• My daughter and I took the scenic route from Oregon to her college in Missouri.
• We camped near Yellowstone, explored Wyoming, and visited South Dakota landmarks.
• The trip gave us precious time together before she started her independent life.

After buying a car for my daughter to take to college, the problem was getting the little Mazda from Portland, Oregon, to Fulton, Missouri. Maria and I are fun in the car, but awful at driving long distances.

We checked the miles, over 2,000, and groaned.

"Are we doing this?" I asked. "Remember Eugene?"

We laughed, thinking about the time after an exhausting day, we couldn't manage the usual three hours from Eugene, Oregon, to Portland without stopping every 10 to 15 minutes. We took turns saying, "Your turn," as we blasted cold air and chomped Good 'n' Plenty licorice to stay awake. Eventually, we napped at a rest stop. I finished the drive and let Maria sleep.

We took the scenic route to college

"Let's make it an adventure," Maria said when we were debating whether to take the scenic route. She knows I love sleeping in a tent and waking up outdoors. Being in nature would ease my aching heart, already missing her. I savored our time before we even started.

We mapped our route, picking the long way. In Yellowstone, we tented next to a motorhome complete with a satellite and TV. We cracked up as we popped up our two-person tent in the RV's shadow. In the morning, it was a quick coffee and on to gawking our way through the park, pointing at bison, moose, elk, deer, wolves, and more. At a geyser view spot, a tourist tried to touch a bull moose with a huge rack of horns while onlookers poised their phones.

We made so many memories together

We drove across Wyoming with its wide-open spaces and the prettiest blue skies. Then camped at Custer State Park, our tent site flanking a river. In the morning, we plopped on a log and sipped cowboy (unfiltered) coffee. "So much better than flying," I said, surprising myself.

Our awe was mild at Mt. Rushmore, where we snapped bad tourist pictures, pretending to squish the presidents' heads between thumb and index finger as a curly-haired woman in white pointy Keds glared at us.

Then, onto Crazy Horse: a massive monument of Crazy Horse, the Lakota leader, still being carved out of the mountain. I cried at its mass, its beauty, its story. For scale, Mt. Rushmore could fit in the finger that points to his people's land.

Next was the iconic Wall Drug, where we stretched our bodies, then drove on to the Corn Palace. "All corn?" I asked. Yes, beautiful, detailed murals crafted of corn and other grains covered the Moorish building.

The road trip made me less sad to see her go

Endless signs in Kansas enticed us with the World's Largest Prairie Dog, a live five-legged cow, plus rattlesnakes. Even though the prairie dog turned out to be a 15-foot-tall, four-ton concrete statue, it topped our list for fun roadside attractions and included a bonus rattlesnake "pit" in a gift shop where rattlers slept in terrariums. The cashier's nametag said Suzy. She hit the tops of the cages with a cane, startling the snakes to shake their rattling tails. We jumped too.

"It's OK," I told Suzy, my hand up in the universal sign for stop. "Let them rest." "You paid to see 'em," she rasped, whapping another terrarium as Maria gave her the side-eye.

We held our belly laughs in until we reached the car.

We stopped at rest stops and gas stations. Drank sparkling water (me) and soda (her). Snacked on chips and Wheat Thins. Took rinse showers at campsites. The only time we drove semi-sleepily was through Kansas with the obligatory, "Are we there yet?" And "Can you drive?" It wasn't as bad as that haul from Eugene home, but the straight flat is hypnotizing.

"My turn. I got you," Maria said, tightening her ponytail and her resolve. I saw her on the cusp of her grown life as she drove the last leg, singing full tilt, our playlist a mix of Garth Brooks, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Chicks, and more.

Willie Nelson sang us across the country. We played "On the Road Again" every morning, every time we restarted, every time we crossed a state line. Whenever I hear "Making music with my friends" it's my daughter I think of.

Once we reached Fulton, Missouri, I knew I could fly home without my girl. We were both ready. While it was bittersweet to drop my dream-chasing kids — first my son, then my daughter — at college, that year my excitement for her overshadowed my sadness.

We'll always have the rattlesnakes. We've laughed about them ever since.

• Our friendship formed over questionable decisions, break-ups, hangovers, and, eventually, the messy business of becoming adults.
• Then, three baby girls born in three cities over three weeks started a completely new chapter.
• Our connection became our parenting lifeline, proving that the best friendships grow with you.

"What a night!" "I barely slept." "I don't even know what time I went to bed."

