Mercena West Schulenburg doesn’t really need any other ways of being different. At her school, she’s the only kid with two female parents, the only one with a trans parent, and the only vegetarian, meaning she eats different food from her classmates almost every day. And so it would be entirely reasonable if she decided to start coloring inside the […]
How do we teach our children to lose? The art of losing may not be hard to master, but losing gracefully is another matter. My mother told me many early games of Candy Land ended in temper tantrums. And as children are mostly our childhood sins returned upon our own heads, I thought of my mother’s patience as my daughter […]
Eighteen is my new favorite number. It has to be. Mercena, my daughter, recently informed me that I could no longer claim five as my favorite. As with so many things I used to own, five now belongs to her. But I’m feeling very good about 18, and not just because Jewish tradition has 18 as synonymous with life. In […]
This post is the first in a series On Passing. “What do you want to order, ma’am?” I’m wearing a grey woman’s jacket with a purple hat and scarf. I’m not wearing makeup. I’m wearing women’s jeans. I’m not wearing earrings. A purple purse is strung across my shoulders. I’m wearing blue sneakers. I’m carrying my daughter Mercena in my […]
