anyway, my mom didn’t have any of that in the 90s.

My mom couldn’t scroll TikTok for 20 minutes and within that time frame discover 16 new fatal diseases or accidents from which her children could die, leading to uncontrollable anxiety about every potential danger, even the ones that she didn’t know existed until that second. She could let us play outside for hours alone without worrying if Debbi down the street was going to call the police and report her for negligence.

But she also didn’t have grocery pickup or the ability to check my location on a cell phone to make sure I was safe. She couldn’t use the GPS on her phone to get us to a friend’s house and if we took a wrong turn, well, guess we’re spending the night there. My mom couldn’t pop in AirPods and inconspicuously listen to an audiobook while doing menial tasks or to tune out another episode of Paw Patrol. No one had the ability to set up a meal train for her and quickly send the link to her family and friends when she was freshly postpartum. And when she was up alone in the middle of the night with one of us screaming children, she couldn’t send a text reaching out for support to a friend who she knew was probably also up in the middle of the night. She couldn’t do a quick internet search for a picky-eater-friendly recipe when she didn’t know what to make for dinner, or google dosage for a medicine when she lost the packaging.

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You won’t miss the middle of the night feedings and diaper changes, the unsolicited advice, the comments on the name you chose. You won’t miss “oh, so cute, is it a boy or a girl?” You won’t miss the confusion that has replaced all your instincts to understand human nonverbal communication once you are left alone with a tiny person whose only word is a guttural WAAAAAAAAH.

You’re not going to miss cluster feedings or sleep regressions. You won’t miss the times when you thought you’d be fine without the extra outfit and were very, very wrong. You won’t miss monitoring milestones and comparing your child’s progress as if the date of their first step is a competition to be won. You won’t miss the days of following your suddenly mobile person around, asking, “what is in your mouth/hand/onesie?”

You won’t miss the loneliness you experience when your world shrinks to encompass their needs. You won’t miss the arguments with a co-parent over discipline issues or budget (or the spectacular grief of having no input on your decisions at all).

You won’t miss wondering when your world will expand again to include YOUR needs.

You won’t miss potty training or staying in their rooms (or beds!) until they fall asleep, and you absolutely won’t miss the neck and back aches that come from bending your body into positions to accommodate their tiny mattresses or ultra short potty chairs.

You won’t miss the internal battle between reality and your ideals of what life would look like, meals would look like, home and rest and going out in public would look like. You won’t miss offering foods and insisting they take xx number of bites before yielding to this week’s Top Three Foods Precious Will Eat.

You won’t miss sight words or math problems that are definitely being taught very differently from the way you learned. You won’t miss parent-teacher conferences or class Valentine’s Day parties or Spirit Weeks. You won’t miss all the phone calls and emails it takes just to get an appointment to try to get ANSWERS.

You won’t miss the mad dash to sign up for a summer program, nor will you miss “we’ll figure out how to pay for it later.”

You won’t miss the worries that grow with your child, exceeding their height, exceeding your own. You won’t miss sending multiple texts just to get an annoyed “k.” in response. You won’t miss sitting up late, waiting for a return, dreading a call, deciding whether to be angry if curfew is missed or relieved that they made it home safely. You won’t miss the arguments over showers or laundry or what on earth happened to all of our forks (a mystery that will never be solved, I’m afraid). You won’t miss calculating the number of places to go divided by the number of available drivers on any given weekend.

Older moms often say, “You’ll miss this when they’re older,” and we mean well. We’ve forgotten what it’s like for miniscule moments to dominate our days, how easily real frustrations can be minimized with a thoughtless phrase. We don’t mean to do that; we’re just repeating what other experienced moms said to us. It felt off to us at the time, but we didn’t have the nervous system regulation tools to push back on it yet. Good for you, keep building that toolbox.

When we say, “You’ll miss this when they’re older,” we mean you’ll miss the nostalgic things we miss – the smell of baby shampoo and gentle laundry soap, the sweet sound and feel of a sleeping baby’s breath on your cheek, the new discoveries every day of the toddler and preschool years. We miss knock-knock jokes, dinosaur books, and tea parties and the first time meeting Anne Shirley and Diana Barry. We miss being the first person they tell all their important news to, all the time. We miss being the last person they want to speak to every night.

And if pressed, we, the older moms in my middle-ish forties age range, may be willing to admit that not all of motherhood was what we expected. Life doesn’t deliver on every dream. And every parent has a stretch where they feel like they might need someone else to sub in for a bit. Parenting feels like a bait-and-switch – with no refund.

For me, it was in the middle school to early high school years, for both of my daughters. From about 13 and a half to 16, neither of them liked me very much, and neither was shy about letting me know. I was tired and angry and trying to be polite and brave-faced in public. I felt like I couldn’t talk about the reality of my at-home life.

My children slammed doors, lied to me, stared at me defiantly without saying a word, told me very true things about myself that I didn’t like hearing. I don’t miss those days.

On the other hand, I’m glad I didn’t miss those days. We built trust between the three of us, even in our conflicts. We learned to tease apart which parts of our arguments were driven by being a teenager and a tired mom, and which parts were real issues to be resolved. It took time to learn how to relate to each other.

Life brought us changes we couldn’t predict. Those changes didn’t cause these conflicts, but they limited my time and energy to deal with them. As I look back, I can see that even though I couldn’t be there every second the way I hoped I would when I brought them home from the hospital, as far as they’re concerned, I didn’t miss anything. None of the time I spent fighting for their growth and their good was wasted.

I didn’t miss the glimpses of who my little girls used to be; of the women they ‘re becoming.

I didn’t miss the times when they saw through MY pain and said exactly the words I needed to hear. I didn’t miss when they said, “Mom, it’s okay for you to cry. You don’t have to be strong for us all the time.”

I didn’t miss when they transitioned through their own hard times and let me start comforting, coaching, counseling them again.

