Opinion | The ‘Impossible Life’ of Equal Devotion to Art and Mothering

Since the birth of my first son, I have been wondering where that idyllic village people keep talking about is, or if it even exists. Is there a phone number to call or something? Plenty of people offer to “help” in their own way, but the odds are stacked against moms. We take time off from our jobs while our partners go back to work, maybe have a

Tillie Olsen wrote: “In the twenty years I bore and reared my children . . . the simplest circumstances for creation did not exist.” It was a physical problem, a time problem; it was also a question of selfhood. “The obligation to be physically attractive and patient and nurturing and docile and sensitive and deferential . . . contradicts and must

A perfect balance is wonderful when you can strike it. But periods of imbalance are healthy and necessary, too. They demonstrate to children that the burdens and sacrifices of caregiving should not be a mother’s to bear alone, and help them understand why mothers can’t always lavish them with undivided attention.

This is what female monstrousness looks like: abandoning the kids. Always.