I drafted a "short" essay in response to this but here's a "succinct" revision: I've only recently learned that coping with major life changes and transitions in friends' and loved ones' lives requires emotional maturity, patience, responsiveness, compassion, and resilience. I do not claim to suddenly possess any of these qualities in abundance now that I am a parent but I can see how severely deficient I was in these areas before I gained firsthand insight into how radically one's whole brain/body/life changes with parenthood. I now try to view anything anybody is going through—an illness, chronic pain, taking care of a sick or elderly relative, separation and divorce, job loss, etc.—through this lens.
Though I've always been excited by friends having kids and have wanted in every instance to be steadfast and supportive, I also experienced major confusion around how to sustain a friendship post-baby—what should I expect, what is expected of me?—as well as grief when the shape of those friendships inevitably changed. Importantly, I did not have the tools to identify that what I was feeling was indeed grief until recently. At the time I interpreted the shift in dynamic in ways that were reflective of my own insecurities and fears.
One of the major sociocultural conditions of our time, it seems, is how deeply we lack the community models and attitudes that teach us, implicitly and explicitly, how to adapt not only to sea changes in our own life circumstance but those of others, i.e., how to be a loving and accepting presence for a friend when *their* life has become more complicated or more boundaried or less flexible or less of what *you* would consider fun. This lack of adaptivity is converging, too, with a zeitgest-y obsession with only doing what makes us feel good, what brings us immediate pleasure and gratification, what perpetuates "good vibes only," what is easy and convenient, what does not require a modicum of discomfort or effort. I can't help but worry that all of this makes for a beastly form of neo-individualism, and threatens the messy richness that comes along with living alongside folks who do not share one's exact interests, priorities, constraints, goals, and passions.
I could go on, but I hesitate to do so before reading the article (though I do feel thoroughly briefed after reading your summary and critique). At the risk of leaving this at a loose end, I'll only add that the apparent subtext of the article—that friends with needs, limits, responsibilities, dependents, etc. should be separated out into distinct categories based on their ability and willingness to behave as though they do not have needs, limits, responsibilities, dependents, etc.—leaves me with a heavy, tired heart.
I always feel like parenthood, starting with very difficult pregnancies that felt like invisible-to-the-world-suffering made me more empathetic because it emphasized how little you truly know about what's going on (physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically) about people. It feels like there is a tremendous gap -- in this article and in general -- around friendships/relationships necessarily changing and shifting. There's also just such a lack of intimacy in the relationships described in this particular relationship. I feel that in order to escape the ardent individualism you describe/fear is also escaping one's assumptions and experience as the true center of it all.
I realize it will alarm many that the revelation revealed in paragraph 1 is so fresh (I'm 36!) when it should be old news, but I'm slow on the uptake and a late bloomer emotionally and otherwise!
So many good points. My initial huge double take was the “can’t wait to meet my new bff”. Setting aside your very valid point as to how appalling it is that she thought up a canned response, why would that be the line? In what world would a parent want to hear that? It’s presumptuous and silly on so many levels.
This summarizes my reflections/reactions so well. To add, there is actually so much more, at least in my personal experience, that shapes friendship dynamics over time because (newsflash) people grow and change in many different ways in response to Other Life Things, like illness, death, relationships, break-ups, jobs, moves, etc. I don't have children myself and am baffled by how some childless people view children at best as an inconvenience in the way of living their best life, and at worst, with disdain and in dehumanizing ways. I also had a reaction to the article that is neither here nor there given what I understand of hegemonic media: the piece is a white heteronormative POV which embodies individualistic/atomized ways of looking at the world focused on maximizing satisfaction and ease for consumption and instant gratification. What would have been more interesting to me is if the piece as a whole examined what those conversations and negotiations and community building efforts (shoehorned in at the very end) look like in practice between people with and without children, in all its messiness and possibilities. But that would have been an entirely different piece and not clickbait to manufacture clicks.
100% to everything you said. I sometimes wonder if adults who dehumanize children were themselves dehumanized, because we were, after all, all children once.