As they transitioned out of their own difficult years, I didn’t miss the spa nights with foaming cloud masks and picking out fun nail polish colors and dancing in the living room to the music that used to make them cringe. I didn’t miss the spots of joy, slowly growing in the space left by those hard times.

And you won’t miss the joys, either. Unless you are living in a 1980s movie where your career focus is a major plot device creating the conflict that can only be resolved by finally going to your child’s baseball game, you won’t miss it.

You won’t miss wondering if you could have done things differently, and you won’t miss their assurances of, “No, Mom, we know you did the best you could.” “Mom, we always knew you loved us.” “Mom, I don’t know where I’d be without you.”

You won’t miss graduations or proms, helping them study for tests, dreaming about what they want to be when they grow up. You won’t miss the first tooth or the first lost tooth, the first tricycle ride and scraped knee. You won’t miss the first toddling steps or the moment they reach out their hands to mimic you as you say, “SOOOOOO BIG.”

You won’t miss it.

No matter what, I believe you will be there for as many of those big little moments as you can. You will make every effort to be present, and you will show what it looks like to reach your limit and still be loving. You will find yourself again and let the people you love most know who YOU are. You will see your children growing into the people they are destined to become – and discover again how much you truly like them.

And one day you will look back and know that what you witnessed was enough.

Andrea Holme is a mom of two young adults who keep her cool-adjacent. Avidly indoorsy, she can be found crafting with words or yarn, with an audiobook in her ears. She writes to remind herself and her friends that life is more than what we see, every day contains beauty, and hope is God’s most gracious gift. You can read her Substack at and follow her on Instagram.

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This review contains spoilers, both for the plot of Yesteryear and the suspension of disbelief required to enjoy it.

I opened Yesteryear thinking I was diving into a time-travel novel that would deliver some biting wit about the hypocrisy inherent in tradwife social media content. The premise on which I had been sold involved a woman who broadcast her picture-perfect, old-fashioned, “traditional values” life on Instagram to millions of followers, but woke up one day in 1855 (or was it 1805? Publicity material couldn’t seem to make up its mind) and had to figure out what happened to her real life and how to get it back.

I’m fascinated by this topic, because to a certain extent I have lived it. I grew up in a home-church, nondenominational, evangelical Protestant environment. That mouthful basically just means I was homeschooled, very sheltered from the outside world, and we had church in our kitchen—sometimes with other families, sometimes not. As a teenager, figuring out my own path, I leaned very hard into the precursor to tradwife content: the Stay-At-Home-Daughter movement, an offshoot of the conservative homeschooling world which preached that a girl’s purpose was to grow up to be a godly, feminine, submissive wife and mother. She would not be over-educated in a liberal college environment, nor would she work outside the home. Her place was one of domestic bliss, freed from the chains of modern feminism, and thriving as the gentle guide of her household (but deferring always to her husband, of course). I thought it was the closest path to God. I ate it up. This was before Instagram, so I read every blog I could follow, completed the Bible studies, devoured all the books on courtship instead of dating and why higher education is a scam. Wanting only to be a better Christian, I failed to see how so much of this ideology was crafted to keep women in their place, to twist faith into a cage. (That realization would come later, but it’s not the focus of this piece today.)

And, as an adult who had slowly shed these beliefs as she matured, I thought this was what Yesteryear was all about.

I thought I was going to read about the hypocrisy that dogs so much of viral “homesteading mama” content; the marketing behind the dreamy captions about living life slowly and feeding your children organically; the way that so many young women in high-control religious groups have been sold a diabolical lie about the path to happiness.

I think perhaps, at one point, Caro Claire Burke thought she was writing that book.

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Sold as a satirical thriller, at first blush the book seems to do all of those things. Natalie Heller Mills, the main character of Yesteryear (based not-so-subtly on Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farm) is a somehow-Harvard-educated1 Christian woman who has married the son of a conservative politician and started a lifestyle brand on Yesteryear Ranch. Nannies take care of her children behind the scenes while she films motherhood content; the organic produce the farm sells is riddled with pesticide; Caleb, her wannabe cowboy husband, is a blithering idiot diving down the internet rabbit hole into the online manosphere. Natalie, the book’s narrator, divides her inner monologue into Real Life Natalie and Online Natalie, holding herself together—just barely—with the reminder that her audience is always watching. Her millions of followers, that is. And the Lord, of course. But not her church family—not her pastor or bishop or elder—because she doesn’t have one.

It’s funny, isn’t it, that a novel about a tradwife influencer would never once bring a church into the equation?

Once I saw this gap, I couldn’t unsee it. The other little details (I’ll get to some of those) paled in comparison to the glaring lack of any spiritual force tying Natalie to her rigid expectations for herself. The greatest hint we ever get about Natalie’s religious community is the Bible study group she reluctantly attends at Harvard (where she considers the other Harvard students “stupid” with no further substance). There is no older woman mentoring her and urging her to joyfully submit to her husband; no fire-and-brimstone preacher threatening hell in her dreams; no stacks of marriage books dictating her relationship with—her servility to—her weak-willed husband. There is no religious oversight in Natalie’s hyper-conservative bubble, one that—in the real world—is defined by religious oversight, only King James Bible verses plucked out of context and an occasional silent appeal to God.

Who, exactly, is Natalie’s God? What kind of theology did her college self want to study? What religion is driving the nebulous convictions her family adheres to?

Is Natalie Pentecostal, with her long uncut hair? Is she Catholic, “blessing herself” before prayer and refusing to use birth control and watching her mother chug hard liquor (??) at church functions? (And if so, why is she so confused by the college drinking culture, since she is clearly no stranger to her mother’s binges?) Is she Baptist, with a total-immersion adult baptism that somehow bizarrely happened just before she went to college despite having been raised in this nebulous unnamed faith? Is she Anglican, since she references a priest and not a pastor? Is she Mormon, living with her handsome blond husband from a political family, in a region of Idaho that does not actually exist? (Geographically, Yesteryear Ranch is impossible. A nitpick, certainly, but worth adding to the bonfire.) What Christian denomination believes that denying your child siblings is child abuse?2 The girls in her Harvard dorm are unsure of Natalie’s exact beliefs. Caro Claire Burke isn’t—she planned it this way. Started writing, stopped researching, as she said to Kirkus Reviews. Because she doesn’t care.

