Your weekend long reads 🗞️
Good morning, friends of The Short List! You've made it to another weekend. We hope you have the time for all the things that make you happy.
When the going gets tough, how do you respond? Our long reads this weekend focus on ordinary people forced to deal with unusual adversity: A brutal winter storm. The isolation caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Or the challenge of motherhood and caregiving after leaving the workforce.
A case in point is Leslie Chiaramonte, a mother of two daughters in Peekskill, New York, who quit her job when the cost of a full-time babysitter exceeded her salary. While she and her husband have struggled financially, she is enjoying extra time with her girls and is pursuing a new career. "You have to work and hustle to get things you want," she said. "Maybe the universe was kind of saying, there's something else out there for you. And I took it, I jumped at it."
Stories about "ordinary" people coping with an extraordinary time.
- Strangers who became heroes: The amazing ways people helped each other weather the Texas storm
- 'I am a better mom': After quitting their jobs during the pandemic to care for family, here's how it changed these women
- 'I felt immeasurably stuck': High school seniors face college acceptances, rejections alone
Stay strong! There are more long reads below.