Mothers and Family This year, MER is examining the ins and outs of mothers with families, both online and in our forthcoming print issues. Often mothers are the nuclei of families—of the legacies, obligations, and stories that orbit around…
Browsing: MER Online
Jessica Yen Houdini When your second child has been thrashing for twenty-one minutes in their bassinet, you finally recognize, with a clarity you could not have possessed with your eldest, that your infant is so achingly overtired they are…
Jen Bryant Lessons My son hunches over a math worksheet, brow furrowed in concentration. He solves an addition problem quickly, then reconsiders, doubling back. I watch as he erases carefully, then pencils a new answer over the gray smudge…
Tracie Adams All My Love, Monitored and Recorded There never seemed to be a good time to see the jail’s number on our caller ID. The phone ringing didn’t surprise us, but it sure pissed us off. Our oldest…
Nettie Reynolds Crossing the Canyon In June 2011, a month after my divorce was finalized, I packed up the car in Austin, Texas, and took the first of what would become many trips with my two kids—my nine-year-old son,…
Melissa Fraterrigo Mother-Daughter Osmosis Last week, my daughter Eva and I walked to the neighborhood swimming pool a few blocks from our house. The sun glinted off the water’s surface as Eva and I tossed our towels on lounge…
Jennifer Harris One Hundred and Forty-One Miles I was walking up 19th Street in Dupont Circle listening to Sinead O’Connor’s You Cause As Much Sorrow on my iPhone. She’s saved under my “Goth Alt” list, which, if you must…
Kresha Warnock Becoming a Mother-in-Law I listen to the baby cry in her room. It’s 7 a.m., I’m up, and I wonder if I should go get my little granddaughter. Her dad, my son, worked late the night before.…
Laura Johanna Braverman FULL MOON AND GALLOWAYS The farmer shows me a hollowing-in by the iliac crest, skin taut from the weight of the calf. ‘Soon –’ she says, ‘Next week is Vollmond.’ She brings out a box: puncher…
Brenda Cárdenas WHAT A MOLCAJETE HOLDS Despite my drawers full of knives and spoons, cutting boards, spatulas, ceramic ramekins, when I blend spices, I must place them in her molcajete, press the three-generation pestle against cloves to shatter…