“I spoke to a lot of Mormon and evangelical women to get a baseline understanding of the requirements in a fundamentalist Christian community. But I didn’t want Natalie to be a specific religion. It’s meant to be a little vague. Once I started writing, I stopped researching.”

All of those fundie denominations, she breezily told The Rumpus, are basically the same.

“I realized very quickly that whether it’s Mormonism or evangelicalism or Jehovah’s Witness, it’s really all the same in terms of how women are treated and what the expectations are for them. There are, of course, minor differences, but the more you learn about it, and the more you interview women, and listen to podcasts—I was even lurking on Reddit threads of women who had left these communities—and you hear the same story again and again about what the expectations are.”

Except, of course, they aren’t. And the people who have emerged from life under FLDS control, or Bill Gothard’s Baptist clutches, or the cult-like Reformed intensity of Christ Kirk in Moscow, Idaho (!), the Vision Forums and Advanced Training Institutes and Institutes for Basic Life Principles and Ladies Against Feminism—they all have a story to tell that is clearer and more deeply personal than Natalie’s vague appeals to “the Lord” to forgive her for saying “fuck” when she just took His name in vain three times in the last chapter.

“That isn’t an unreliable narrator,” writes in Yesteryear is Not a Novel. “That’s a narrator with zero continuity of consciousness.”

It is obvious that Burke had an axe to grind against Christian fundamentalist tradwives, but by skipping over the fertilizer that grew their beliefs, she erased the object of her parody. You cannot satirize a shadow-thing. You cannot reverse-engineer a spiritual scrupulosity starting with the outcome you need for the plot.

A reader who knows nothing about conservative Christianity could be forgiven for thinking that maybe Caro Claire Burke just could not write about this unless she lived it. I don’t actually believe that. I think she was quite capable of writing this story in a way that made sense; the problem is that she did not choose to. There is an abundance of books out there that do catalog the intricacies of growing up in this kind of lifestyle: memoirs by Jill Duggar, Shari Franke, Tia Levings and Tara Westover all explore, in great detail, the kind of rules and restrictions that accompany high-control religious living– and it does not seem that Burke drew on any of those to write this novel. In attempting to satirize #EveryChristianWoman, she painted a portrait of no one.

It all could have been explained so easily, by the way. To do away with the details of a specific religious sect would have been as simple as a passage that mentioned how the Mills family worshiped at home, because the nearby churches were too liberal or too conservative or too whatever-you-like. Starting one’s own system of leadership because the available options are perceived to be not good enough is a valid case for critique and I would have been interested to see that explored. As it is, the total lack of any regularity in worship, any family prayer or marital fight ended by a simple “God says you have to obey me” makes Natalie and Caleb read like a sloppy caricature rather than a well-honed satire.

“Oh, but that’s the point,” some readers have said. “Natalie’s a hypocritical and unreliable narrator, so of course she doesn’t really believe any of this stuff.” But that’s just it. Natalie does believe. She believes… something. What Natalie believes is the train that carries the story to its disappointing end: every twist and turn of the plot is based on the world Natalie perceives. And that world is riddled with references to God; at one point she hallucinates Him in Mary’s face on the steps of the 1855 farmhouse. Once she determines that her apparent dive into the past is not actually a reality show, she becomes convinced that this experience is a test from the Lord. But of course, we know better, at the end. The whole experience was borne out of Natalie’s extreme mental illness, and the fact that her family was drugging her without her knowledge for fifteen years.

For the reader who thought they were going to sink their teeth into schadenfreude, it’s a slap in the face that gets more comical with every outlandish choice. Natalie’s narcissism is brushed under the rug along with her family’s culpability in disabling her. The older sister shows up with a warrant, but no cops, and takes the kids! No one ever tries to look for the Mills family, who disappeared from modern life but are still living at the exact same address! Natalie receives a thirty-year prison sentence for child abuse3 carried out under the influence of drugs she didn’t choose to take! Caleb, who has always known what year they are living in, is… never heard from again!

“Who cares?” some might say. “It’s a thriller. We don’t need character development.” Laying aside the irrefutable fact that this book is making waves in the literary world, and being interrogated against the zeitgeist as few genre novels could ever hope to be, I would argue that character development always matters. It is on character development that fiction hinges!

I know we are supposed to hate Natalie. She’s an awful person. She is self-obsessed. She is not kind. But if Christian fundamentalism is truly what she was born and bred into, then she has also been manipulated, lied to, and let down by the people around her—and that includes an author who failed to give her a believable interiority. If her story were more realistic, she would be at the beck and call of a patriarchal system that gives women a platform if and only if they “keep sweet, pray and obey.” If her course had run true to life, it would have been flagged at every turn by men assuring her they were her authority, reminding her that she was created to serve them, silencing her questions and sending her back to the kitchen. But instead, we are left with a hint that it’s all in her head, which sells short the very real legalistic and high-control nature of fundamentalism.

Jerusalem Demsas and Maibritt Hinkel wrote an excellent takedown of this at :

“In a few short pages, Burke undermines her novel’s fundamental purpose. Most tradwives are not suffering from psychotic breaks; they are promoting a new social conservatism compatible with just enough female empowerment to allow them to pursue commercial success but not enough to cast off their central purpose as submissive wives and mothers. But if Natalie is just a crazy woman disconnected from her religious community, then what can she reveal or say about any of this?”

Ultimately, Burke’s not-so-carefully crafted narrative falls apart—not because of an unreliable narrator, but because of a story that doesn’t know what it’s saying. Having Natalie end up clinically insane, drugged out of her mind in a freezing farmhouse may seem like her just deserts, but this ending crosses from Angry Women territory– mean-spirited glee at a well-deserved comeuppance—into a shoddy deus ex machina riddled with ableism.

