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Kathryn Jezer-Morton

Columnist, “Brooding”
See all their articles from across New York Magazine

Kathryn Jezer-Morton is the author of the column and newsletter series “Brooding” in which she explores topics surrounding modern family life. She has written about domestic life and digital culture for the New York Times, The Nation, The Guardian, and Jezebel, among many other publications. She got a PhD in Sociology from Concordia University in 2022.

  1. parenting
    Is Giving Your Kids a ’90s Summer Even Possible?Sure, our kids can rot all summer, but with screens, there will be nothing ’90s about it.
  2. parenting
    Fellow Parents, May I Please Text Less?Incessant phone contact is a form of maternal self-soothing. Enough!
  3. parenting
    Should We Give Our Kids Fewer Choices?Our selfhood is not defined by what we decide to consume. Steering children through the world helps them enjoy simple pleasures.
  4. parenting
    Happy Mother’s Day to the Moms Who Love to PartyGoing out makes us more alive to the joys of home life.
  5. parenting
    What’s the Power of a Family Curse?In today’s fantasies of family optimization, there is almost nothing that can’t be scrubbed out or nurtured into submission. Almost.
  6. parenting
    How Worried Should We Be When Kids Use Slurs?Kathryn Jezer-Morton asked a group of ninth-grade public-school boys to weigh in.
  7. parenting
    The Dangerous-Son ProblemNetflix’s Adolescence has upped the panic over teen boys’ internet brain rot.
  8. parenting
    Amanda Hess Unpacks Parenting in the Digital AgeThe author of the tender and funny memoir Second Life understands why you got emotionally attached to your pregnancy-tracking app.
  9. parenting
    Time to Ditch the COVID-era JudginessFive years ago, what other people did became our business, but many of us haven’t looked back.
  10. parenting
    How Does ‘Big-Reveal’ Content Shape Our Family Stories?To “prove” that “real stuff” is “happening,” we transform ordinary life into something splashier online.
  11. parenting
    Is Annoyance the Most Romantic Emotion?Love is what holds our households together, but love isn’t what gets things done.
  12. parenting
    Trad or Not, We’re All Nostalgic for a Fake PastConservatives are trying to bring back a notion of family that never even existed.
  13. parenting
    Should Kids Really Learn About Getting Rich?Turns out the most important financial-literacy skill might be discerning real advice from fantasy.
  14. parenting
    Is an Overcrowded House Such a Terrible Thing?#DuvetKnowItsChristmas acknowledges the non-Instagrammable reality that a houseful of holiday guests comes at the cost of sleeping in a real bed.
  15. parenting
    What to Get the Adults in Your Life Caring for Young ChildrenA Brooding gift guide.
  16. parenting
    Are You a Cycle Breaker — or Just a Grown-up?Thanks to certain pop-psychological concepts, childhood is swallowing adulthood whole.
  17. parenting
    We Can’t Let Family Life Become a Political PawnFamily life is where radical change can take root — MAGA doesn’t own it.
  18. parenting
    Why Isn’t Halloween Scary Anymore?Being spooked by adults is one of my favorite childhood memories. But terrifying children for sport is not as socially acceptable as it once was.
  19. parenting
    Should Our Children Identify With a Political Party?Today, parents teach their children who to like — and who to hate. Maybe that’s not such a good idea.
  20. parenting
    Welcome Back, Social-Media FallThe vibes this time of year used to be serious, even disciplined. Now the season is defined by cheap and cheerful nostalgia.
  21. parenting
    Are Phone Bans In Schools Good for Parents?This fall, parents will have to adapt, emotionally and logistically.
  22. parenting
    Who Is All That Obsessively Detailed College-Dorm Decorating Really For?How “Dorm Room Mamas” are using Amazon to helicopter-parent their kids post high-school graduation.
  23. parenting
    Is Affirmation Culture Sabotaging Our Friendships and Ourselves?We’ll do anything to avoid seeming mean, even going so far as to validate each others’ bad decisions. There has to be another way.
  24. parenting
    Can Divorce Make You a Better Parent?Separating can force parents to discuss how they actually care for their kids.
  25. parenting
    Is Homeschooling Isolating Us Too Much?Relationships make up a lot of — sometimes most of — what happens in school.
  26. momfluencers