The same statements can have very different meanings in different stages of life. My friends and I used to worry about where everyone was at 2 a.m. Now, we worry about whether everyone's baby has pooped that day.

Laura-Kate (Lauks), Kirsten (Kirst), and I met 25 years ago at an all-girls boarding school in South Africa, then partied our way through university and early adulthood. For years, our biggest problems were nursing sore heads with painkillers and junk food, who was dating whom, where we were going that weekend, and whether anyone had taken a particularly unflattering photo.

Then, the three of us had babies all within three weeks of one another, reaffirming our bond and allowing us to evolve together in new and exciting ways I never imagined.

Real adulthood happened

Lauks got pregnant unexpectedly, bravely navigating the challenges of being a semi-single mom with a husband who works abroad for up to three months at a time. In the same period, Kirst and her American husband settled in the US, and I was undergoing IVF treatment. We all had our own challenges.

Fast forward a bit, and Lauks told us she was expecting another unplanned surprise. It was a contrast to my own fertility journey, which had been a roller coaster of disappointments, including a failed embryo transfer. I was about to undergo a second transfer when she gave us the news over group text.

Lauks lives in a town about an hour from me. It happens to be on the way to my fertility doctor. On one drive home, soon after sharing her good news, I stopped to see Lauks to congratulate her. I was also six weeks pregnant at the time. I remember sitting there in the cafe trying to get the words out: "I'm pregnant." Cue the ugly crying.

Of course, my next phone call was to Kirst in the US. Little did I know that she had some news she was itching to tell me too. All three of us were pregnant at the same time.

The tone of our WhatsApp group changed immediately

After comparing and complaining about our pregnancy symptoms for months, one baby arrived, then another, then another.

We all arrived at motherhood differently, but we each welcomed a baby girl into the world within three weeks across three different cities (and two continents), and our friendship acquired an entirely new vocabulary.

We had once bonded over crushes, kisses, and hangovers. Now, we talked about latching, snot-sucking, and the intricate details of every strange rash. The conversations may have been less titillating, but somehow, they were even more intimate.

Our WhatsApp group became a kind of 24-hour maternal helpline. "Does this look normal?" Reply at 3 am: "Yes, unfortunately." We sent memes when we were too exhausted to form sentences. We celebrated first smiles and first rolls. We talked about periods, pimples, sex, husbands, and everything else that apparently becomes acceptable conversation once you've been friends for 25 years.

Then, the group chat blew up with more surprises

Earlier this year, Kirsten let us know that baby number two was on the way. This time, it was me bubbling over inside, dying to tell them that I had gotten pregnant naturally. In August, Kirst gave birth to a baby boy, and my baby girl arrived in September.

Although we haven't been in the same room since Kirst moved to the US three years ago, we remain as close as ever, if not closer. My girls are my cheerleaders, doulas, online health advisors, and a massive reason why I've stayed sane (enough) as a mother. They've shown me the power of long-term friendship and the ways women can lift each other up.

In another 25 years, we'll be in our 60s

I can't help but imagine what another 25 years will do to our friendship. We'll be in our 60s, and the kids will (hopefully) be fending for themselves out in the world.

Along with the gray hairs and wrinkles, our priorities will have probably changed once again. After the first 25 years, I've learned that the best friendships don't stay the same, they grow with you. So I know my besties will still be there for me, just with entirely new things to commiserate over, cry over, and kill ourselves laughing about.

• Jen Podany raised her three children in a busy Los Angeles neighborhood where traffic limited their independence.
• After moving to a small Arizona town, her kids can ride bikes and play with neighborhood friends.
• She says their new lifestyle reminds her of the freedom children had growing up in the 1980s.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jen Podany, founder of Bluestone Sunshields. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Near the end of 2024, my family of five had once again escaped Los Angeles for the quiet we found 10 hours south in Snowflake, Arizona.

We'd been doing it for years, renting an Airbnb in Snowflake, a town of 6,000 in the middle of nowhere, switching off amid the miles of empty land.

It had started as a stopover on our way to visit my husband's family in New Mexico. We fell in love with the town, and from then on, we'd visit whenever we needed to get away from the busyness of LA.

In Snowflake, we felt like we could catch our breath. Our souls calmed each time we arrived and ached to stay each time we left.

We put an offer on a house

Back in LA, specifically Burbank, the five of us — my husband and our three children, whom we homeschooled — lived in a duplex made up of two connected apartments. We lived in one of them, which had two bedrooms and one bathroom. From the other apartment, my husband and I ran our two separate businesses.