“The novel wants us to be proud of her mother and Abigail for breaking free from the toxic mindset they were in while Natalie never does,” Hillary Moyer wrote to me in a text she has permitted me to share, “but if Natalie’s literally insane then expecting her to have an epiphany and do the actual work is actually impossible.”4

To make Natalie crazy is to remove her from agency in the world she built and then demolished. “This lets tradwife influencers off the hook, almost,” two more of my friends noted. “As if white supremacy and eugenics could be fixed with meds.” It would be painting with too broad a brush to conclude that Burke is trying to say all tradwives are clinically insane or on pills. Clearly, Burke knows that this ideology stretches much farther than a single woman whose mind has snapped. The people who are propelling the tradwife movement to a world where Doug Wilson dictates national policy (I wish that were an exaggeration) are unfortunately mostly sane. They know what they are doing. And they don’t intend to stop.

If everything in the world of influencer content were truly a lie, known to be a lie by the people advocating it, then it shouldn’t worry us. If every Ballerina Farm is really a Yesteryear, then it doesn’t affect society at large. But we know—and Burke knows—that the woman baking sourdough and gently crooning a canned script about sinking into the slow moments of this little life (and making sure you have lots of babies to preserve the white race!), while millions of people watch and envy, is wielding an outsize influence.

As I finished Yesteryear— read in great gulps over a very short span of time (and then re-read, to make sense of it all) —I was left both gobsmacked and dissatisfied. The longer I thought about it, the less I liked it. And yet it had gripped me so deeply, because Burke is a talented writer. As the initial, highly favorable reviews came in, I began to think that maybe I was missing something. But as I spoke with friends with a similar background to mine, who also clocked the conspicuous lack of any religious conviction in Natalie’s world, I was grateful to see I was not the only one who had been disappointed. Though most of us had read it quickly, unable to put it down, the appeal faded the longer we sat with it. Like the Instagram life it mocked, the story is an infinite scroll you cannot look away from, but when you stop to actually consider what you’ve just absorbed, you realize there was nothing there.

So many of us feel let down by this novel because we thought we were getting something stunning. Burke is clearly a skilled writer. Natalie as a character had potential. And yet Yesteryear doesn’t have a single pillar of faith— or fantasy—to stand on.

“Every reader will have an experience with the novel that has nothing to do with me,” Burke told Kirkus Reviews. But in a Note published to this very platform, she complained about “how she is being treated culturally” in the wake of the novel’s release, hinting at doing a “very meta podcast episode” about the experience.

“Yes please!” one of her fans urged in the replies. “Research not needed. Just rant!”

I can see why the deep dives that some readers are giving to the novel might feel foreign to Burke. But if she had given her admittedly intriguing concept the level of attention that her critics are giving the novel; if a close reading of Natalie’s motivations, or lack thereof, had been applied to the early drafts, perhaps this and many other readers’ experience would have been a kinder one.

Also? You simply cannot convince me that a breastfeeding mother, who researches everything, would hear about a sick cow and inquire, “What’s mastitis?”

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I have a confession. When my three-year-old started preschool, I was relieved. I was the kind of mom who was excited to have part of her day child-free. I wanted a few hours to get caught up on work, go grocery shopping, manage doctors’ appointments, or even just watch a show that wasn’t the umpteenth viewing of Cars on the Road. The idea of someone else caring for my child seemed wonderful.

However, even as I let a professional care for my son, I still wanted to hold onto a little control. That’s why my husband and I opted out of the free school bus and chose to spend at least an hour idling in a sea of SUVs every day. We’re small-business owners and I work remotely, so our schedules were flexible enough to allow this time sink. I didn’t mind it so much, as I got in some great audiobook listening. And it gave me a sense of security, however misplaced it may have been. My husband and I, not a random bus driver, were responsible for our little guy’s safety for a portion of the day.

But when we went to kindergarten orientation at our son’s new school last August, we quickly saw how difficult it would be to keep up our chauffeur system. Cars spilled out of the school grounds and down the street, around the corner, and into a nearby church’s parking lot. Admin told us the street becomes one-way during pick-up and drop-off hours, like a parade with less confetti and more cold coffee. The principal didn’t quite beg parents to choose the school bus, but her “please consider” reminded me of my son’s desperately hopeful pleas for a Popsicle.

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We’re so excited to welcome Lindsay Fickas to The Pomegranate’s writing team!

Every group chat has their antagonists. Former friends, vindictive exes, nosey co-workers, and the relatives we have no choice but to keep around. For a period of time with my friends, it was a guy named Travis.1 Travis was a twenty-something-year-old who had been tasked with leading my son’s competitive soccer team. Working with him had quickly become a nightmare. He never responded to the parents’ questions and ignored every email. He missed at least one game and waited so long to tell us about the players’ fees, all the parents owed a fine. It felt like a small miracle one day when the entire team received a notification that Travis would no longer be working with our kids. He was now the problem of recreational league seven-year-olds. The Lord had heard our prayer.

My three kids have been playing soccer since 2022 and have been involved with several different clubs. For the most part, the overall experience has been great. My younger two have stayed with their same team since the very beginning. These kids have grown together and found their place, first running the field as an untamed pack before distinguishing themselves into forwards, goalies, and non-committed centers mostly just there for the vibes. But sports are tricky. The more you see how it’s supposed to work, the clearer you see potential dysfunction.

For every few great coaches you’ll encounter, there is one who has the potential to completely derail your life. Before the advent of Travis, my oldest was a part of a rec team coached by a grouch of a dad who stepped up solely because no one else would. Throughout practice, he would scream at the kids for an hour before walking away in a huff. My son didn’t learn a thing from him throughout his tenure. It wasn’t until we pulled him out and switched to a pricier league that we realized our kid was actually a pretty skilled soccer player.

