Medical Motherhood

Each week, we showcase a picture of real life from the Medical Motherhood community. Submit one! If you’d like to participate, simply reply to this email. The intent is to show YOUR experience as a medical parent, not your child. What do you want people to know about the #medicalmom life? Subscribers, it’s time to say goodbye to the podcast version of Medical Motherhood. I’ve recorded nearly 100 e...

As the days get darker and the Halloween decorations come out, I wanted to republish this piece from last year. I still think about my conversation with haunted house creator and medical mama Chrissa Paradis and how cathartic a good scream and a giggle can be. Here’s an excerpt. Follow the link below for the real deal: […] As parents to kids with medical emergencies — or the isolating subset of fo...

The care economy is a reality that businesses across the spectrum need to reckon with, particularly as the job market continues to improve . Flexible work options and outcomes-based metrics are key to allowing family caregivers a place in the workforce. On the second Sunday of every month, we feature Where is the Manual for This?! , an editorial cartoon about the medical mom life from Lenore Eklun...

This week, I gave testimony to an Oregon legislative committee on the importance of figuring out Medicaid billing in schools. That was the subject of the investigation I co-reported with Emily Harris for NPR: Schools could be getting millions more from Medicaid. Why aren't they? You can watch and read all of the testimony on the House Interim Committee on Education’s website . Here’s a link to the...

Each week, we showcase a picture of real life from the Medical Motherhood community. If you’d like to participate, simply reply to this email. What are you seeing this week? Medical Motherhood’s news round up Snippets of news and opinion from outlets around the world. Click the links for the full story. • From The Oklahoman: “ Oklahoma lawmakers to study corporal punishment for disabled students ”...

Each week, we showcase a picture of real life from the Medical Motherhood community. If you’d like to participate, simply reply to this email. What do you want people to know about the #medicalmom life? Medical Motherhood’s news round up Snippets of news and opinion from outlets around the world. Click the links for the full story. • From The Texas Tribune: “ Texas parents who care for their disab...

Three months… or maybe five years! I remember when my kids got into kindergarten and I thought I would get a break. Boy, was I wrong! As you may remember from this episode , in-person school is not a good fit for my kids and I’m still their school support staff for online school. But I’m sending fervent wishes for all of you parents who can send your kids off that your child’s school days are safe...

Each week, we showcase a picture of real life from the Medical Motherhood community. Please send in your pictures! What do you want people to know about the #medicalmom life? Thank you for all the kudos on the NPR story last week and welcome to those of you who are new subscribers! Your readership is appreciated. Those of you who are local to the Portland area — or who want to check out the feed o...

I had a long commute in high school. Since she worked near my school, my mom would drive me the 30 or so minutes every morning, but I would have to take a 2-hour bus ride home. We could never agree on the music. She wanted to listen to Oldies or Classic Rock, but I wanted to listen to Alternative or Pop. There was one thing we finally agreed on: National Public Radio. I had known I wanted to be a...

Each week, we showcase a picture of real life from the Medical Motherhood community. If you’d like to participate, simply reply to this email. The intent is to show YOUR experience as a medical parent, not your child. What do you want people to know about the #medicalmom life? Psst. I’m very excited for Morning Edition this Thursday on NPR, as well as their Up First podcast . I can’t reveal too mu...

Whew, it has been a long dry spell since you’ve been able to see my freelance work, dear readers. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been working on stories for months, but somehow everything is coming out in August! PDX Parent has published the first part of a two-part series on the State of Special Education in Portland. Right now you can read the whole piece on pages 14-17 of the digital version of th...

Each week, we showcase a picture of real life from the Medical Motherhood community. If you’d like to participate, simply reply to this email with your photo. What do you want people to know about the #medicalmom life? Medical Motherhood’s news round up Snippets of news and opinion from outlets around the world. Click the links for the full story. • From the Miami Herald: “ In blistering order, ju...

Medical Motherhood is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Each week, we showcase a picture of real life from the Medical Motherhood community. If you’d like to participate, simply reply to this email. The intent is to show YOUR experience as a medical parent. What do you want people to know about the #medicalmom lif...

