As a mother and a pediatrician, I’ve both felt the strain of pandemic parenting directly and indirectly. I’ve made decisions about my own family and sending our kids to daycare and school, and I’ve stayed up worrying about how parents are supposed to make these difficult choices with so little support.

I suppose there has to be one silver lining that comes out of being sheltered in place for months on end (due to Covid-19): I’ve finally been catching up on sleep. The recommended nightly hours of sleep is between 7 and 9 hours . For me, getting a good night’s sleep has been the best way to regain a sense of control and ease during such unnerving times. Not only does sleep improve mood and

A year ago, I wrote in my Forbes column about the decades-long pattern of Pride Month celebrations excluding people with disabilities. The underlying reason why Pride events were (and still are) mostly inaccessible for people with disabilities, both in terms of physical spaces and social acceptance, is that mainstream media and public don’t see them having identities outside of their disabilities.

Saturdays were special as a kid growing up in Port Washington, New York. Saturdays meant Burger King outings with my grandparents, a great big slice of trade-marked Hershey’s chocolate pie for me and piping hot oatmeal for them. And we can’t forget about the Kids Meal toys. But on this particular Saturday, everything was different - at the tender age of five, I started to notice that certain aspects of my life were just off.

I don’t know if this is just me, but my time in quarantine has made me have weird flashbacks to my childhood. As a kid growing up with CP, especially with a speech impediment and mobility limitations, my lifeline to making and keeping friends was through AIM (AOL Instant Messenger, for those of you who are too young to remember) and one of the first video chatting platforms, ooVoo. Fast forward 15 years, many of us are in a similar situation. To slow the spread of COVID-19, most of life has moved online, including friendships.

When I was considering going on birth control a few years ago, I wanted to find out how, if at all, my cerebral palsy would cause certain side effects. However, to my dismay, there weren’t any resources available that addressed the complexities a woman with cerebral palsy might encounter when going on any form of birth control.

There is insufficient research on adults living with cerebral palsy, (as referenced in my previous blog post on cerebral palsy and adulthood). Although there is a paucity of studies examining mental health in this population, medical researchers have speculated that the rate of depression is three to four times higher in people with disabilities such as CP than it is in the general population.