And then came the parents. With my oldest son’s former rec team in particular, it was rough. They would pull out cans of beer at morning games, drinking and yelling until they were ejected from the fields. As we would walk back to the car afterward, they would stop us and ask if we at least won. The answer was always no.

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The drinking parents were far from the worst. Aggressive sports parents have been a trope for decades now, getting satirized in everything from Will Ferrell movies to episodes of Bob’s Burgers. Nearly every field now has signs reminding parents that, believe it or not, the referees are human. Yet things are more toxic now than ever. One recent weekend, my sister left a baseball game for her kid and texted us horrified. Things had come to a head when one dad started yelling that he was going to bring a gun to the parking lot and threatened to call ICE on another parent. The middle-school players just watched in horror.

These actions from the parents undoubtedly bleed into their kids with trash-talking starting well before they can even play with full-sized goals. This past year, my kindergartener told me after a game that the other team kept calling them losers, taunting them as they chased the ball down the field. It was a dark transition from their normal, friendly games where even getting the ball into the right goal felt like a major accomplishment. We had a problem with another former team where one kid could not stop getting ejected from games. All of nine years old, he would hurl insults at the referees until he was removed. If he did manage to last the entire hour, he would aim his ire at his teammates. Every time they would lose, my son would sit quietly in the backseat in such a foul mood, nothing could cheer him up.

Much of the toxicity both on and off the field comes from a sense of entitlement. The fact is that these parents see sports as an investment. They want to raise the next Lionel Messi, and some of them have the means to do it. And let me tell you, it takes a lot of means. You could sign your child up for a rec team that will cost you $150 for the season. At this stage, your child will likely be on a team coached by a parent volunteer and refed by a mix of teenagers and retirees. Any growth potential to take your child from a participatory player to a great one will come with additional time and money.

If your child does fall in love, they are going to move up to competitive teams. This is where the cost of playing is going to quickly move into the four digits. Here in my LCOL city of St. Louis, one of our primary clubs costs over $2,000 per season. The price will cover your entry fees and game fees, uniforms and alternative uniforms made of such a cheap polyester, they will tear from even the slightest bit of tension. At this point, the experience becomes remarkably better with full-time coaches, elevated turf fields, and refs who bring some knowledge to the sport. Things like gear, specialized position camps, and tournaments will cost extra.

Excelling at sports is something that is simply out of reach for most working families. We all love hearing about that kid who came from nothing and bought his hard-working mom a house once he hit it big. In reality, kids in lower income households are at an instant disadvantage because they don’t have access to the targeted development needed to hone their skills. The most raw talent likely rests in kids with no means to express it, practicing in backyards and on cracked pavement while scholarship-bound athletes are halfway across town driving to practice in their parents’ Lexus.

That cost, of course, doesn’t take a family’s time into consideration. During soccer season, we have three practices on weekend evenings on top of a once-a-month Friday training. Because I am lucky enough to work freelance from home, it’s doable even if it is stressful. Then come the weekend games where we spend at least one day driving across town, living in a lawn chair, and eating lunches made up of concession stand hot dogs and stale coffee. We duck beneath pavilions on the hot days, try to thaw our hands in the car on the rainy, cold ones, and miss major plays because we have to run one of the kids to the bathroom four fields away. We can’t agree to plans with friends or extended family without first saying, “let me check to see what time we have games.” To be a sports parent means replacing some of your community with the people hurling insults at their third-grader as they walk off toward the car. It is isolating at best.

Don’t get me wrong. We are lucky that we get the chance to let our kids pursue something that they love. There is nothing better than watching their confidence take root as they find a breakaway or block a corner kick. At the end of the day, it remains one of the best activities to build up their social skills while pulling them away from screens. But sometimes, when I’m hunting down missing shin guard sleeves or planning out another week of 30-minute dinner recipes, I start to resent it all. Why do we have to spend another night convincing our kid that yes, he really does need to go to practice? Why do we have to put our entire lives on hold for seven months out of every year? Why do we have to deal with bad coaches and angry parents and parking lots filled with post-2024 Teslas and endless laundry piles and so-called Mother’s Day tournaments I swear were planned by men unwilling to actually do anything for their wives?

The day I started to work on this essay, my kids and I wound up in a teensy Italian market after a game so we could get ingredients for dinner. I stood in line exhausted, entertaining the younger two while my oldest walked around in his cleats. After I had finished putting in my order, a man ahead of us turned around and looked at my son’s uniform. “Did you have a game today?” he asked.

My son paused the music in his headphones to say he did.

“Well, did you have fun?”

It wasn’t a question if he had won or lost. If his team was good. If he was good. It was as simple as that. Did you have fun?

“Yeah,” my son said, his eyes lighting up. “I scored a goal.”

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On an unseasonably warm end-of-winter day, my kids are carousing at the park with a gaggle of other preschool-aged children. On and off the swings, down the slide, swinging from the monkey bars and fighting over who got to bang on the plastic drum set. I am in the middle of pushing my two-year-old on a baby swing he’s nearly outgrown when another child approaches me. Five or six, perhaps, a similar age to my older son. “Push me too,” he demands.

I pause. There’s no please, no request, no politeness of any kind, nothing to intimate that I am a stranger who does not owe him entertainment or assistance. Who is raising this kid? I think, while out loud I say, “Can you ask your mom or dad? I’m pushing my little boy right now.”

He asks again a few more times, wending his way through the playground and back to me again, and each time I am perfectly polite to him but internally I become more and more annoyed. This isn’t my child. I have enough to deal with. It’s not my job to keep him occupied on the playground. Where are his parents and why aren’t they stepping up?

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When I started working on my third novel—a story about a woman who unexpectedly returns to the Pennsylvania lake house where she spent her childhood summers—I knew I wanted my main character, Marissa, to be a burnt-out single mom. I’d never written a protagonist who was a parent before, so I expected this to be a challenge. I did not, however, anticipate that it would become a central theme of the novel. But as the idea took shape, Marissa’s struggle to balance her own needs with her desire to be a good mother became an inextricable part of the story I was trying to tell. Looking back, I think it might’ve been a story I needed to tell.