Each week, we showcase a picture of real life from the Medical Motherhood community. If you’d like to participate, simply reply to this email and attach your pictures. The intent is to show YOUR experience as a medical parent, not your child. What do you want people to know about the #medicalmom (or #medicaldad!) life? Medical Motherhood’s news round up Snippets of news and opinion from outlets ar...

Being strong has its advantages! The other day, I was waiting for a long time in the loading dock of a feed store and finally got bored enough to simply load my own 60-pound bale of hay. When you have a 70-pound kid to lift almost everyday, it ain’t no thang. But safe lifting is key! I know I’m just one sudden movement away from a bad back…. What do you do to stay strong? On the second Sunday of e...

Each week, we showcase a picture of real life from the Medical Motherhood community. If you’d like to participate, simply reply to this email. The intent is to show YOUR experience as a medical parent, not your child. What do you want people to see about the #medicalmom life? Medical Motherhood’s news round up Snippets of news and opinion from outlets around the world. Click the links for the full...

On the second Sunday of every month, we feature Where is the Manual for This?! , an editorial cartoon about the medical mom life from Lenore Eklund . This one feels like an allegory for waste in the system. Have you experienced this bizarre packaging phenomenon? Comment below or write us back! Medical Motherhood’s news round up Snippets of news and opinion from outlets around the world. Click the...

Each week, we showcase a picture of real life from the Medical Motherhood community. If you’d like to participate, simply reply to this email. The intent is to show YOUR experience as a medical parent, not your child. What do you want people to know about the #medicalmom life? Medical Motherhood’s news round up Snippets of news and opinion from outlets around the world. Click the links for the ful...

I’ve been enjoying seeing your pictures portraying your experiences with medical motherhood. Some are hard and heartbreaking, while others are funny or beautiful, but all of them show the fierce love and devotion you have for your kids. Send in your photos to Shasta@MedicalMotherhood.com. Medical Motherhood’s news round up Snippets of news and opinion from outlets around the world. Click the links...

Welcome to the first edition of our new format ( announced May 7)! This issue features The 19th’s reporting on the significant impact of caregiving costs on women’s lifetime earnings — a Department of Labor report that does not include care for adults with disabilities, but is interesting nonetheless. We also take a look at a piece from The New Yorker on parents’ ongoing struggle for a “free appro...

Lack of sleep is definitely my Kryptonite! What’s yours? The second Sunday of every month Medical Motherhood publishes Where Is the Manual for This?!, an editorial cartoon by Lenore Eklund . Medical Motherhood’s news round up Snippets of news and opinion from outlets around the world. Click the links for the full story. • From the Miami Herald: “ ‘Just another baby for them.’ Parents, feds fight f...

This week at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, comedian Roy Wood, Jr., had an important message poking out of his hilarious set: Local sources of news are dying and, without them, we are missing community storytellers and watchdogs all over the country. As a former community journalist, I am painfully aware of this reality and of how deeply important local news sources are. When I started Me...

Early on, I would try to start seeds and, eventually, they died.  I would put them in neat little rows, give them fertilizer and water them. I would do everything by the book, everything I am supposed to do. But for some reason, I was rarely successful. My corn never grew past my knee, my basil yellowed and wilted, my lettuce seedlings rotted.  My son, on the other hand…. Jasper* finds old seed pa...

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that he called “the most comprehensive set of actions any administration has taken to date” to increase access to childcare and to the home-care industry. Biden, speaking to a crowd of union members, politicians, disabled people and their families in a sunny Rose Garden ceremony, called the new effort “fundamental to who we are as a nation....

Hello readers, This week we have a bumper crop of news stories relevant to those raising disabled and neurodiverse children. So, we have an expanded news briefs section taking over this issue. As always, you can click the links to get to the original story. Here are the headlines you’ll find inside: * Report finds more than 130 emergency teachers serving as special education teachers in Oregon, po...