A Year of Guaranteed Income Means ‘Freedom’ for This Single Mom and Her Son

Front and Center offers first-person accounts of Black mothers living in Jackson, Miss., receiving a guaranteed income. First launched in 2018, the Magnolia Mother’s Trust (MMT) is the longest-running guaranteed income program in the U.S. Across the country, guaranteed income pilots like MMT are finding that recipients are overwhelmingly using their payments for basic needs like groceries, housing and transportation.

“MMT has given me more freedom. Freedom of mind, freedom from stress. Freedom from thinking, ‘I know I have this bill coming but I don’t know if I’m going to have the money to pay.’ It’s a relief to know that I can just go to bed and wake up and know that at the end of the day, it’s going to be taken care of.”

What Do Tradwives Have to Do With Democracy?

The tradwife movement is more than just eye-catching images of open land, barefoot kids, chickens and sourdough perfectly cultivated for an Instagram grid. It’s a cultural movement to influence young women to willingly check out of the workforce and give up their rights and agency.

And if progressives are too “burnt out” to check back in, these forces will win the culture war and the political movements to take away birth control, end no-fault divorce and take away a woman’s choice whether to go through with an unwanted pregnancy.

Our Abortion Stories: ‘Instead of an Immediate Dilation and Curettage, I Was Sent Home to Wait for Nature to Take Its Course’

Abortions are sought by a wide range of people for many different reasons. There is no single story. Telling stories of then and now shows how critical abortion has been and continues to be for women and girls. (Share your abortion story by emailing myabortionstory@msmagazine.com.)

Author Anne Shaw Heinrich reflects on her abortion story, motherhood and how it connects to the characters in her book, God Bless the Child.

Nursing Parents Still Have No Place to Pump at Work. Now They’re Suing.

A wave of lawsuits—including against major companies—is coming after the PUMP Act gave employees the right to sue over a lack of workplace accommodations.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding for the first year of a child’s life, a standard that is difficult to meet in the United States because postpartum workplace protections are very limited.

My Daughter Was Assaulted in a Hospital. Body Cams Could Have Brought Us Justice.

Six people assaulted or aided the assault on my daughter for no medical outcome. Her first experience with penetration in her private area was by an adult male, decades older, who overpowered her and refused to listen to her.

Especially when male doctors are going to be in the vicinity of female private parts, there must be consent, at all ages, at all times. If the ER staff wore body cams, if I had a video of that hospital room to offer as evidence of the sexual assault of a minor—a toddler—as evidence that the Hippocratic oath was breached, then I would be less likely to be seen as a mother overreacting.

Nowhere to Turn: Survivors are Unsafe at Home and Criminalized on the Streets

As domestic violence and housing costs skyrocket, the Supreme Court’s answer to the crisis of homelessness is more cruelty.

Now, it’s up to state and local governments to invest in proven strategies that help end abuse and homelessness, such as broad investments in affordable housing and targeted investments in survivor-specific housing programs. Survivors can’t wait any longer for the safe, affordable housing they need.

Supporting Caregivers Supports Us All

Serving over 7 million children in the U.S., home-based providers are often the unsung heroes of the early childhood workforce. But their heroism is not financially rewarded.

In response to the worsening caregiver crisis that emerged during the pandemic, the Thriving Providers Project (TPP) was launched in 2022 to stabilize the economic well-being of these essential workers—nearly all of whom are women—through direct cash transfers. One hundred home-based providers received $500 monthly for 18 months, alongside support services like access to mental health resources.

The Case for a Guaranteed Income for Single Moms: ‘Everybody Needs a Little Extra Cushion, Especially When You Have Kids’

Front and Center offers first-person accounts of Black mothers living in Jackson, Miss., receiving a guaranteed income. First launched in 2018, the Magnolia Mother’s Trust (MMT) is about to enter its fifth cohort, bringing the number of moms served to more than 400 and making it the longest-running guaranteed income program in the country. Across the country, guaranteed income pilots like MMT are finding that recipients are overwhelmingly using their payments for basic needs like groceries, housing and transportation.

“My main goals during this year of receiving funds is to find regular schools for my kids that offer them opportunities. And next year, or the year after, I’d like to find a house with a yard so they can feel comfortable. Something that’s ours.

“I’m so happy to be a part of this program. … I think it should be a standard all across the world. Mothers do so much every single day. Everybody needs a little extra cushion, especially when you have kids.”

Flipping the Script on True Crime: The Ms. Q&A With Author Kristine S. Ervin

Kristine S. Ervin was 8 when her mother was abducted from a mall parking lot, murdered and abandoned in an Oklahoma oil field. In her debut memoir Rabbit Heart, Ervin resists the true crime trope of exploiting and glorifying femicide and instead delves into the emotional toll her mother’s death took on her and her family. We sat down recently to talk about her book, growing up motherless, how this informed her life’s gender power dynamics and her evolution from being a feminist-skeptic to writing what is undeniably a deeply feminist memoir.

“I see this as a grief memoir, a motherless daughter memoir, a memoir that is meant to show what 25 years of unrelenting, brutal grief looks like when you are the loved one of a victim and you don’t have answers.”