Jenn Morson

The little girl in the photograph squints and smiles broadly in the sunlight. According to a now-deleted public post on Second Chance Adoptions’ Facebook page, the girl, who the agency calls “Reese” to protect her privacy, is 10 years old, and she has been a member of her family since she was born—first in foster care, then legally adopted just before her first birthday. She loves to laugh, her adopted mom says, and she smiles all the time. She loves pink. She has no special needs. But she ne...

On the twentieth of each month, Navient withdraws $433.90 from my checking account. Of that amount, the bulk of the payment goes toward the interest my student loans have accrued over the decades. While the amount fluctuates, the principal payments over the years have been, at their highest, $50.20, and at their lowest, $8.42. Each day, my loans accrue $13.69 in interest — which is just more money I owe for an education I obtained twenty years ago.
At 42 years old, I am now reconstructing the...

Jenni and Paul Callahan moved to Duncan, South Carolina in 2013 to fulfill a lifelong dream of farming. They left the political world of Washington, D.C., and established Harp & Shamrock Croft with the motto, “Small farm. Big promise.” The Callahans had anticipated this transition for years, and Paul held jobs off the farm until 2016. But in spite of their preparation and hard work, the Callahans found themselves struggling.
“We were having trouble paying the bills, so I looked at what we cou...

In some states, it’s legal to bring your baby into a bar. But is it a good idea?
One unbearably hot day, deep in the heart of San Antonio, Texas, my sister and I wandered into a restaurant along the famous Riverwalk, seeking frozen margaritas.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a couple seated further down the bar. Between them sat their 3-year-old child. He was snacking on a pile of tortilla chips, spinning around on the barstool, while his parents enjoyed some adult beverages.
Being from th...

Editor's note: As #MeToo took off and the goal of making women safe from sexual assault became a movement, some noticed little action in the Catholic sphere. At least in the public Catholic sphere. But in quiet conversations, private Facebook pages, online forums and discreet email chains, Catholic women were discussing their experiences inside various Catholic institutions.
As these discussions deepened, Catholic women discovered stories of assault, harassment and abuse were common, though r...

My mother loves to tell the story of bringing my twin brothers home from the hospital. My parents’ car, a 1975 Ford Maverick affectionately known as “The Lemon” because of its color and reliability, carried their sudden family of seven from Philadelphia back to Maryland. In the back seat, each of my older sisters, ages 7 and 9, held a newborn twin.
My mother hadn’t given birth to these twins, my brothers. That had been my biological mom, her sister-in-law, who died shortly after childbirth.
S...

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When I was 22 years old, my father lost his battle with cancer. I had just graduated college and had no plan for my immediate future, other than paying my rent and hanging out with friends.
After he died, I was spiraling. The stress of my grief and lack of a plan for my life took a major toll on my health. Even though I thought I was eating regularly ― a slice of pizza here, a bowl of Easy Mac there ― it turned out that I was barely consuming any food. I was so c...

Nadine Burke Harris, M.D., didn’t intend to dedicate her medical career to researching the lifelong impacts of childhood adversity. But that changed when she met a little boy she refers to as Diego.
Dr. Burke Harris met Diego when his mother brought him to her clinic for a screening for Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) at the suggestion of his teachers. But as Dr. Burke Harris conducted her examination, she was puzzled by his symptoms: Diego hovered around the 50th percentile for height and h...

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Heart racing. Sudden sweating. Chest pains. Numbness in your limbs. Feeling like everything is terrible and thinking you might even die.
These are just some of the excruciating symptoms of a panic attack, which 6 million American adults who live with panic disorder experience on a frequent basis. The phenomenon is often associated with extreme anxiety, and it can be triggered by a certain situation or sometimes appear seemingly out of nowhere.
During a p...

Over the past year, the national conversation around maternal health has focused on one question: How can we lower the U.S. maternal mortality rate? After decades of decreasing, the maternal mortality rate started climbing in 2016, increasing from 23 deaths per 100,000 births in 2003 to 28 in 2013. Moreover, this is happening at a time when maternal mortality rates are decreasing all over the world. It's a trend that has medical professionals worried.
There's some good news, however: A nation...

In a screen-focused world, board games can seem antiquated to some, particularly kids. But in our family, we have found that putting down the tablets and phones for some throwback fun with board games (and a big bowl of popcorn) makes for a successful family night. With children ranging from two to 11, our games vary in complexity. Tip: Have the big kids team up with the little kids!
Here are some of my family’s favorite games, including both classics and newer ones, categorized by age group....

Every night, my dinner table was a battleground. “What is this?” came the oft-repeated refrain, accompanied by a scrunched up face and a tiny fork pushing the vegetable portion of the meal to the farthest side of the plate. No matter how tasty I found the item in question, no matter how much butter or parmesan I sprinkled on top, no matter how much trouble I had gone through to make it look fun using a spiralizer, my children could not be convinced that the green item on their plate wasn’t ac...

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The holiday season is a wonderful time for surrounding yourself with loved ones while sharing meals and partaking in happy traditions. But if you’ve recently lost someone close, it can also be a time when feelings of grief are intensified.

Spending the first holiday season without a treasured loved one can be complicated and messy ― but it can be done while still enjoying parts of the season. We asked an expert how to manage emotions during what’s otherwise consid...

Rental prices in Falls Church, Virginia, just five minutes outside of Washington, D.C., are outrageous. Which is why, as a first-year teacher, I could only afford group housing. This was mostly wonderful. We were five young professionals just starting our careers. We led extremely busy lives, kept different hours, and rarely got in each other’s way. We even managed to socialize together at times, hosting a few low-key gatherings, catching a movie, that sort of thing. Overall, we were a no-dra...

Photo: LuLaRoe
In May of this year, Racked reported that a growing number of LuLaRoe retailers were leaving the brand. In response to their complaints, the company issued a return policy that guaranteed 100 percent wholesale refund and covered shipping costs for unhappy retailers who wished to go out of business. According to that policy, LuLaRoe would issue return labels to any retailer who resigned officially and refund the entire wholesale cost of the items, provided they were returned in ...