The duplex was in a neighborhood near a busy street, and we had to be cautious about letting the kids go outside to play because of the cars. I was always holding someone's little hand when we were out, just in case. You could hear planes flying back and forth into Burbank Airport. As our kids and businesses grew, we felt increasingly confined.

Then we saw a house on the market in Snowflake, and I felt in my bones that we should put in an offer.

It was a four-bedroom house surrounded by land, chickens, cows, and a crazy turkey. We could buy it and have our own place to stay when visiting, rather than always renting an Airbnb.

We bought the house for about $500,000, and on our first visit to stay in it in January 2025, none of us wanted to go back to Burbank.

We knew then that we'd make Snowflake our home. And so we did.

We moved from Los Angeles to a town of 6,000 people

In so many ways, our life looks exactly like life in LA. Our routines have remained the same. Every morning, just like in LA, we start our day at a coffee shop. Except in Snowflake, there's only one place to go instead of 20 choices. We work, we homeschool, we eat our meals, and we go to sleep — just like we did in LA.

But by transplanting our lives to a quiet town, we all feel calmer and more peaceful.

Personally, my nervous system has regulated. In LA, I felt like the world was constantly coming at me, like I was being bombarded and reacting to everything around me. Here, I feel like I'm in the driver's seat, with a clear head.

Not only has it been good for my well-being, but it's also been good for my business. The move has given me the mental space to think bigger. It's led to greater creativity, paving the way for business growth.

My kids have an 80s childhood

My kids love Snowflake, too. I didn't have to convince them about the move.

They have the freedom to be out of the house without worrying about cars and crime. Just a bike ride away are other kids with whom they are often found playing.

I think kids grow up quickly in cities, and living here, I feel like my kids get to just be kids. It's like going back to being a kid in the '80s, and I love that for them.

The house is bigger, so we aren't living on top of each other, but they've also got endless outdoor space to explore.

Even though I lived in LA for 20 years, we never experienced friendship and community as we have in just over a year in Snowflake.

We can't leave the house without seeing someone who wants to stop and talk. Everyone here is on "mountain time" — slowing down. No one is rushing around, head down, looking at their phones, too hurried to have a conversation.

Everyone is present and friendly.

My husband and I still occasionally have to go to LA for work, and each time we come back home to Snowflake, I take a deep breath and know we made the right decision to relocate our family.

• A year after my breast cancer diagnosis, I'm rejecting the "fighter" and "warrior" labels others put on me.
• I'm tired of the pinkwashing that feels like it's turning a terrifying disease into a cheerful marketing campaign.
• I'm grateful for my care and the people who supported me, but I don't need to find a silver lining or turn my experience into an inspirational story.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer a year ago, and with Breast Cancer Awareness Month underway, I have a confession that feels almost sacrilegious: I hate breast cancer culture. I hate the "fighter" and "warrior" labels I didn't ask for, and I especially hate the over-the-top pink branding that I see so much.

I didn't ask to join this club. I didn't want to lose my hair to chemo or have my breasts amputated. I didn't choose to worry about whether my kids and relatives might also develop this horrible disease. And I hate pink; I always have. I'm grateful for my treatment and that I've weathered it all relatively well. I just feel pissed that this was my lot in life.

As I reach the anniversary of the day my "before" split into the "after," I don't know what I'm supposed to call myself now. "Fighter" doesn't feel right. "Warrior" definitely doesn't, and "survivor" is complicated.

I didn't choose to fight cancer

I understand that people mean well when they call someone a fighter. They want to acknowledge what she's enduring and remind her she's strong. Pink ribbons and awareness campaigns can raise money and encourage screenings, and those are all wonderful things. But in the rush to turn cancer into a story about courage and hope, there's little room for the less inspirational feelings: anger, resentment, exhaustion, and fear.

I didn't fight cancer in the way people seem to imagine. I showed up for appointments, followed my doctors' recommendations, and endured treatment because I wanted to live. I didn't have some extraordinary reserve of bravery. I didn't get to opt out. What was the alternative?

I didn't earn a special title by going through chemotherapy. I was a person with a disease who wanted to get better. Sometimes I was scared. Many days, I was exhausted. Sometimes I was just trying to get through the day.

I'm over the pinkwashing of breast cancer

And the pink. Everywhere, pink. Pink products, pink merchandise, pink marketing campaigns. Sometimes the branding feels like a cheerful coat of paint over a genuinely terrifying experience.

