reader-essay

By Michael Cohen If you’re a parent, you’ve heard it: Don’t live vicariously through your children. It’s said so often it feels like common sense. Teachers repeat it. Therapists caution it. Parenting books shout it in bold type. The “good” parent, we’re told, folds up

Make your family hate you with this insufferable yarn!

By Antonio C. Westphalen Berlin, April 15, 2025.  Since 2018, four young au pairs from Germany have lived with our family. They shared not just their time and care, but their culture, their language, and themselves. From the very beginning, our children asked when we would visit them, when we

By Isaac Wood I’m a Midwesterner living in a small Appalachian city. I’m your typical white man, a member of the nearly eighty-five percent white population you might expect from Johnson City, TN. But I’ve learned there’s a lot more to see in a place than

By Amelia Morris This essay has been lightly adapted from its original, which was published on Amelia’s blog.  “She’s just trying to be relevant,” a friend said forgivingly about a person we both know, a person whom I thought was being too loud and assertive with their opinion.

By Kaitlin Jarema When I tell people at parties I was an archaeologist, they look at me in shock and interest, and immediately ask about where I’ve worked overseas. I expect disbelief, and occasional disappointment, when I tell them I worked primarily in Pennsylvania. “Archaeology? On the east coast?

The fire that took my home — and restored my faith in how society works

By Joe Szwaja When I first heard about the October 7 attacks, I contacted my son Engel, who follows the region closely. He was horrified by the violence against Israeli civilians and predicted a huge response that would be devastating for Palestinians and likely include a full-on ground invasion of

By Zoe Clarke Earlier this year, my grandfather almost died. Not from an accident or a terminal disease. He almost died because he wanted to.  My grandfather is a very tough, and very loving, person. He spent many years bossing around cattle on his farm with his wooden cane, but