Marjorie Ingall
By Marjorie Ingall
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Culture #2!
So Josie’s getting a sister in October. We’re thrilled, if still a bit discombobulated. Suffice it to say that, compared to the laborious overland journey required to make Josie (you remember we called it the Bataan Sex March), this pregnancy happened, um, instantly. Back in January, on the way back from the corner bodega, a…
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Culture The Stressful, Dreary Life With a Very Small Stranger
Why is it so dang hard for women to tell the truth about new motherhood? Sure, there’s nothing like a fragrant-headed, milk-drunk baby draped over your shoulder like lichen. But when newborns are not happily gorked to the gills, they have two modes: screaming and boring. They are far less interactive than Super Nintendo. Early…
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Culture Rock On, Moms
Josie has a keyboard she totes around the house. Periodically she puts it down, bangs on it like Mozart on a bender, scowls a bit and announces, “I’m working, like mama!” (To be truly like Mama, she’d have to curse a lot more as she typed. But close enough.) I know how fortunate I am…
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News Say It Loud: She’s Fat and She’s Proud
Two years ago, I did a column on what it was like to have a porkola meatball baby. Family members hissed that I nursed her too often; strangers squeezed her thighs and raised their eyebrows; one reader sent an impassioned letter pleading with me to stick a pacifier in the kid’s mouth, because if I…
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News Mameles Marching For Choice
The March for Women’s Lives, likely to be the largest pro-choice march ever, will take place April 25 in Washington, D.C. I considered taking Josie, but hauling a 2-year-old by bus to the National Mall (a mall that inexplicably does not contain a Disney store) seems foolhardy. Though I suppose Josie’s arched-back hurling-self-on-the-ground earsplitting tantrum-throwing…
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News A Chat With Big Bird’s Boss
It’s hard to believe “Sesame Street” is turning 35. It still looks so dewy and youthful. Big Bird still peers out at the world with his big innocent unwrinkled birdie eyes; nerdy Bert still does his patented slow burn at Ernie’s goofball antics; Oscar still snarls when excessive sappiness and sentiment get too near his…
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News Passing Over the Nuts of Death
Last year I wrote about how Passover turned me into a grown-up. My parents moved into an itty-bitty apartment, the tradition of their dueling Seders ended (let’s call it a draw), and Jonathan and I took on the hosting mantle. Well, half the mantle. Auntie Nancy bravely hosts the entire extended clan on Day 2,…
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News Guilt on the Newsstands, Guilt on the Bookshelves
To say mameles get mixed messages about parenting is an understatement. Media portraits of moms are totally contradictory: Stay-at-home moms (or SAHMs, in perky parenting-message-board nomenclature) are sometimes depicted as noble and fulfilled, sometimes painted as depressed, judgmental cupcake-bakers with brains that are rotting like overripe melons. Working moms are sometimes caricatured as viper-ish executive…
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