The Monthly Theme Essays are a collection of essays written each month on a predetermined theme. These essays are always published during the last week of the month. To submit a Monthly Theme Essay check out our upcoming themes.
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I spotted you leaning against a pillar under the Washington Square arch, in men’s clothes, and with a bigger frame. You were stocky, and your face seemed wider. You’d gained weight, and your straight blond hair was dyed blue and cut short, like a Marine.
Read MoreI was next to my father in the back of a police cruiser as the resentment towards my mother grew. I was six months pregnant and when I realized that the door locked from the outside, echoes of my doctor’s voice flooded me. You have to remain calm when you’re pregnant, eat well, play music for your baby to hear in the womb. They internalize your emotions in utero and can be traumatized before they are even born. I tried to breathe as I looked ahead through the grates that divided me from the backs of the policemen’s balding heads and put a hand on my hard misshapen stomach as I rolled my window down the two inches that it allowed.
Read MoreEven with a surgical cap and a mask, Mike’s smile still escaped from beyond the barriers of blue polypropylene. He held up the fuzzy hospital socks I was helpless to put on. Without a word, he covered my swollen feet.
Read MoreIt’s been a long time since I have been a good mother. It is 7:25 am and my son is laying in front of the pantry, his face pressed into the crumbs, dust, and dog hair of the kitchen floor. His six-year-old body long and thin, splayed in a scissor-like pose, his hair, tangled blond snarls. He is banging one leg theatrically against the floor, telling me or the floorboards that he wants the granola with no nuts.
Read MoreThe first time I sat in the waiting room, I faced a wall full of Christmas cards and birth announcements.
The second time I sat in the waiting room, Chris sat next to me, reading a book I bought him, which exclaimed in bold letters on the front, “We’re pregnant!” I held a clipboard and grilled him about his family’s medical history. When the doctor turned the monitor screen to face us, Chris couldn’t help but move closer, wanting to get as good a look at our little gummy bear as possible. But he didn’t let go of my hand, and for the first time he was pulled between me and our child.
Read More(Sometimes I forget).
I have a body. I remind myself stretching, the pops releasing my back before climbing into bed. I roll my wrists, tiny muscles spent from crocheting. We’re working on our relationship, my body and me. I’m working to listen better; my body, in turn, agrees to shout less. I’m trying to forgive the things it will not do, the question mark of grief that whispers, “I can’t.”
Read More“If that’s what you’ve decided to do, then go do it. But if you leave, you better know you can’t come back.”
I sat on the edge of the dining room chair as my mother stood over me, gripping the remote control in her hand, eyes blazing.
“I’m only moving to Astoria,” I said. Although my words came out smoothly, glibly even, my stomach turned over in knots.
Read MoreI’m lucky. I came out as a lesbian in the wake of Stonewall. First to myself, a recent Harvard dropout cleaning houses in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1970. Then to friends, my women’s consciousness-raising group, other feminists, potential roommates and lovers, and finally, after several years, my family.
Read MoreThe first night it happened, all the windows of our fieldstone house were open. The air moist and still, the sounds of trilling toads filled our bedroom. I’d gone to bed at nine, shortly after the twins, wrung out from an afternoon of playing alligator on the trampoline.
Read MoreWhen she died, I didn’t miss her, which did not seem right or fair or even biologically possible. All it seemed was true.
I remember the feeling of weightlessness after the funeral, once I was home—in my home, the one that took decades to build by scratch and sweat.
Read MoreWhen my daughter asked if her boyfriend could spend the night, I said yes.
He and his mom had a blowout argument and she ended up telling him to get out of the car they were sleeping in. Each night, they'd park at the Walmart up the road.
Read MoreA lot can happen in ten years. You lose a baby, or choose to lose a baby, though at the time, it doesn’t feel like a choice, more like a pre-ordained outcome. You spend time blaming everything outside of you—your OB, your job, your husband. Blame comes easily; it’s a ready distraction from the blame you hold close to you, like a secret: you were not brave enough, not in love with the baby enough, not selfless enough. When your water broke months too early, you panicked, you decided against hope.
Read MoreI went to college in 2014. I am the eldest of four kids, thus, the first to leave home. Growing up in a Latino home meant the vague expectation of pursuing higher education. In my house, our parents said if you were not working, then you were in school. My parents were not raising a bunch of bums. Mami y Papi instilled in us the importance of working for our own. If we wanted something, we had to work for it. I learned this quickly and, at the age of fourteen, had my first, legal job.
Read MoreIn early March 2020, my children begged me for a pet.
Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have considered their request; our lives were too busy. But the arrival of the COVID-19 virus, and the departure of regular school, work, or sleep schedules impaired my better judgement. My children sensed my vulnerability.
Read MoreI should have seen the signs, long before she fell so far and so hard. Instead, I just kept pushing. “You can do this, sweetie, just focus and try harder.” Seemingly innocuous words, I thought. Encouraging words, right? Wrong.
Read MoreAt seventeen, I was unsure of myself as a young woman who had just graduated high school, realizing that it was time to be a grown up and to add insult to injury, becoming a mother in a time when the internet was just jumping on the chastise-mothers-for-everything bandwagon.
Read MoreWhen I became a mom I became many things -protector, guide, teacher, and emotional support, to name a few. I am also slowly becoming someone I don't recognize or like. As a mother I have transformed in ways more powerful than I ever imagined. Including transforming me into someone I didn't think I would become.
Read MoreIt’s just a shame that some women choose to formula feed.
Everyone knows breast milk is best for babies! They are smarter and healthier-
Less likely to be obese!
I can always tell the difference between babies who are breastfed and formula fed-
They stop suddenly as I walk through the door, unsure whether or not I, the as-far-as-I-know-it only mom who formula feeds her baby, had overheard their conversation.
Read More"I'm so excited mama!" Exclaims my 3 year old son, after an exhausting day of shopping. "I'm so excited for Christmas."
These words bring a flood of thoughts to my mind. Being a Muslim American, this is the first time I will have to explain to him the Muslim perspective on the most prominent display of religion in the U.S., Christmas.
Read MoreI remember lying under the church pew as a child.
“How much longer?” I would loudly whisper to my mother, my 7-year-old self never knowing how to wait.
“Not long,” she would answer, her faithful, copper brown eyes never losing focus. Her attention was glued to the altar. She was an Episcopalian to the core. And, meanwhile, I couldn’t even pronounce the word.
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