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The first 1,000 days of life shape every day that follows.
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A beat by Irene Caselli
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What language does your inner child speak?
“Sí.” Your inner child speaks Italian, said my therapist, and I burst into tears. We had been discussing some revelation I had about how severe one of my internal voices is — and how connected that voice is to my childhood. And my therapist had
Forever in the archive
The cost of the motherhood penalty
🚨 On 18 July, I am moderating a panel on why we should take children and carers into account when reporting on migration. It will feature Luis H. Zayas, chair of mental health and social policy, at UT Austin, U.S., as well as award-winning journalists
What does trauma really mean?
An image has been haunting me recently. It’s of children lined up in an airport in the United States about to be deported to Mexico and Central America. Of course, this has happened often in reality, but the image comes from Valeria Luiselli’s novel Lost
Criminalised for a miscarriage
**Warning: this piece handles miscarriage, pregnancy loss and abortion, and goes into some graphic details. If you’d still like to stay informed about the U.S. abortion ban, I recommend this piece in The New Yorker or this one on the dangers of abortion bans for other patients.
Why cooking matters
Meet Manal. She is one of the women I met in Lesbos, the Greek island that became a main transit destination for migrants trying to reach Europe via Turkey. Born in Syria, Manal has three children, the youngest of whom, Nina, was born in the
Do you share your childhood games with your children?
We journalists should never act as psychologists, especially when it comes to the topic of how to approach children. Yet being aware of what happens to them and how they can react to hardships should be an important part of our reporting. This is the
Why the books we read matter
A reminder: this coming Monday, 13 June, I am moderating a panel on the mental health of children and carers. I think a lot of readers here will be very interested in the event. It will feature child trauma psychologist Chandra Ghosh Ippen, as well
The politics of the shocking U.S. formula shortage
An alert before I delve into today’s topic: on 13 June, I am moderating a panel on the mental health of children and carers, which I think would be of much interest to many of your readers. It will feature child trauma psychologist Chandra Ghosh
What’s it like to give birth in a refugee camp
Aziza never imagined she would become a mother while living in a refugee camp. A civil engineer, she fled Afghanistan last year when the Taliban takeover became a threat to her family because her husband had worked for the US-led government. When they arrived on
The issue dividing feminists — and a country
After almost two decades away from Italy, I ended up moving back just after I found out I was pregnant in 2018. We lived in a stone house among olive trees in the Umbrian countryside, just off a beautiful Medieval borgo called Montecastello di Vibio. Even
Is a gender-neutral world science fiction?
I’ve just come back from a trip to Gethen – a cold place, with beautiful glaciers and a society of people that are devoid of sex and gender for most of the time. They are simply *people*, undefined by what they have between their legs
Forever in the archive:
Creating safe spaces for children during war
Show kids they are in a safe space, physically and emotionally. They need to chose games freely and have enough time to play, in their own time. They require minimal intervention and guidance from adults. They need opportunities to create, no matter what the result
Why every child should have access to *quality* daycare
A few weeks ago, a question caught me by surprise: what age is best to send your child to daycare? The question came from a parent during a live event where I was discussing my reporting on daycares in southern Italy. A couple of years
Why a child’s imagination is a superpower
Baidui is a child, but he’s also an uncle. He is a boy, but he’s also a mother. He is one and many at the same time. He lives in Thailand, but travels daily to Argentina, Italy and Greece. He goes to a daycare, but
Who gets to make decisions for a child?
Photo credit: Picturehouse Entertainment A child walks into a courtroom to sue his parents. When the judge asks him why, the boy answers: “Because I was born… I want them to stop having children.” This is a scene from the Lebanese film Capernaum, directed by
Off on a date on a working day
Dear reader, This week I had several plans for this newsletter. I wanted to reflect on climate anxiety, following the latest damning IPCC report. I planned to write a piece in praise of the work of midwives. I am also still processing an interview on
War has no borders
Dear reader, I am in Lesbos this week, the Greek island that became the symbol of migrants and refugees in 2015 when tens of thousands of people arrived after crossing the sea from Turkey. Many drowned in the Aegean Sea before making it to shore.
What does war mean for children?
Jasminko Halilovic was four years old when the siege of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, started in 1992. His memories of the war are punctuated by the rare breaks from shelling when he would go out into the street to learn how to ride his bike.
When children feel like a burden
When do children become a burden rather than a joy? I’m not ready for the question that Nacho, my husband, asks me while he’s driving us from one errand to another. Lorenzo, our son, is with us today because of something Covid-related (is it the
Do we really want our children to be independent?
The week my son Lorenzo turned three he put his shoes on by himself, opened the front with a “Ciao”, and said he was going to catch the bus to daycare alone. That same day, he had woken up wanting to be held and played
The importance of learning how to be lazy
When we returned recently from our time with friends in Thailand, I was excited to take advantage of the time difference and jet lag to start my days at 6 a.m., as I had done for many months last year. Think of the possibilities! Writing
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