“She’d have less to worry about if she knew none of these things. But if she knew none of these things, I reason, she also wouldn’t know me.” At LitHub, Rachel Beanland explores whether or not family secrets are ever justified.

Kim Foster’s James Beard Award-winning essay weaves together the themes of family, addiction, and fast food into a beautiful (and heartbreaking) narrative.

As Devin Kelly recalls the death of his friend’s mom and how that spurred him to reconnect with his own mother, he reconsiders masculinity through the lens of grief and what we learn from suffering.

“I thought since I’m not able to celebrate Mother’s Day with my friends this year, why not still make it memorable by exchanging garden bouquets?  That’s when I got the idea for a Flower Exchange – where I drop off a bouquet from my garden and my friends give me one from their garden.”

In isolation, Stephanie Land finds surprising relief from PTSD — and discovers she is able to write again.

On her blog Kids of the Wild Lucy normally likes to talk about how to get your kids outside more. However, there are also ideas for lockdown activities — including ways for children to connect with nature while staying inside.

Angela Graham, a teacher, addresses the fears of parents who are new to homeschooling: “We are not perfect, and whatever school ends up looking like for your child the rest of this year, we don’t expect you to be perfect either.”

“And it also helped me, who needed direction to get through the otherwise shapeless day.” Heather Kirn Lanier shares how a picture schedule helped her and her daughter create structure in their day.

Alex Cochrane writes a eulogy for his mother, who lived a unique and incredible life: “The lives of both my parents wildly oscillated between disaster and triumph – a drunken lurch between palace and dosshouse.”

Alzheimer’s is a painful, drawn-out disease, especially for a child caring for a parent in decline. But in a fraught mother-daughter relationship, the disease’s emotional shifts also create moments of unexpected beauty where once there was only tension.

From Eve Andrews, at Grist: “Modern Christmas as its best self, I think, is a celebration of security and abundance and love, but that all takes place against a pervasive background fear that those things might be impermanent.”

“I’ve come to believe that a long hike has a biological cycle. Like almost everything—life, relationships, civilizations, songs, stories, stars—it is born in explosive uncertainty.” At Appalachia Journal, Ben Montgomery writes on divorce, loss, and taking his kids on a 244-mile walk to make sense of it all.

Thoughts from Heather Kirn Lanier, who is the mother of Fiona, a child with Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome: “They are treated, in other words, like banks, where the teacher deposits information and then, at a later date, requests that the information be returned back.”

“After a while, a boy not unkindly asks my daughter, ‘Why is your Mummy in a wheelchair?’ My heart squeezed.” Lorna at Gin & Lemonade writes about talking to her daughter, Isla, about disability.