Italy’s long slide below replacement birth rate is driven by fewer women of childbearing age and weak support systems, not by “selfish” young women.
Tag: motherhood
Argentine journalist Ignacio Pereyra reflects on six years as the primary caregiver to his two sons while his partner advanced her career. Though his decision has sparked praise — and skepticism — it’s also unraveled assumptions about masculinity, fairness, and what we call “normal” parenting.
As China’s population declines, more women want children without husbands. But strict laws and traditional values still block their path to single motherhood.
Becoming a parent doesn’t just change your life — it rewires your brain. Science is showing that both mothers and fathers experience profound neurological shifts, with emotional, mental, and social consequences that go far beyond biology.
In a tribe in central Africa, male and female roles are practically interchangeable in caregiving to children. Even though their lifestyle might sound strange to the West, it offers important life lessons about who raises children — and how.
The idea may sound callous, bordering on irresponsible, but sometimes what you need is to let your kids figure it out — they’ll thank you later.
In a tribe in central Africa, male and female roles are practically interchangeable in caregiving to children. Even though their lifestyle might sound strange to the West, it offers important life lessons about who raises children — and how.
An emotional rollercoaster for parent and child alike.
One thing’s for sure, whether you have children or not: You are bound to make mistakes, experience frustration and learn things the hard way. The key is to gradually understand how to live with it.
Categories
War, Children And Snapshots Of Terror
Our Naples-based psychiatrist thinks back at a moment that has forever remained frozen in her mind. In the expression of her son’s terror, she sees all the grieving mothers who can do nothing in the face of war.
Our Naples-based psychiatrist thinks about a little girl she met in the rain, one of two sisters burdened with the unfairness of uncaring parents and a struggle with Italian nationality.
Mothers everywhere are struggling with the pressures of parenting in an increasingly individualistic culture. Enter the rapidly growing empire of parenting influencers who promise to help – at a price. In Italy, where mothers have long been seen as models of strength, the novelty is particularly acute.
Between breastfeeding, playdates, postpartum fatigue, birthday fatigues and the countless other aspects of mother- and fatherhood, a Cuban couple tries to find new ways to explore something that is often lost in the middle of the parenting storm: sex.
Our psychologist discusses schooling struggles and deep inequalities with her Neapolitan patients.
Categories
One Painting, Many Women
One patient tells our Naples-based Dottoré about trauma and aptly-named victims.
Journalist Daniela Pastrana thought she knew how to be a mother — until her child came out as non-binary. Pastrana’s journey to acceptance took her through Mexican history and deep into herself and her own prejudices.
In the island nation, Rizo Libre (free curl) seeks to rescue Afro-descendant roots on the island.
From sick kids to kindergarten and travel. The everyday realities of paternity operate in the extremes. In the latest iteration of his “Recalculating” newsletter on parenthood, Argentine writer Ignacio Pereyra examines what it means to be a father.
Visiting family in Argentina for the first time since the pandemic, Greece-based Argentine journalist Ignacio Pereyra sends some thoughts, from across the ocean, on raising children far from a family and community support network.
Certain female doctors, extremist midwives, online consultants extol the benefits of painful labor, blame mothers who resort to C-sections and convince them to refuse anesthesia. From Italy, an expose on who they are and why they preach a return to the ancestral nature of motherhood.
The death of a young child left alone at home while his single mother was out shocked a community. Now, single parents have banded together to offer support to each other. And they’re succeeding in the face of overwhelming challenges.
Why are men still avoiding tasks that women don’t want to do either?
A father’s role is not to help the mother out, but to take on the “mental load” of knowing what needs to be done.
“There’s still a pulse,” they told me, surprisingly.
Barbadian singer and businesswoman Rihanna has proudly celebrated her pregnant belly in fun and revealing clothes. By doing so, she is breaking away from the unspoken rule that pregnant women should hide their baby bumps.
Surrogacy is still considered quite controversial, especially in Italy where a story has made headlines after would-be parents renounced a baby born in Ukraine. The author says we must face the ethical (and other) questions rather than dismiss the practice as “uterus for rent.”
The stigma around so-called “non-custodial mothers” has prevented us from expanding our own imagination of what motherhood can, or does, look like when it is practiced by non-residential mothers
The pure beauty of Siamoy breastfeeding her month-old baby Hokim, in this image taken exactly 10 years ago, powerfully contrasts with a grim reality on the ground. NOOR photographer Alixandra Fazzina had traveled to the remote Afghan province of Badakshan because it had the highest rate of maternal mortality in the world. Capturing this angelic […]
-Essay- BERLIN — There we were, a group of female friends in their early 30s sitting around the dinner table one evening and, somehow, the conversation turns to having children. We all agree it would be nice to be a young mother because it is strangely cool being a young mum. But we all have […]
BEIJING — It’s been more than a year since China abolished the one-child policy ntroduced in 1979 to control the population. The politburo came up with a new two-child policy and simplified the government-approval process for couples seeking assisted reproductive treatment. The shift prompted older couples to use frozen semen and eggs, and test-tube babies. […]
MUNICH — Some women block any effort by men to take part in the raising of their children. This is often more about the mother’s own feeling of powerlessness than about their children’s wellbeing. Women who become possessive about their children and don’t allow fathers to take care of their mutual offspring may sound like […]
Women usually get custody of the kids. But not always. One woman tells the story of losing her children, and how she’s begun to piece her life and relationships back together.
“If only the world’s shattered people carried a sign, a small mark of Cain so that we could be gentler with them, maybe smile a bit more — not to pity them, but to console …”
British Prime Minister Theresa May is just the latest female world leader who’s not a mother. A hard look at a gender double standard that reaches all the way to the top.
BERLIN — Peter Seher sits on his balcony in Berlin-Wilmersdorf enjoying the late afternoon sun. He looks at the large puddles of water beneath his feet. It was nice and warm today, so after work the stockbroker set up a little wading pool on the balcony for his young daughter Hanna. “She really got going […]
There are many victims in the civil war in Syria. One woman in the capital, whose husband and children have managed to flee to Egpyt, suffers a particular kind of fear and solitude.
Poor women come to this Indian clinic to rent their bellies to wealthy couples from around the world. A practical solution to modern problems or the worst kind of social engineering?