Cancer isn't cute. Losing your breasts isn't a lifestyle rebrand or a "free boob-job." Buying a pink water bottle doesn't necessarily make anyone feel less alone in a hospital room.

I don't begrudge anyone who finds comfort in a pink ribbon or a community of fellow patients. My problem is with the expectation that breast cancer should come packaged with a neat, uplifting message. What if I don't want to embrace this experience? What if I don't feel grateful for the lessons it taught me?

I'd happily trade every bit of perspective I've gained for the life I had before my diagnosis.

Finishing treatment doesn't mean everything's over

There's no clear finish line. Treatment ends, and everyone wants to celebrate that you've made it through. You want to celebrate, too. But you're also left processing what happened to your body, what you've lost, and what the future might hold.

As much as I try to go back to my "before" life, I'm constantly holding my breath, waiting for the other shoe to potentially drop.

Before cancer, I didn't spend much time thinking about my identity. I was busy being a mom, wife, sister, daughter, and working woman. Now, I'm still figuring out how much space cancer deserves in my life. I don't want every conversation to be about my health. I don't want people to expect me to inspire them simply because something terrible happened to me.

I'm grateful to be here, but I'm still angry

I'm grateful for my doctors, the people who showed up for me, and the advances in medicine that gave me treatment options. I'm grateful that I've come through this in relatively good shape. But I can appreciate the care I've received and still be furious that I needed it.

As I reach this anniversary, I don't need a label to make my experience meaningful. I don't need to turn cancer into a lesson or find a silver lining in every awful moment. I don't need to be inspirational.

If you want to support someone with breast cancer, you don't have to call her a fighter. Acknowledge that what she's going through is hard. Offer an ear or, better yet, a DoorDash gift card. Let her feel however she feels.

As for me, I'll mark this anniversary with gratitude, anger, uncertainty, and the knowledge that I'm still here. That's enough.

As house prices plateau, the gap between the cost of buying and renting is narrowing in dozens of suburbs

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High rents and falling property prices have opened a rare window for Australian tenants to become homeowners, with mortgage repayments cheaper than rent in dozens of suburbs.

Guardian Australia’s analysis of Cotality data shows that median rents in inner-city Melbourne, suburban Canberra and Darwin are now nearly matching weekly home loan repayments.

In one in 10 suburbs and towns across the country, repayments are less than $200 a week higher than rent, for the typical property. In some suburbs, they are actually cheaper.

• As my maternity leave after having my fourth child was ending, summer was starting.
• I wanted to spend the summer with my kids, and I looked for a solution.
• I ended up taking a 20% pay cut for 8 months for another 73 days off.

Our fourth child was a happy surprise, and arrived on the scene when we were busy putting out metaphorical fires with our 4-year-old twins and our 2-year-old daughter, who seemed to spend most of their time playing and fighting.

We felt like we already had a lot of kids. Not too many, but enough. When I learned I was pregnant, we asked ourselves, what was one more?

As my maternity leave was ending, I still wanted more time

Nine months later, the real party began. My maternity leave started coming to an end just as we were facing a very long summer: 12 weeks, from June 20 to September 8, with no school. We live in Spain, and were about to face one of those eternal Spanish summers I remember so well from my own childhood: long, hot days full of sand, sea, salt, swimming pools, and, yes, boredom.

Our monthly expenses were already higher than ever (diapers, onesies, baby food, and all those brand-new baby things I'd previously gotten rid of because I thought we were done having kids). Still, I decided to take a 20% pay cut in exchange for more time, simply so I could get us through the summer.

That decision meant more time with the baby, obviously, but also with the rest of my kids, who are still just older than babies themselves. The difference is that 40 years ago, in many families, one salary — usually the man's — could support a household. Today, both parents often need full-time jobs and want to have professional lives of their own. This is the case for us, and it's not particularly compatible with looking after four very young children for 12 weeks.

Taking a pay cut gave me an extra 73 days off

By agreeing to a 20% pay cut for eight months, I was able to combine my reduced working hours into 73 full days off instead of working shorter days each week. Together with my maternity leave, weekends, and public holidays, those extra days allowed me to stay home with my children much longer than I ever expected. I didn't have to return to work until my baby was 10 months old. It was a financial sacrifice, but it gave me something I couldn't put a price on: more time with my children. Face to face.

It sounded stressful when I thought about it. In reality, it turned out to be a dream. I've had the best summer of my life, and I'm afraid I may never get another one quite like it.

