Real frowns. “But she’s the after-school mom and the cook and the cleaner-upper,” he says. “That would be fine if she didn’t work, but not if you’re both working. What I see happening with guys is ‘Don’t mess with me—I need sleep and R&R so I can fight the dragons for my family.’ But she’s fighting the dragons now, too.” In the old days, he goes

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Unlike other cultures, which treat becoming a mother as a major, traumatic life crisis, with special social rites and rituals, Western societies had been failing to recognize matrescence as a major transition: a transition that involves a whole spectrum of emotional and existential ruptures, a transition that can make women ill, a transition in

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When people are upset that their advice has gone unheeded, there are often two things going on. Yes, they’re worried that someone is making a bad decision, but they also feel hurt that their perspective hasn’t been properly valued. Think about how much you might be affected by that second emotion. Think too about how the desire to protect can

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