Most of the time I come into your email box with helpful suggestions to deepen your self-care practice or new ways to find time and space for yourself, and otherwise nice notes from your massage therapist. Since I started writing this blog, I have considered all the ways my friends’ work and home lives (and all their stressors) might look like yours, and translate my advice to them to fit a wider audience. But when it comes to the unique experience of parenting amid the coronavirus, I find myself at a loss. I am not a mother yet, but the acts of heroism and sacrifice I have seen out of my mom’s friends have inspired in me a sense of hope for what comes next, and some curiosity about how they are making all of this work. Parents always walk the tight rope, but right now you are doing it while spinning plates.

The first thing your mother’s doctor did after you were born was place your tiny, brand new body on your mother’s chest, and through the first few days of your life one of your parents’ many jobs was to take turns taking off their shirts to hold you. This practice is casually called “kangaroo care,” making it sound silly but it’s serious business. Touch is how we let newborn babies know that we love them, and numerous studies have been done on how skin contact as an infant develops serotonin and oxytocin pathways in us, helping us form healthy bonds and develop trust in others as adults. Being touched, by this metric, is literally how we learn to love each other and experience joy on a chemical level.