Since June, the weeks have passed slowly, as we looked for activities to fill the days: painting, drawing, gluing things together, doing yoga or gymnastics, trying to get everyone to nap at the same time, and, obviously, spending hours by the pool and at the beach.

There were moments when the baby wanted to breastfeed while my little girl needed a diaper change at the pool, with me sitting on the edge, trying to manage both. Or one kid suddenly needed to pee while the others were happily playing in the water. It has been a crash course in patience, caregiving, and motherhood.

But the interesting part isn't just how much fun we had. It's how much money we saved by doing it this way.

We saved so much on childcare that it didn't make much of a difference

I lost €10,000 (about $11,200) by taking the pay cut, which is a lot of money when you have this many kids. But I also avoided paying for the baby's day care, which costs around €700 a month. Over three months, that's about €2,100. Summer programs for the other three children would have cost around €200 per child a week. Over 12 weeks, that comes to €7,200.

Put it all together, and we would have spent about €9,300 on childcare over the summer anyway. So, in practical terms, we gave up roughly €700 so I could spend an entire summer with our four kids.

It a good trade.

Then there's everything that doesn't fit neatly into a spreadsheet: everything we learned together about being a family, sharing things, expressing ourselves, respecting each other's rhythms, and simply waiting for things to get done, something you do a lot of when there are four small children involved.

Financially, it turned out to be a good decision for us. Emotionally, it was even better.

The question now isn't really how much we saved or lost. It's what we're going to do next summer.

We'll see.

• Dr. Katie S. Davis is a clinical neuropsychologist who evaluates children for learning disorders.
• She said some parents are rushing to diagnose their children for normal kid behavior.
• She suggested some softer interventions before booking an evaluation appointment.

Over years of evaluating children for learning disorders, Dr. Katie S. Davis noticed an interesting phenomenon: Some parents seemed visibly disappointed when she told them their kids didn't meet the criteria for ADHD or autism.

"I found that those conversations can be more difficult to have than with a parent whose kid is really disabled and whose needs are very high," Davis, a clinical neuropsychologist and author of "Actually, You're Fine," told Business Insider.

Though she would try to reassure those parents that their concerns about their children's behavior were valid and worth addressing even without a formal diagnosis, "it's not as tangible or concrete as parents want, and they often leave the conversation feeling dissatisfied."

Parent-reported diagnoses of several childhood developmental and learning conditions have increased in recent years. For example, the estimated share of US children ages 3 to 17 with a current ADHD diagnosis rose from 8.6% in 2016 to 10.5% in 2023. Separately, a study of children ages 6 to 17 found parent-reported lifetime learning-disability diagnoses rose 16.4% over the same period.

While some argue that greater awareness of learning disabilities and disorders accounts for the increase, Davis doesn't feel that explains the full story. From what she's observed, ever-growing expectations for kids — and parents desperate for explanations for why their child is lagging behind — also play a role.

She said rushing to a diagnosis can have negative long-term implications for everyone.

"People don't think that ADHD means anything, people don't think dyslexia means anything," Davis said. "Then those people who are truly disabled by those conditions have enough battle to justify their need for accommodations and services."

Higher and higher expectations

In order to qualify for a diagnosis such as ADHD, symptoms must be present in at least two major settings, such as both at home and at school. For autism, they must be persistent across multiple contexts.

But some parents focus on how their child behaves in the classroom, in part due to ever-increasing expectations around academic success, Davis said.

"Doing well in school is no longer good — you have to be at the top of the pack," Davis said, noting that similar patterns have arisen in higher education settings with parents arguing for their teenagers' grades to be inflated. "Parents want excellence, and if it's not excellent, it's bad."

When worrying about their child's behavior, some parents zero in on their child's behavior in class while overlooking how their child compares to others, Davis said.

"If you're in a kindergarten classroom, probably all of the kids to some degree are going to have trouble sitting on the rug for 30 minutes at circle time," Davis said. Most will cluster in the middle of the bell curve, while some will get antsier earlier or later. The kids who consistently stand out compared to their peers are the ones who should probably be evaluated, Davis said.

Otherwise, "for nine kids out of 10, that sounds like a kid in an elementary school."

Labels are a double-edged sword

Whether they're diagnosed with ADHD or not, a child being hyperactive in class isn't a parent's fault. Still, parents can feel like they're personally responsible.

"There is an eagerness to medicalize the feelings of insecurity, because if it's due to a diagnosis, then it's not a knock on your decisions," Davis said.

