Funny how raising little people makes us think about our own childhoods. We can’t be the only ones who seek out our old baby photos or pepper our parents with questions. We may want to relive some of our most nostalgic moments with our own kids (baseball games! beach weekends!), or maybe the pendulum swings the other way and we’re doing the work to disrupt generational patterns, breaking the cycle one conflict resolution at a time. Whatever you’re contemplating, it’s hard to look forward without thinking about the past.
Why an only child is hard to define
This week, both The Atlantic and The Cut promoted stories on only children. In the former, writer (and only child) Chiara Dello Joio chronicles how the stigma around them has persisted—throughout history and in pop culture—and challenges whether having siblings really makes much of a difference in the end. In the latter, advice columnist Amil Niazi responds to a parent that feels guilty having just one kid. As an only child myself, this is something that I have been confronted with many times in life.
The experience has been nuanced. Yes, I had imaginary friends and, in tandem, a vivid creative mind that led to a career in writing. Yes, I am a terrible sharer, but that doesn’t necessarily equate to a lack of generosity. True, I didn’t have sibling bonds, but I sought out socialization wherever I could, forming friendships that have felt more like family. In essence, the stereotype has legs, but it also has caveats.
No one gives me more reminders of that stereotype than my husband. He is a middle child, with siblings and half-siblings, and many cousins and nephews and nieces of all ages. I once had him draw out his family tree while we were at a pizza parlor just so I could keep everything straight. Despite our disparate upbringings, we both agreed we wanted one child. There were no huge existential reasons, other than the world is expensive and complicated. We also live in a small city rowhome and, quite frankly, weren’t sure where we’d put more than one.
These days, as The Atlantic cites, only children are more common than they were in previous generations, as the number of births per woman in the U.S. shrunk in half from the 1950s. There are many contributing factors, like the financial burden I mentioned, as well as the median age for new moms rising every year, according to the CDC. What complicates matters more, of course, is when couples aren’t able to get pregnant right away.
That’s the thing about family planning. The family plans for you. After trying for years and enduring many losses, we finally had a daughter, Lucy, in 2022. She suffered from a brain injury around the time of her birth, and only lived for four days. One promise that my husband and I made to ourselves in the harrowing hours after we got the news is that we would, at some point, try again. In an instant, the platonic ideal of an only child vanished.
Now we are raising our son, Cole, who just turned five months. For all intents and purposes, he is an only child. He won’t be raised with a sister bossing him around or his toys taking a beating before he’s laid hands on them. He won’t share a room or carve out his own territory in the back seat. But that’s where definitions become malleable. He certainly doesn’t know it yet, but Cole is a younger brother. Once he learns that he does have a sibling, that will no doubt shape his identity too.
I think about my friends—some with siblings who have passed, others who are estranged, some with generational age gaps. They have been only children for a season or two. It’s possible to move through the world with the self-assurance and independence of an only child, while still leaning on those closest to you, whether shared DNA is involved or not. In that way, siblings are not unlike my imaginary friends; they are what we make them. Perhaps it’s one of the best lessons to learn when you are young, that there are no boxes or rules to fit into, that every family tree has asterisks. —Jess Mayhugh
Drugstore makeup to feel like a living, breathing, human woman
I’d say I stopped caring about my appearance around the third trimester of my first pregnancy—when my face was so swollen I could barely keep my eyes open. Then I had a baby. My routines became nonexistent, sleep became nonexistent, hard pants became nonexistent. Then, after I made it through the newborn trenches, I emerged. Not as a phoenix, but more like a wounded pigeon who forgot everything they knew about looking presentable. That’s why I decided it’s time to redo my makeup routine. I spent a 3 a.m. wake window browsing Reddit for the quickest and most affordable products to help me get some of my Brittany Cartwright sparkle back. —Lauren Bell Martin
My favorite product at the moment is the Erborian CC Red Correct cream. It comes out of the tube green (alarming, but I swear you won’t look like Elphaba) to neutralize any unwanted redness. I use this as my base and forget I’m wearing it most of the time. Bonus: It has SPF!
I bought the Versed Shade Swipe Blush Stick in Brownstone after someone on TikTok said it was a Rhode dupe, and they were right. It’s buildable, easy to blend, and I use it on my lips and eyes when I need to look like I have a pulse.
I am Team Tubing Mascara and that’s that. The e.l.f. Lash XTNDR tubing mascara is cheap(er), doesn’t smudge, and is easy to remove without going full raccoon mode.
Anything with “fast” in the title is on my list because I’m usually swiping the Maybelline Express Brow Fast Sculpt on my brows as I walk to the car.
As Tupac once said, “Real eyes realize real lies” and with the e.l.f. Putty Color-Correcting Eye Brightener, these real eyes are lying about being well-rested.
L’Oreal’s Paris Plump Ambition lip gloss adapts to your pH level, creating the perfect natural pink. It also avoids my lip gloss pet peeve of being a sticky hair magnet.