In Rewrite the Stars, which releases on July 7, 2026, Marissa doesn’t just find romantic love; she also finds her way back to herself. At the lake house, she realizes how much of her identity she’s lost since becoming a mother, and as the summer progresses, she starts to reclaim those missing pieces.

Many moms experience some sense of identity loss after having kids. Once your priorities shift, it’s all too easy to lose yourself in the process. For me, writing is a way to re-center when I feel like my sole purpose in life is playing chauffeur and battling endless piles of laundry. But it wasn’t until I started drafting this book that I realized how much I had to say about motherhood and the constant juggling of everyone’s needs, including my own.

As I mentioned, motherhood wasn’t the initial inspiration behind this novel. That seed was actually planted two years ago, when Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were breaking up (again). It seemed like every time the press ran a story, Ben’s first wife, Jennifer Garner, would get dragged back into the narrative. My friends and I texted about it constantly. Why wouldn’t they leave her alone? We wanted (nay, demanded!) justice for Jen, a mom who was clearly bearing the brunt of parenting, yet somehow couldn’t avoid her messy ex’s drama.

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It also got me thinking about Jen’s acting career. In recent years, she’s stepped back from Hollywood to prioritize her family, and I found myself reflecting on my own career path. Before my second child was born, I was a full-time English teacher. I was on maternity leave when the pandemic hit, and when my son was diagnosed with autism at eighteen months and early intervention was recommended, I needed to stay home to manage the services he needed. It worked out okay for our family–we were already relying on my husband’s health insurance and the pivot allowed me to pursue my longtime dream of becoming a writer. But a lot of families are not so lucky. And when sacrifices are required, more often than not, it’s the women who make them.

When I start brainstorming a book, I tend to weave two or three ideas together. As I was mulling the Jen/Jen/Ben love triangle, I was also in the thick of autism therapies. We spent a lot of time in the car, since my five-year-old was splitting his week between general ed preschool and center-based autism services. My husband is a terrific partner, but he’s also a physician, and his busy schedule meant I handled most of the daily load: the drop-offs and pick-ups, the weekly parent training, and the home visits from therapists. (He manages a lot of behind-the-scenes tasks, especially when it comes to medical insurance, a part-time job in itself).

It was a lot to juggle, even with a partner who was loving and helpful, and during the long drives, I occasionally found myself wondering, as writers often do, how things would look if the circumstances were different. What would it be like if my marriage felt unbalanced? What would it be like to raise an autistic child as a single mom, or even as a married one with a disengaged partner? Soon, those questions merged with the celebrity romance I’d been brainstorming. What if a divorced celebrity mom of an autistic child escaped the spotlight and found love again? And that question set Rewrite the Stars into motion.

Romance is the highest-selling fiction genre, and according to the Romance Writers of America, roughly half of its readership is women aged 30–54 (aka, prime parenting age). It makes sense; the genre is pure escapism, and who needs an escape more than exhausted moms, who are not only juggling their own lives and careers but also the mental load of parenting? (Trust me, I could go on and on about the myriad of ways in which romance novels fulfill women’s unmet emotional needs, but that’s another article entirely). And one thing I’ve learned in the three years I’ve been publishing books is that there is a huge demographic of romance readers who are not only moms, but specifically, moms of children with special needs.

Readers want to see themselves in a story’s protagonist, because it deepens relatability and builds emotional investment. So whenever a reader tells me that Marissa made them feel seen as a mother, I feel like I’ve done my job. But while I’m thrilled that this story resonates, I’ll admit that writing a mom as a main character had its share of practical challenges. Specifically, now that I’ve created these fictional children, how do I get them out of the way?

Last year, I did an event with Laurie Gilmore, author of the Dream Harbor series. She was promoting her newest title, The Strawberry Patch Pancake House, and during our discussion, I asked her about the experience of writing a main character who was a single dad. Laurie told me her biggest hurdle was finding realistic ways to get his daughter off the page. A couple needs alone time together for intimacy to flourish, and as any parent will tell you, that’s no small feat with kids around.

I faced the same problem while writing this book. Marissa is spending the season at the lake house with her two young kids, and while I wanted to explore her life as a mom, I also needed her kiddos to leave so she could pursue her romantic relationship with Jesse, her carpenter turned love interest. Since the book is set in the summer, I did the same thing with Marissa’s kids that I do with my own: I packed them up and sent them off camp (and then later, on a trip with their father).

Luckily, that challenge helped me to build Marissa’s character, because it provided a vehicle to explore that push-pull feeling we all experience as moms. We want (and need!) time away from our kids, but the minute we get it, we feel guilty and miss them. No matter what we do, we are like the “vegetarian” vampires of Twilight: never fully satisfied. So instead of avoiding it, I harnessed that tension in order to enrich Marissa’s emotional arc. Writing it was healing for me as well, and I hope readers will find her story both relatable and enjoyable.

Representation is important, so if you’re looking for more romances featuring single mom protagonists, here are a few of my favorites:

• Seven Days in June, by Tia Williams

• Nora Goes Off Script, by Annabel Monaghan

• First-Time Caller, by BK Borison

I also recommend This Could Be Us, by Kennedy Ryan, which features a single dad raising autistic twins. Kennedy is a fellow autism mom who drew on her experiences while writing. She’s also an advocate and the co-founder of LiFT 4 Autism, an annual charitable book auction that fundraises for Kulture City, a national autism organization.

Finally, I’d love to close out with a quick plug! Preorders are crucial to the success of a book and if the plot of Rewrite the Stars resonates with you, I’d be so grateful if you purchased a copy. As an extra incentive, I’m currently running a preorder campaign from now to 7/1/26 through my local indie bookstore, Cupboard Maker Books. If you order a copy here, I’ll not only sign and personalize it for you, but I’ll also include a boyfriend bookmark shaped like Jesse, Marissa’s dreamy contractor love interest. You can also subscribe to my newsletter to get updates about other promotions and tour dates.

