Last summer, I was sitting at my mother’s breakfast table talking politics, when my daughter popped her head out from behind the comics and asked, “Mom, what’s abortion?” I don’t recall how old I was when I first heard...
Category - PTA: Parenting Through the Apocalypse
I do not want my daughter to be afraid of carbs. I do not want her to believe fried food is evil. But I also do not want her to solve her problems, or avoided them, with a pint of ice cream. I want her to have a healthy...
Two years ago, my life took a left turn. The phone rang. The biopsy was positive. I had breast cancer. I am not alone. Look around any Starbucks. Chances are every eighth woman in line will get that call eventually...
Steven Shore hates me. That’s what I thought as a Bard College freshman in his Photography 101 class, while I argued about why I had not done the assignment as directed: uncropped, unmanipulated, and uncontrived. Looking back...
This post is part of the series P.T.A. : Parenting Through the Apocalypse (my occasionally fictional life.) Every morning, she stands in front of my daughter’s elementary school oozing nonchalant self-confidence. Chatting...
On the morning of November 8, 2016, my daughter and I woke up full of hope and promise. Today was the day; we were going to elect Hillary Clinton as president on the United States. We would transition from one intelligent...
For the next 100 days, I’ll be posting a series of short pieces about parenting in the age of Trump, under the collective title, PTA: Parenting Through the Apocalypse. Each week I’ll explore the celebrations and conflicts...
The day of Trump’s inauguration, my daughter’s fourth grade class watched the clock until it hit noon, when he took the oath of office. They thought something would happen when the world as they knew it changed. The country...
By Maud Kersnowski Sachs On the night of Monday, February 27th, swastikas were carved into the front doors of the Fourth Universalist Society in New York City. The day before, I had walked through those doors with my...
By Maud Kersnowski Sachs “We the People…” “Four score and seven years ago…” “I have a dream…” We all know these words. They are the words that we teach our children. They mark times of hope and inclusion...