Jayden’s* father threatened him with a hammer. Sophia* suffers from cancer, compromising her immune system. Lara* lives in an immigrant detention center. Their problems were difficult enough, even before the coronavirus pandemic. For the most part,…

For over two months, America did a really good job of social distancing. We did such a good job, we began to pat ourselves on the backs. Cell phone movement analyzed by Reuters showed that the majority of us stayed home through March, April, and…

I am due to deliver my second baby in October, after seeing two pink lines on my pregnancy test in mid-February, not long before the first death from COVID-19 was reported in the U.S. It is a pregnancy defined by a pandemic, and the stress that…

Amir Jennings-Green was just 4 years old when he was shot and killed while playing with his cousins on April 2 in Thornton, Illinois. The shooting occurred while the state was under its coronavirus stay-at-home order, and police said no adults were…

There are infinite forking paths on the internet, one of which leads to a video Goldie Hawn posted of herself in quarantine dancing vigorously on a mini trampoline to Dua Lipa. Hawn, 74, was a dancer before she was an actor (and later a mother and…

There was a point in time when the old cliché “it takes a village” wasn’t a cliché at all — it was an essential way of life. Throughout all of human history, grandparents, neighbors, and siblings were crucial to family function (and sanity). Now,…

About a month into lockdown, my toddler did something curious on our walk to the grocery store. When she saw someone approaching us from the opposite direction on the sidewalk, she backed up against the wall of the building next to us and waited for…

An old purple bridesmaid dress made out of crushed velvet, a cowboy hat, and a clear umbrella adorned with hot pink flowers was not the vision actress JoAnna Garcia Swisher had for herself when she walked onto set for her latest photoshoot. “Nick,…

The pandemic has been hard on everyone, but continues to impact black and Hispanic communities disproportionately, and mothers of small children are especially feeling the effects. While 37% of mothers with children 3 or under said that it had been…

The mermaids my child loves so much spend a lot of time combing their hair and waving and accessorizing with jewels and combs. But there is another kind of mermaid you can just make out when you gaze down off a boat into water clouded by sunlight.…

Anxiety has taken on a different shape these days. The proverbial villain in the rubber mask has been replaced by something invisible and shape-shifting. "In terms of what's going on in the world, I was always kind of afraid of everything," says…

In Lowville, New York, Jessica Zehr just completed her nursing degree. Mother to twin 5-year-old boys, one of whom has Down syndrome, and wife to Elias, who is three years post-lung transplant, she has spent a great deal of time making medical…

Pregnancy has never been so anxiety-ridden as in the time of coronavirus. A patient recently told me, “My No. 1 priority is keeping my baby safe and healthy — but the thought of telling my in-laws that they can’t see their granddaughter makes me…

When this is all over, poop will loom large in our memories. You can’t see the sun rise or set from inside our apartment, where we spend 23 hours a day, so time orients itself to other cycles. “Mummy Poopface” and “my little poops” have become terms…

Dr. Benji Salter is a cardiothoracic anesthesiologist at Mount Sinai Hospital on New York’s Upper East Side who typically works on lung and heart surgeries. When COVID-19 hit and surgeries were postponed, he was placed on the ICU access team,…

Gabrielle Union chose the best quarantine house. It comes with a pool, a basketball star husband, an adorably shady toddler, a tween, an adult sister, and one family friend. The dress code is bathing suit casual; pajamas if it’s time for free throws…

In Kelly McWilliams' new novel Agnes at the End of the World, the hero, Agnes, summons the bravery to leave a cult, only to wander into the world beyond and find it has been overrun by a viral pandemic. She wrote the story well before COVID-19…

The beauty of Workin' Moms, which flashed its good-natured bosom onto U.S. screens for the first time last year, is that right when things get hard for its moms, another season arrives to crank things up even more, such that you long for the simple…

“Now you are fancy.” My 3-year-old daughter placed a cracked plastic tiara on my head. We were playing dress up. We are almost always playing some form of dress up. “Daddy can’t be fancy,” she added, then paused. Crinkled her forehead. “Oh wait! Yes…