5SR - June 21, 2023

Madison works as a full-time freelance writer and is the owner of Grief Cards, where she sells sympathy cards that don't suck. In her free time, she plays in Stonewall Sports leagues and attends KC Current games.

Allyson Felix: Tori Bowie Can’t Die In Vain (Time)

Tori Bowie was found in her home on May 2nd -- eight months pregnant and dead due to complications related to childbirth. She, along with Allyson Felix, were two members of the 2016 Olympic women’s 4x100-meter relay gold medal team. Felix, too, had life-threatening complications during the birth of her daughter, Camryn.

Both Bowie and Felix are Black women. In 2021, the maternal mortality rate in the United States for a Black woman was 2.6x the rate of a white woman. As Felix puts it in this editorial, “The medical community must do its part. There are so many stories of women dying who haven’t been heard. Doctors really need to hear the pain of Black women.”

The Gross Spectacle Of Murder Fandom (The Atlantic)

Truthfully, I don’t have a thoughtful response for how we can better care for communities who are in pain after tragedies, apart from stop doing this.

What I do know is that -- thinking of my own experiences with sudden loss and grief and public perception of both -- the loved ones who lose loved ones and are met with “TikTok and Reddit sleuths” rushing to their neighborhoods… That can only make their grief worse. That can only further destroy an already-in-tatters community. There is no good that can come of this. 

Why Won’t People Just Let Me Not Be A Mom? (Elle)

When I played with Legos as a child, I built cities where each character got to live with their friends. Barbies? My soccer doll was suited up for every game, while my American Girl was off on her own independent adventures. I truly cannot remember a time where even the passing desire to be a parent crossed my mind. And yet.

I still find myself following up “I don’t want kids,” with “I’m already an awesome auntie to kids all over the place,” or “My cat is enough for me,” as if my lifelong socializing to birth… something is still ready and waiting, just below the surface. This piece, from writer Laura Belgray, helped me feel seen and understood and reassured. Whether you have children, or want them, or none of the above, I hope you’ll give this a read -- and stop expecting maternal desires from every single woman.

Could Access To Child Care Be The Key To Helping Parents Clear Arrest Warrants? (The 19th*)

This is one of the most powerful forms of system-sanctioned community care that I’ve ever come across. Parents shouldn’t be fearful of losing their child to the court systems simply because they’re trying to learn more about a warrant or ask a simple question. Providing child care in spaces like this can be life changing, especially for disenfranchised and underserved communities.

Congress Ended Pandemic Cash For Parents, But Some States Have Embraced The Idea (New York Times)

From previous reads, it’s probably obvious that I’m fully on board with guaranteed income programs. So the fact that some states are choosing to continue the child tax credits that the federal government did away with? Oh yeah, I’m excited about it.

Is this enough? No. Our social safety net in the United States is incredibly holey -- at best. It’s indescribably easy for families to slip through the cracks, for children to go to work before they even enter their teenage years, for the prison pipeline to break up their goals before they’re fully formed. Still. I want to take a moment to highlight this particular positive movement, before diving back into the work.