Once again, my quest for insight into the lives of modern fathers has led me halfway across the globe, to Chengdu, China, where I’ve been engaged in up-close observation of diaper-changing techniques, the ratio of toddlers-to-chain-smokers in area bars, and the price tags on Dong Feng brand attack strollers. Also, I’ve been eating a ton …
Continue reading “Chinese Dads: They’re Just Like Us! (Or Maybe Not Really)”
You know how, once you reached a certain age, your parents sat you down to have an uncomfortably awkward and likely uninformative talk about S-E-X? Yeah, me neither. Either I’ve repressed the memory of that traumatic conversation, or it never happened. All I remember is that one day, when I was 8 or 9, they …
According to our esteemed local paper, it is both awesome and terrible to be a French woman: Perineal therapy is as ubiquitous in France as free nursery schools, generous family allowances, tax deductions for each child, discounts for large families on high-speed trains, and the expectation that after a paid, four-month maternity leave mothers are …
HONG KONG INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT—I’m now 20-something hours into a journey from Brooklyn to Chengdu, China, and I’m sleep-deprived, thirsty, and a good five hours from my final destination. Yes, once again, I’m abandoning my family to go “work” abroad, stuffing my face with spicy Sichuan food and, I think, taking notes. Still, I did what …