I have to say, I do not think I have ever been interested in discussing poop, and I don’t ever remember any of my parent friends wanting to either. It feels like such a trope, but really, who are these people?
The part where I truly became convinced that the whole piece was trolling for clickbait was where she mentioned dinner and hours of conversation with her friend, and then “rehashing the details of a situationship that had defined my summer” by the pool the next day, and being mad that her friend was cradling and nuzzling her son while listening and giving generic listening sounds; until the writer finally trailed off and went on her phone, wondering who else she could hang out with. I’m sorry, that is, like, several hours in a 24-hour period spent talking with/listening to each other. And this is your example of the woman who isn’t giving enough of herself to you? If you are rehashing details of a situationship that many hours into it having presumably exhausted many other topics already, I daresay it is probably extremely uninteresting stuff, and expecting anyone to sit through it hanging on your every word is the very definition of being a bad, self-absorbed, selfish friend. Sometimes it’s okay to just sit and exist near each other by a pool, and parallel-play together – one person nuzzling a child, one reading or scrolling or swimming, occasionally chatting about situationships and other trivial things, whatever. I cannot imagine anyone writing this with a straight face. I would have faded away from this woman well before I had kids.
Nine of her friends were pregnant at once? And yet surely 100% of her friends were not all pregnant at the same time – so, how large, exactly, is this friend group and just how much must go into keeping it intact and active to these standards (hanging out frequently, hours spent dissecting relationships in-person, jaunting off to concerts on a whim, etc)? What sort of dedicated, focused time and emotional investment is realistic to expect as “friendship?”
Also the part where the woman was mad about going to playgrounds all the time and then said next time she’ll just get a hotel and invite her friends to dinners. That sounds like a great idea! She was, what, crashing with parent friends and being mad that they stayed parents for most of that time? It’s not exactly a thing where you can just clear your calendar, like just block yourself off as busy in Teams for the day and voila. You could get a sitter for five hours and that would just about cover dinner and a Broadway show plus transit; there’s a whole entire day still in there to fill!
And, of course, the “heroic parent archetype” ragebait. It just HAD TO be Coachella. Every year! Even before kids, I would not have the time or money to want repeat trips to Coachella. Would I go once? Sure, I guess? But like, the next year, if I had equal resources, I’d probably like to do something different with that time and money. The implication of going every year is that the resources required to do this are so infinite as to not factor in at all – which, after the last 3.5 years in America, is a real hell of an ideal to put forth as the “hero” in parenting. It is just about impossible for me to believe that this piece is anything but disingenuous trolling, really, and I honestly resent its publication because the last thing any of us need in 2023 is to be deliberately riled up.
OMG it was Coachella but at least it wasn't Burning Man! I also found the characterization of parents only talking about poop or sleep like a real trope of the first few months. Like that's a way of connecting on obviously relatable topics with other new parents they're meeting for the first time maybe???? But I agree, it feels like trolling esp it coming out like 2 days after school starts.
I do not know if I have ever commented before, and I have gross feelings about this piece doing exactly what it was designed to do, ie get me talking about it and engaging. So I want to also take this time to say that I absolutely love this newsletter and it is basically double Christmas for me whenever there's a little recommendation section based on what your kids are reading. All your recs are invariably wonderful, but the kids' books especially are gems I almost never stumble upon anywhere else, and my kids are eternally grateful, though they don't know it.
Thank you!!! My kids' current favorite is The Unfortunate Life of Worms, which I haven't found time to post about yet but is a *gem*! https://bookshop.org/a/30589/9798986640600
I kind of just lost it right there when I read that paragraph. All I needed to know about the author was this—that she considered THIS to be the heroic parent archetype. This screams of privilege to me, plus nobody cares that you're still going to Coachella every year.
Loved this analysis! I feel like ten years ago the author might still have written an article about how she doesn't like her friends and they don't like her: Resentment seems central to her understanding and experience of friendship.