Thank you so much for reading! I hope my book will provide you with both a sweet, summer romance and a reminder that it’s never too late to reclaim ourselves, even amid the messiness of motherhood.

Lindsay Hameroff is a writer, humorist, and former English teacher raised in Baltimore, Maryland, and based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Her writing has been featured in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Weekly Humorist, and fan letters to Harry Styles.

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One of the hallmarks of the BBC’s long-running historical drama, Call the Midwife, is that the cast of characters shifts and changes every few years. The original series was based on Jennifer Worth’s memoir of working as a nurse midwife in London’s East End in the 1950s, but by the third season, Jenny Lee (later Worth) had left the show, and the other nuns and nurses stepped in to fill her gap. Fifteen years from its premiere, Call the Midwife is still going strong, and only five of the original cast are still playing the same roles. The rest of the main characters have joined at various points in the last fourteen years, bringing a constant roster of new stories and perspectives to the ever-evolving story of Nonnatus House.

I love that. I love that the community of nurses has eddied and changed like water flowing through a stream (ideally not feeding into the east London harbor though because I understand that smells really bad). People come and go, some stay and grow, others move on to different pastures and sweeter-smelling tributaries.

Running an online publication can be like that, too. Sometimes, other life obligations get in the way of writing—work, babies, other and equally exciting pursuits. Sometimes it’s time for a season of rest. And, though real life does not usually unfold with the poetic justice of an episode set in Poplar, it’s very exciting when more wonderful talented people step into a new role.

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We are thrilled, therefore, to announce new writers on the Pom team!

Lindsay Fickas is joining us as a Contributing Writer. Lindsay is a freelancer and copywriter based in St. Louis, and known on the Internet for writing about music, culture, American history, and parenting. She previously wrote for the Pom in January 2026 (Motherhood in the Age of Incels) and has made many podcast appearances. She is the mother of three boys and two dogs. Lindsay’s essays will be regularly featured.

Taylor Schumann is also joining us as a Contributing Writer. Taylor is the author of When Thoughts and Prayers Aren't Enough: A Shooting Survivor's Journey Into the Realities of Gun Violence (InterVarsity Press, 2020). Taylor has written for Christianity Today, Sojourners, and Plough Magazine. She is the mother of a boy and a girl, one puppy, and many formerly feral cats. Taylor’s essays will be regularly featured.

What does this mean for the future of The Pom? Well, the general format is staying largely the same. , who is writing this post, is remaining with the team as editor. will occasionally pop in as a Contributing Writer. , and have all moved on (very amicably!) for the time being, but their work will continue to live in our archives and perhaps in future guest appearances. We are anticipating the feature of a few new guest writers as well, and of course our submissions are open should you wish to send in your work.

We are excited to see what 2026 will bring for The Pomegranate, and as always, thank you so much for being here!

Got a question for Lindsay or Taylor? Leave us a comment!

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I am the mum of a two-and-a-half-year-old girl, (E) a wife to a full time PhD student (L) and a freelance writer/editor. My daughter is in childcare two days a week, but otherwise I spend my time caring for her in between other things. We live in Sydney, Australia (we relocated here from elsewhere in Australia for my husband’s PhD). Because my husband is doing a PhD in theology at a Bible college, we live in college housing, two minutes from campus, in a street where all our neighbours are students or staff of this particular college. A lot of our life revolves around the college community, which is a blessing mostly. But this context is important for understanding a lot of my life in this current season!

5am - E wakes up and knocks on our door. We’ve been trying to teach her to stay in her room playing until 6am (with varying success). My husband gets up and redirects her a few times before giving up at 5.45am and getting up to take her downstairs. We are working on toilet training, so the first thing he does is put her on the toilet.

6am - I check my notifications and emails, then get up, put together clothes for both myself and E for the day, and head downstairs for breakfast and coffee. We let our toddler have some screen time each morning on an old, cracked tablet I used to use in the classroom when I was a teacher (we don’t own a TV at the moment). It’s the only way everyone gets fed and caffeinated without drama.

7am – After breakfast, we somehow get everyone through the shower (I am requested to sing ‘the duck song’ while my daughter acts out the drama of little ducks being lost and then found with her bath toys), and then with a lot of negotiation I get my daughter dressed and her hair done. She requests ‘twin tails’ (pigtails) and wants to look at photos of herself as a baby while I do this.

8am - We say goodbye to L, who heads off to start work across the road at college. E and I bob around at home, her playing with various toy animals, me packing her lunchbox and bag. I make and drink a second coffee while reading some stories to E, then we feed the cats (we have two cats). I attempt to do some washing up (E ‘helps’) before it’s time to leave the house.

9.30 – I drop E off at our childcare co-op in the college playground and head to Bible study. As part of the college community, a co-op of mums have started a rotating Friday morning childcare and Bible study system. My group had been on childcare for the first two weeks, so this is the first week of the year I get to go to study.

11.30 – Having enjoyed a peaceful two hours reading some Psalms and praying with other women, I return to the playground to pick up E, plus a bonus child. My friend is off getting a scan for her second pregnancy, so I take E and my friend’s little boy back to my house to play.

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12.30 - My friend returns and shares the delightful news that everything is progressing well. My daughter, who has been having an amazing time with her friend, promptly has a meltdown when it is time for him to go and her to have lunch and get ready for a nap.

1pm – E has requested noodles for lunch. She is not patient while they cook. She eats about half the bowl before encountering some frustrations with her fork and deciding the best solution is to flip the entire bowl. Now she is upset about the rest of her noodles being on the floor. I give her a yoghurt pouch to calm her down and fill the rest of her tummy.

1.30 – Upstairs to her room for a nap. There is some screaming and protesting (including repeatedly asking for Daddy) but she is pretty tired, so she falls asleep eventually.