    Hannah Neeleman, last year's Mrs. American pageant winner, with her family during the Mrs. World beauty pageant at the Westgate Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Jan. 19, 2024. (Bridget Bennett/The New York Times)
    You’ll Never Really Know Ballerina FarmMight as well accept it.
  27. parenting
    Are You Being a Good Guest?Experiencing hospitality is one of the central pleasures of civilization, and sometimes it feels like we’re forgetting how to enjoy it.
  28. parenting
    Should Parents Gas Each Other Up More?All my husband had to do was explain to our children how hard I work to give them a good life. To my astonishment, they began to notice it.
  29. parenting
    Why Do Parents Obsess Over Kids’ Athletics?Being a committed Sports Parent™ is a path toward absolution of any guilt.
  30. parenting
    The High Stakes of the Group-Family VacationTo be fully seen, in all your dysfunction, and to stay friends afterward? Terrifying! And sublime.
  31. parenting
    How Do French Parents Raise Their Teenagers?Bringing Up Bébé is entering its teens. Author Pamela Druckerman discusses what’s changed about French parenting.
  32. parenting
    Mother Is a VerbMother’s Day should be about celebrating the mothering that we give and receive from other moms.
  33. parenting
    What Motherhood Looks Like in ‘Florida!!!’The matriarchs of Taylor Swift’s favorite state defy the identity scripts the rest of us are used to.
  34. parenting
    Parenting Through Our Control IssuesRaising our kids with too much control — of their moods, their consumption, their safety — makes it harder for them to transform and change.
  35. parenting
    When Kids Are Addicted to their Phones, Who Is to Blame?Parents can’t change their kids’ relationships to screens without also addressing their own.
  36. parenting
    Why Are Parents On TikTok So Angry?The barrage of online advice from experts promoting a “gentle” approach to child-rearing is getting to them.
  37. parenting
    How Dr. Becky Professionalized ParentingBecky Kennedy popularized buzzwords like reparenting oneself and co-regulation — it’s made her the most influential parenting expert since Dr. Spock.
  38. parenting
    How Should You Discipline a Kid in Trouble at School?There has got to be a way for nonauthoritarian parents to raise children with structure and respect for authority while maintaining their trust.
  39. parenting
    Can Parents Prevent Their Sons From Sliding to the Right?It might feel dangerous to let a teen explore reactionary and unformed pseudo-ideologies. But no one should get canceled at the dinner table.
  40. parenting
    How (and Where) Are Parents Supposed to Get it On?Being a highly engaged parent in a nuclear family, fulfilling as it can be, often requires that some intimacy between parents gets lost.
  41. parenting
    Why Are Parents Fixated on Core Memories?It’s supremely hubristic to assume that you can stage-manage the content of your children’s memories.
  42. parenting
    A.J. Daulerio Is Embracing Sober ParentingThe writer talks about recovery, becoming a father during the pandemic, and staying present.
  43. year in review
    The 10 Most-Read ‘Brooding’ Columns in 2023The stories from Kathryn Jezer-Morton’s series on parenting that most captured Cut readers’ attention this year.
  44. parenting
    How Much Nostalgia for the Holidays Should We Have?At best it’s a state of arousal that makes your life more vivid. At worst, it’s an unscratchable itch — a jones for a fix that does not exist.
  45. parenting
    What Do Kids Lose When Preschools Are Segregated?Sociologist and race scholar Dr. Casey Stockstill discusses the ways both affluent children and poor children of color miss out.
  46. parenting
    Why Does the Internet Tell Us to ‘Raise Good Humans’?The phrase is so general it becomes meaningless, but it has sinister, grandiose, and defensive undertones.
  47. parenting
    Does Anyone Feel Like an Actual Adult?Or are we all just cosplaying adulthood?
  48. parenting
    Childhood Independence Is a Mental-Health IssueWhat if we are inadvertently contributing to a decadeslong crisis?
  49. parenting
    Why Are We Always on Call for Our Kids?My children very rarely have to wait for anyone for very long — is it time to establish stronger boundaries around my alone time?
  50. parenting
    What We Owe Our Families — and What We Don’tJenisha Watts was raised by people who did not keep her safe. Here, she talks about parenting her own child in the shadow of that history.
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