MOTHERHOOD UNTIL YESTERDAY

Articles

Breastfeeding Often Sucks (Literally) But It’s Ridiculously Good For You

1 week ago | elenabridgers.substack.com | Elena Bridgers

This was supposed to be part 2 of my deep-dive on why households with children are sick more than half of the year, but then I realized: We can’t talk about childhood illness and children’s immune systems without talking about breastfeeding, and breastfeeding is such a huge topic, and such a controversial topic, that maybe it needs its own newsletter. So this newsletter is all about breastfeeding, i.e. the ultimate inconvenient truth about mammalian motherhood.
Choline: yet another source of dietary mismatch?

1 week ago | elenabridgers.substack.com | Elena Bridgers

This article is sponsored by Needed, providing moms with unrivaled nutrition for fertility, pregnancy, and postpartum. Sometimes my nerd-brain kicks into high-hear and I get really, really excited about going deep on some biological topic, and when Needed asked me to do some research on choline, it made me want to write a dissertation on the biochemical importance of this fascinating little molecule.
Households with 2+ Kids Are Sick 56% of the Year

2 weeks ago | elenabridgers.substack.com | Elena Bridgers

I know it’s a bit weird writing about viral illnesses just as the weather is turning nice and the number of cases is starting to drop, but my kids don’t seem to follow any seasonal rules when it comes to getting sick. As far as they’re concerned, mid-June is as nice a time as any to bring home something extra nasty. To wit, we all just finished coughing up a lung earlier this week, and I expect we will catch something else before the school year finishes.
Bring Back the Four-Hour Workday

4 weeks ago | elenabridgers.substack.com | Elena Bridgers

Jima Gaffigan once said that having a fourth child was kind of like being handed a baby while you are actively drowning. And that’s how I felt when my second maternity leave ended and I was facing down the possibility of returning to work full-time with two children under two. Haven’t slept in months, possibly suffering from undiagnosed PPD, barely able to remember your full name and phone number?
Separation Anxiety Is a Million-Year-Old Problem

1 month ago | elenabridgers.substack.com | Elena Bridgers

My daughter started in a new school this week and there have been a lot of tears. She is three, and I’ve been holding off as long as possible, in part because she is a clinger but also because she is chill, so getting some work done when she is home is actually possible. (My five-year-old son, on the other hand, never cries at school drop-off and when he is home there is zero chance of me getting anything done, so playgroups and school have always been a bit of a no-brainer with him).
Why Are Girls Getting Their Periods So Early?

1 month ago | elenabridgers.substack.com | Elena Bridgers

Last week, a reel I posted to Instagram went viral, garnering one million views in just a few days. The topic? How the age of a girl’s first period has been steadily declining over the last couple of centuries. In hunter-gatherer societies, girls do not start menstruating until they are about 17 years old, and typically aren’t fertile until at least age 19. Meanwhile, in the Western world, the average age of a girl’s first period in the UK has decreased from about age 15 in 1860 to age 12 by 1960.
How to Actually Increase the Birth Rate

1 month ago | elenabridgers.substack.com | Elena Bridgers

There’s been a lot of discussion about declining birth rates lately. The fertility rate in the United States reached a historic low last year, according to the CDC, and Elon Musk, our unelected president and father of 14, has said that population collapse is the greatest threat to modern civilization.
The Anatomy and Evolution of Childbirth and Female Orgasm

1 month ago | elenabridgers.substack.com | Elena Bridgers

Fine I’ll admit it: I’m crunchy. In fact, I come from a family so crunchy that we grew up in a house with no television, bought fresh goat milk from our crunchy friends, and sang a long, harmonious “om” before eating dinner every night. When we got sick, my mom would make us tea with honey and give us homeopathic remedies with names that I still can’t pronounce. I don’t think I even knew of the existence of Tylenol until I was in my teens.
On Mom Rage with Minna Dubin

1 month ago | elenabridgers.substack.com | Elena Bridgers

Hello everyone!New episode coming in hot with Minna Dubin, the author of MOM RAGE: The Everyday Crisis of Modern Motherhood. Mina is a writer, workshop facilitator, and occasional public artist in Berkeley, California. Her essays and reported articles on motherhood and identity have been featured in outlets like the New York Times, Oprah Daily, The Times, and more. In this episode we are digging into the taboo topic of mom rage. We are all angry. We all yell at our kids. But no one wants to admit it.
Why I’m Not a Fan of Gentle Parenting

2 months ago | elenabridgers.substack.com | Elena Bridgers

If you were an alien who parachuted into the San Francisco Bay Area on any given Saturday and wound up on a playground, you might get the impression that the human mother’s natural instinct is to describe her child’s every movement and emotion to them as they go about their business. “You’re WALKING Liam! Look at you go! Good job, Liam! Keep it up. No, we don’t put sticks in our mouths. Yes, I know you want to put it in your mouth. Yes, it’s okay to be upset.