1pm - I eat my lunch (leftover lasagne reheated from the freezer) and make the foolish decision to catch up on the horrifying news on my phone, rather than what this time is meant to be for, reading historical fiction (currently The Pearl Thief by Fiona McIntosh) from the library. I used to try and do chores during my daughter’s nap, but we’ve reached the stage now where I can do things like washing up and laundry with her in tow, whereas rest and book reading are impossible when she is around, so I prioritize. I also send some emails and let E’s childcare know about upcoming holiday dates. I’ve also been sent the files for an editing job I will be doing next week, and I have a quick look to see what state the manuscript is in. It’s similar to a lot of the work I do, where the person writing it is an expert in their field and has lots of knowledge to share, but needs the help of a writer to communicate it clearly and well. It’s going to take me slightly longer than I anticipated, but as I charge by the hour for my editing freelance work I will still get paid fairly.

2.30 – We have to get to a GP (general practitioner - in Australia this kind of doctor is a one stop shop for basically all medical things) appointment for an ongoing, mild issue my daughter is having, so I bundle her into her pram still half asleep with her pacifier and a blanket and get the bus two suburbs over to my fantastic GP. She listens to my concerns, we come up with a new treatment plan, and she renews some medication prescriptions for me, which is one of the benefits of sharing a doctor with my toddler! We stop by the pharmacy to fill these scripts and then get the bus back to our place. E is not fully awake really until about halfway through the appointment. But she gets stickers from the GP so she is satisfied.

3.30 – E wants to go to the playground, so off we go. She spends a lot of her waking hours when it isn’t raining in this playground, and because it’s shared with our college community, there are usually friends around! She finds some little friends, I half chat with other parents and half make sure my daughter isn’t causing herself or anyone else issues. E has been playing in this playground since she was eight months old, so she is very confident with the play equipment. But being two and a half, she is still navigating all the nuances of playing with other children. We’re working on being gentle and kind with those younger than her, and also on using her words if she needs a break from someone (she is getting pretty good at yelling ‘space please!’ when necessary).

4.15pm - My husband texts that his afternoon meeting has finished and then comes and joins us in the playground. He offers to take over so I can have a break before a solo bedtime, so I head home to bring in the washing before it rains and then lie on the couch for 45 minutes.

5.30 – L and E come home from the playground. Part of my husband’s PhD involves Latin zoom classes that are based in Europe and therefore at weird times. L says goodnight to E and heads back to college for his Latin class.

6pm – E and I eat dinner mostly together (it’s leftover green tofu curry and rice from the slow cooker I did yesterday – E picks out and eats the tofu and rice, ignoring the vegetables). She struggles to stay still while eating, so we change locations from the kitchen to the living room and back to the kitchen again, but eventually have both consumed our dinners.

6.30 - We do showers in the morning, but sometimes E will also have a bath at night as well, but she hasn’t asked for one tonight and I don’t have the energy to offer, so I get her to sit on the toilet and we brush her teeth. We head upstairs for some playtime and wind down (I play some calm music in a hope to prepare her for bedtime). She sets out a blanket as a picnic rug and instructs me on where all her animal friends should sit. She ‘makes tea’ and it’s pretty cute, even if she is bossing me around about what food goes on which plates.

7pm – I negotiate E into pyjamas and then we look at her prayer folder full of pictures of people we pray for and things we pray about. She tells me she wants to thank God for her friend coming over, and also dinosaurs. Very fair. I put her to bed.

7.30 – I thought she was asleep but now she is knocking on the door telling me she needs the toilet. We trudge downstairs, put her on the toilet and I sing nursery rhymes while she does what she needs to do. As we are cleaning up from the only mostly successful toilet trip, my husband gets home and takes over. I make a cup of tea and take it to drink upstairs while he makes a second attempt at bedtime.

8.30 – Okay, she is actually asleep now. L and I talk a bit about various things, I update him on the new plan from the GP, and we make a plan for Saturday (I have a different editing job due before the next one starts, so he will take E for the morning while I finish it). I listen to a history video (“Reading the Past with Dr Kat” tonight) and play some games on my phone while a cat comes to sit on my pillow and purr extremely loudly, before I eventually go to sleep later than I should.

The flexibility of my work (and to some extent my husband’s work) is a huge blessing and challenge at this stage of life. It’s so necessary, as you never know when a virus will hit and suddenly you have a toddler home sick from childcare, but it also kind of means I am always working and always not working. I snatch time for edits and emails in nap times or half an hour pockets in the evening when my husband is home. Most weeks I get two days of concentrated work time while E is at childcare, and for that time I am incredibly grateful.

But it does feel a little bit I am always weighing up priorities and making sacrifices - do I stay at the playground for an hour and enjoy chatting with friends and catching up with my husband while she plays, or do I do an hour of work, an hour of cleaning or that most coveted prize of all - an hour of relaxation time to myself? Whatever I choose to do, there will be a cost for it somewhere else, and I’ll always kind of feel like I am missing out on what I am choosing not to do. Again, I am so glad I am able to do work I enjoy to help support my family and still get so much time with my toddler or have the choice to do other things - a lot of working mums would love to get to go to a weekly Bible study on a mid-week morning with childcare provided. But it’s all a balancing act, and sometimes I wobble. I don’t really know yet how life might change once my husband finishes his PhD (hopefully at the end of 2027), or when E starts school, but this is what my life looks like for now, and so I’m trying to soak up the good and not get too caught up in the bad. Both will pass, all too quickly.

Rebecca (Beccy) Sharley is a freelance writer and editor at Rebecca Sharley Writes, who also writes her own substack at Searching for Grace. She lives with her husband, her daughter and too many cats in Sydney, Australia.

Searching For Grace

Writing from Beccy about life and faith and all kinds of things

By Beccy

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When I became pregnant with my first son, I worried a lot about stretch marks. I bought cocoa butter lotion, used it religiously, and drank water as if I were training for a marathon in the desert. I didn’t really need to worry, as it turned out. I was in my mid-twenties, still producing plenty of collagen, and the two or three marks that showed up near the end of the third trimester faded pretty quickly. I got lucky.

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