Recently I visited a major art gallery with my family. Before the winding Frank Gehry-designed spiral staircase in the airy open atrium were countless children's shoes arranged in circles. There were small sparkly running shoes, tiny moccasins, and kids’ sized dress shoes, each representing a Native child who died at a residential school. They represented the little feet that no longer get to run around their Native American communities, playing and chasing one another.

When I was a kid, I was a bookworm that only stepped into the sports world briefly with a toe pick. I spent probably one year in figure skating, and never ventured into the sports that my brother, dad and male cousins were well versed in – hockey, golf, and track and field. While I’m happy to have had all those years of escaping into the worlds of babysitters clubs and more, I wanted to give my daughter a few more opportunities to find an activity she might like. She’s tried gymnastics and bal

My five-year-old daughter began humming a traditional Alaska Native song, telling me “it’s so catchy! Do we have any Mohawk songs like this?” The reason she’d even heard a traditional Alaska Native song was through a new PBS animated children’s show, Molly of Denali.

I honestly couldn’t tell you what got me into superheroes first – my kids, or Black Panther. I loved so many things about Black Panther – how the fictional African nation of Wakanda was incredibly advanced thanks to its science, how important its women are, and that this was the first all-black superhero movie ever. It got me so excited that I had to watch Thor: Ragnarok, the superhero movie directed by the extremely funny and offbeat Taika Waititi. It was delightful, plus it had Jeff Goldblum

It feels like a rite of passage for a person of a certain age about to embark on an event that will be highly photographed – weddings, baby shower, etc – that you must sign up for Pinterest. On Pinterest you can say good-bye to hours of your life, pinning picture-perfect party ideas to your board that you think you’ll be revisiting in the days to come, with your hot glue gun in hand and a determination to pull off pastel tissue paper crafts and that “just right” place setting. This is firmly n

During my first year of motherhood, I wasn’t prepared to be so attached – often literally – to a tiny, incredibly dependent, human being, but simultaneously often feel so incredibly alone. I remember the most scintillating interactions I had in those early days were the two minute transactions with my grocery store cashier, since my tiny baby blob wasn’t much of a conversationalist. Then I’d bombard my husband as soon as he got home, with a day’s worth of thoughts that’d been lying in wait to b

As 2018 came to a close, I finally began to understand all of the Twitter jokes marvelling at how long the year had seemed – Black Panther came out this year?! – but only after I’d scrolled through a year’s worth of photos I’d taken of my children. It was through the physical changes of my 2 and 4 year old that I could see how much taller they’d become, how much their features had become less baby-like, and how long their hair had grown (my daughter has Rapunzel aspirations), and that hit home

As a younger, single adult, the changing of a calendar usually meant feeling pressured to go out on New Year’s Eve and have the best time ever – whether it was at a concert, a big city ball drop, or a fancy club – usually with friends. Those nights often led to a much emptier wallet, and dissatisfaction that it wasn’t the “best night ever.” The day after usually started with vows to never bow to NYE pressure again, and after that, phone calls and texts to family members and friends with happy n

Despite having the best of intentions to screen what my kids, ages 4 and 2, are tapping on in YouTube, I often have to tune out the frenetic pacing and manic sounds of unboxing videos or Baby Sharks — otherwise I’d lose my sanity. Then Blippi, a YouTube channel and personality, captivated my kids, and I started paying attention.

Some nights when I put my four-year-old daughter to bed, after we’ve read through her latest favourite library books, she asks me to teach her some Mohawk words. Mohawk is the language of my mother, and besides the numbers one through 10 and various farm animals, my children don’t hear any of these words spoken in our house or their grandparents’ house. So on those nights, I open the Speak Mohawk app on my iPhone.

Growing up, my parents planned yearly road trips to Florida and South Carolina, and my memories of those travels include sitting in the backseat for hours with a gigantic portable TV, Mad Libs and Babysitters Club books. Now that I have my own kids, corralling children into our family SUV and hefting luggage through the airport has become an extreme learning experience that’s been both rewarding and challenging. A common refrain when you talk about kids and travelling is: “It’s not a vacation,

My first panic attack happened while I was browsing shelving units at Ikea. I was shaking, my leg kept banging into my seven-month-old son’s stroller and my heart was beating like crazy. But as soon as I got into the parking lot, the feelings dissipated. A second attack hit me a few days later at an empty grocery store: I felt like I was being squeezed tightly by the aisles around me, and this feeling followed me and my stroller all the way home and lingered for a few hours.