Whether or not their child is formally diagnosed, Davis warned against treating it as a catch-all explanation for everything your child does.

"Despite our best intentions, if we put a label on the kid and the kid is aware of that label, they are given the message 'there is something wrong with how you are developing,'" she said. Even positive spins, like "ADHD is a superpower," can send a message to the kid that their life will be forever defined by struggle, she said.

It can also imply that symptoms like difficulty focusing or reading can't meaningfully improve with the right interventions.

"We all want to develop resilience in our children, to make them feel like they have agency and control and they're in charge of their own destinies," Davis said. "Especially when kids are very young and don't understand the fluidity of these labels, we could potentially be working against them."

Try softer interventions first

Davis wants to be clear: Diagnoses such as autism and ADHD are real. There are children who are unambiguously and significantly impaired by them in every setting, who need clear support academically and socially. "There are evidence-based interventions at our disposal that are enormously helpful," she said.

However, for parents who believe their child falls into some gray areas, Davis recommended trying a few things before booking an evaluation appointment. She compared it to a young child with a mild fever: A responsible pediatrician would guide parents through modest steps, such as taking a temperature and offering plenty of fluids, before rushing to the ER.

Instead of assuming your child might have autism if they struggle to make friends or always hang out alone at recess, Davis suggested first making other plans with their parents to set up playdates. You can also sign up your child for a karate class or call the school's teacher to see if they can intervene and help the kids play together more.

Alternatively, she said, if you immediately seek out a diagnosis and place your child into therapy and social skills groups, you could be taking away from more enriching social activities.

If a child continues to struggle, Davis recommended getting a neuropsychological assessment — a form of standardized test that is broader than getting an autism or ADHD evaluation.

While not perfect, she said neuropsychological assessments can measure a child's motor skills, sensory processing, attention, cognitive efficiency, language, memory, and social functioning. Their scores are typically compared with norms for peers of the same age.

More importantly, it helps parents know which interventions are the best. "If your kid perceives life to be very stressful or upsetting, they're not making it up. Let's talk about what we can do to support them better in that environment," Davis said. "But we don't need a diagnosis to do that."

During one of his son’s hockey games, Nick Paumgarten watches as his eight-year-old is hit from behind, only to rise to his feet and use his stick to hit the side of his opponent’s head. Alongside his concern for his son’s head and neck, Paumgarten, who has written about his own hockey-related concussions, rapidly processes the outcomes of the exchange: a game-deciding penalty, his own reflexive rationalization, and the evaluation of other parents who “held me in some way responsible, as both father and coach, for the violence and loss of self-control.” Paumgarten’s essay is rich with such moments of parent-coach double-consciousness, and sensitive to the numerous ways, some of them awful, in which those two identities intrude upon each other.

That Sunday, it wasn’t yet 8 A.M. when a Rye player shoved James from behind into the boards. James went down awkwardly and stayed prone a moment, then leaped up and, with an implausible ferocity, cross-checked the other kid in the ear. The Rye boy collapsed to the ice, and the other kids poured in and began grappling with one another, while parents shouted and pointed. Soon there was a pile of mites, with the two referees pulling players off and flinging them aside like puppies. Through the windows, you could see that the sun had risen over the Long Island Sound. I thought of my son’s fellow second graders back in the city, likely still asleep or watching cartoons in their pajamas or getting dressed for church or whatever the unrinked got up to on weekend mornings, but here at Playland my boy had instigated a munchkin brawl.

A Chinese man hired a Florida surrogate, then didn’t pick up his kids because of visas issues, sparking a custody battle that could upend the lucrative, largely unregulated industry. Emi Nietfeld spent more than a year reporting this rollercoaster of a feature. One particularly harrowing turn involves the father hiring people to retrieve the babies for him:

As the men continued knocking on her door, Simpson’s phone convulsed with notifications. Zhou messaged her nonstop. He called 53 times. “If you don’t give my babies to us, we have to report to the police. And you will be arrested immediately,” he warned. Then came pleas—or were they threats? “Think about your daughter,” he wrote, referring to Simpson’s 5-year-old. “I don’t think you want to have her be live without you for several years!”

Halfway across the world, Zhou paced in his apartment, chest seizing in panic. Over and over, he’d tried to explain his predicament to Simpson. He was still waiting for his visa interview; without her help, he couldn’t get his kids home. Running out of money and options, he’d hired the handlers as a last resort. Now, as his calls and messages went ignored, he feared she’d fallen in love with his children and would never let them go.