Credit Lars Blackmore
When The New York Times started Motherlode in 2008, the name was a play on words that marked our entry into the world of parenting blogs. But like many readers, I questioned the name of a parenting report that, by definition, seemed to exclude half of all parents.
Over the years, Motherlode has challenged the notion that parenting is a women’s issue. In 2012, I wrote about the Census Bureau’s categorizing fathers as babysitters. We’ve questioned conventional ideas about the economics of parenting. Why is breast-feeding often labeled a “free” option for women, even though following a pediatrician’s advice to breast-feed comes at significant economic cost?
As a lawyer and former New York City prosecutor, I had a special interest in sharing the stories of families impacted by poverty, unemployment and the challenges of a life lived on the margins – like the Port Townsend, Wash., mother who saw her daughter take her first steps in a homeless shelter.
I am also the mother of four children, including one by adoption. Our family doesn’t look like a Norman Rockwell painting, and neither do many of the families around me. I wanted Motherlode to include every kind of family, to feature parents who foster children, families with children who have special needs, L.G.B.T. families, and stories of step-parenting and adoption. Some stories were so compelling that we visited them again and again, like the complicated and heartbreaking love story of a family caring for, and potentially letting go of, a foster child.
Over the past few years, our vision of what it means to be a family has changed, and it has also become clear that the name Motherlode is more than a little at odds with the larger conversation, which includes mothers, fathers, step parents, grandparents, children, siblings, friends, pets and every possible variation on family.
As a result, The Times is introducing Well Family, a new online report with expanded coverage of parenting, childhood health and relationships to help every family live well. While the name “Motherlode” will be retired, the Motherlode team will be moving to Well, where you’ll still find my weekly columns, as well as regular contributions from your favorite Motherlode writers, including the child psychologist and best-selling author Lisa Damour, The Times’s Your Money columnist Ron Lieber and the educator Jessica Lahey.
Well Family will also offer some new features, including The Checkup, a new weekly column on healthy parenting by the pediatrician Dr. Perri Klass. Ask Well, the popular feature in which Times journalists and experts answer your health questions, will be expanded to include more topics important to families. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Times reporter Charles Duhigg will offer advice on solving family challenges, and the Well editor, Tara Parker-Pope, will contribute occasional features on family health, childhood eating and relationships.
And each Sunday, look for Ties, a new series of essays on the diverse and often complicated connections that make up the modern family. Writers will include the New York Times opinion writer Frank Bruni, the novelist Ann Patchett, the autism memoirist John Elder Robison, the linguist Deborah Tannen and other contributors who will offer their unique takes on family issues.
So bookmark our new landing page, and — if you haven’t already — sign up for our weekly email for your regular fill of the best of Well Family and family news from around The Times and beyond.
And as always, you’ll still find me in the comments, sharing the same conversations about family we’ve always had. The definition of family is continually expanding, and so are we.