Plant expert Hilton Carter talks about what being a girl dad means to him
Hilton Carter is known for branching out. The sought-after plant expert, interior designer, author, and podcast host says he has another very important title. “I am a girl dad,” he says proudly. “I’m going to be the type that, when it comes to my kids, is doing the absolute most.” Since he and his wife, Fiona, had their two daughters, Holland and Veda, Hilton has gained a new perspective, on both how he was raised and the world around him. Here, he talks about his own upbringing, why fatherhood made him pursue therapy, and parenting lessons we can learn from plants. —LBM
On wanting to be a dad
I always wanted to be a father. It just seems like the adult thing to do. It’s a box on the bingo card of adulthood. B46 is probably what it would be. I’m 46 years old and I’m an old dad. Did I see myself becoming a father at the age of 41 when we had our first daughter? No, not at all. I thought it would happen much earlier in life, but I also knew I wanted something different for my children than what I was given, and I thought the fact that my parents had me so young played a large role in that feeling. My parents didn’t go to college and had jobs that they never loved, or even liked, but had to pay the bills to care for me. I wanted to make sure, when I did have kids, I was in a better place mentally and financially.
On his own upbringing
I didn’t really think I needed therapy until I became a father. There’s a lot of trauma from my upbringing—and I’m not unique in that—but it comes from how I grew up and where I grew up as an African American male in Baltimore. My father wasn’t particularly in my life the way I needed him to be. And when we were trying to have kids, I knew I needed to deal with my own trauma if I was going to be better for my daughters and show them what a real father figure is.
On having daughters
When I found out we were having our eldest daughter, Holland, it changed who I was. It changed my title, how I maneuvered through life, how I thought about my wife and friends. But I was over the moon because I love women. My best friend had also had a girl and she became my goddaughter and I love her so much, but I spent so much time and energy thinking and wanting to imprint some parts of myself onto her and show her different parts of life. She’s 14 now, and watching her grow into who she is has always just been this badge of honor for me as a godfather. But, yes, of course there is anxiety. That’s why I am in therapy now, because I was nervous about all the things we should be nervous about as parents. You hear of people having daddy issues. I don’t want to be the cause of any daddy issues.
Dads now are really more present with their daughters and have shed that masculine armor that many of them were forced to wear throughout their lives.
On today’s political climate impacting his parenting
Honestly I don’t think it would matter if it was today’s political climate or tomorrow’s or 20 years ago, because I think we would raise our children the exact same way. And that’s for our girls to feel empowered to be themselves, to be strong, to be dangerous, to be wild, and to chase whatever dreams they can cook up.
What “girl dad” means to him
It can be a cliché—hashtag girl dad. But really it’s an honor. It speaks to the fact that we look at fathers back in the day, and it wasn’t as common for them to spend much time with their girls. They were with their boys and left it to Mom to handle all of the other women in the family. Dads now are really more present with their daughters and have shed that masculine armor that many of them were forced to wear throughout their lives. They are dressing up and having tea parties. I will dress up as whatever my daughter wants me to be in whatever play or imaginative game she is working on at the moment because, for me, nurturing that creativity is important and wasn’t something I necessarily got as a kid. Being a girl dad is being open to allowing yourself to be everything that your daughter wants you to be, and to make sure she is having fun.
On how caring for plants prepared him for fatherhood
Caring for plants made me a better person in general. The things you learn when it comes to caring for the plants is the ability to anticipate the small things, the changes, the nuances that happen in a plant and how just a small shift in the color of a leaf can indicate a problem. You learn to be patient and how to sit and settle with something before reacting. As an actual parent, you need these skills, too. You need that ability to not react immediately in certain situations and be able to listen and take things in so that you can understand them more clearly.
On if his plants get jealous
I think my plants celebrate this achievement because, like any sort of teacher that you have in life, they want to see you go on and be great, so I imagine they feel proud. I think my plants think “that’s our boy.” This chapter of my life started because of the plants and I thought that was the greatest shift in who I was, but then I had kids and there’s no denying that this is the chapter, this is the real meat of the story, and it’s just been the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
While our situation doesn’t exactly mirror the protagonist’s, Margo’s Got Money Troubles does an excellent job of candidly portraying the postpartum experience.
This piece asks whether kids belong in nice restaurants. Short answer? Yes.
Speaking of food, this egg wrap recipe from New York Times Cooking is clutch for a grab-and-go breakfast.
This shower disco light keeps my baby totally mesmerized during bathtime.
Before Paw Patrol and Bluey inevitably take over their wardrobe, my children will be dressed in ’90s-inspired clothes from Next.
“My son and I were crossing the very busy Venice Boulevard and, at that moment, he decided to kick his shoe off. I didn’t notice until we were fully across and then I watched cars zip by, hoping they wouldn’t run over his little blue Nike. I had to run back out (with him in the stroller) to grab it before the light changed again. But success!” —Folly reader Vanessa C.
