Robyn Cuspin

This type of parenting requires walking a tightrope. It requires perfect self-control and vigilance against the small slips of anger and impatience that accompany even the best parenting. It requires abundant giving with delayed returns . . .

I want to treat both my children equally, drawing from the same deep pool of bottomless devotion. But their differences make that impossible . . .

It would be so easy to frame his smiling self, and pretend that this single shining moment defines him. Perhaps others would choose to dismiss this moment as an anomaly, and embrace the other photo, the one that captures his otherness. Yet these photos ar...

I tell the psychiatrist that in our family we are all a bit weird. She seems taken aback by my openness. Perhaps she does not remember as clearly as I do what it means to be a child...

For awhile, I bided my time. I went to the gym, and met friends for coffee. I enjoyed these months without bottles and diapers because I knew that the next load waited just around the corner. Until a series of miscarriages...

We read the story of Chana and Penina on Rosh Hashanah, when we pray for a good, sweet year. We pray for abundant blessings. Yet I believe there is a lesson in their story, cautioning us that with blessings come responsibility...

Without a candle to light, there is no external testament to these other two souls, who lived briefly and invisibly as members of our family. There is only a feeling of loss in the air...

I place one foot in front of the other, and I walk forward into an uncertain future that contains moments of both pleasure and pain. This act takes courage...

Happily contemplating the way our family was now growing on the fast track, I didn't honestly consider the second ultrasound as anything more than a technicality...

It seems that my daughter is expected to appear in school each day with a ponytail, which is taken as a sign that she has a good mother. And I have foolishly allowed her to choose how she wishes to wear her hair . . .