I love all these comments and your critiques and I really disliked the article. I felt (as some say in these comments) that the author actually doesn't really understand friendship much at all, if her only priority in friends is people who "do fun things that she also likes". There will be many times in life that you have a different or difficult divide with a friend - whether it's because of different financial situations, someone losing a parent, someone getting divorced. Sure, kids are a big one but they are not the only part of learning to grow in friendship with someone. This article is about being sad that you are losing your "going out with so much free time friends" not about losing friends who are the ones that will actually grow with you.
Right on. Especially critique #7. This article was saddening because it completely ignored and avoided imagining what it would actually look like to create multi-generational community and friendship. Or perhaps only imagined it with the example of Samin Nostat as if to say that we couldn't possibly all achieve that level of connection. The need to support families of young kids is so well documented that it felt like a huge editorial blindspot not to dive into it more.
I too am trying not to get too riled up by something that seems purposefully trying to agitate parents, but it is hard to see content get published that continues to add pressure to parents and put blame on them for systemic problems and a lack of community support. Especially written from the point of view of someone who is specifically justifying her withholding of community support/mutual aid.
YES! So much opportunity to explore what non-parent and parent friendship looks like and communities of parenting that are outside the nuclear entity. This feels so ... stingy and cynical and the complete lack of acknowledgement of systemic problems just feels ignorant.
Yes! My parents were the only ones of their friends to have kids, and I loved having those adults in my life. They were so good to me, and I learned a lot about how to talk to and act around adults, and make my own fun when we went to visit.
We are taking my three year old camping this weekend with five other people, and he will be the only kid there. Everyone is really excited!
Sadly, I don't think mutual aid/community mindfulness ever crosses the author's mind. That's really too bad for her.
I drafted a "short" essay in response to this but here's a "succinct" revision: I've only recently learned that coping with major life changes and transitions in friends' and loved ones' lives requires emotional maturity, patience, responsiveness, compassion, and resilience. I do not claim to suddenly possess any of these qualities in abundance now that I am a parent but I can see how severely deficient I was in these areas before I gained firsthand insight into how radically one's whole brain/body/life changes with parenthood. I now try to view anything anybody is going through—an illness, chronic pain, taking care of a sick or elderly relative, separation and divorce, job loss, etc.—through this lens.
Though I've always been excited by friends having kids and have wanted in every instance to be steadfast and supportive, I also experienced major confusion around how to sustain a friendship post-baby—what should I expect, what is expected of me?—as well as grief when the shape of those friendships inevitably changed. Importantly, I did not have the tools to identify that what I was feeling was indeed grief until recently. At the time I interpreted the shift in dynamic in ways that were reflective of my own insecurities and fears.
One of the major sociocultural conditions of our time, it seems, is how deeply we lack the community models and attitudes that teach us, implicitly and explicitly, how to adapt not only to sea changes in our own life circumstance but those of others, i.e., how to be a loving and accepting presence for a friend when *their* life has become more complicated or more boundaried or less flexible or less of what *you* would consider fun. This lack of adaptivity is converging, too, with a zeitgest-y obsession with only doing what makes us feel good, what brings us immediate pleasure and gratification, what perpetuates "good vibes only," what is easy and convenient, what does not require a modicum of discomfort or effort. I can't help but worry that all of this makes for a beastly form of neo-individualism, and threatens the messy richness that comes along with living alongside folks who do not share one's exact interests, priorities, constraints, goals, and passions.
I could go on, but I hesitate to do so before reading the article (though I do feel thoroughly briefed after reading your summary and critique). At the risk of leaving this at a loose end, I'll only add that the apparent subtext of the article—that friends with needs, limits, responsibilities, dependents, etc. should be separated out into distinct categories based on their ability and willingness to behave as though they do not have needs, limits, responsibilities, dependents, etc.—leaves me with a heavy, tired heart.
I always feel like parenthood, starting with very difficult pregnancies that felt like invisible-to-the-world-suffering made me more empathetic because it emphasized how little you truly know about what's going on (physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically) about people. It feels like there is a tremendous gap -- in this article and in general -- around friendships/relationships necessarily changing and shifting. There's also just such a lack of intimacy in the relationships described in this particular relationship. I feel that in order to escape the ardent individualism you describe/fear is also escaping one's assumptions and experience as the true center of it all.
I realize it will alarm many that the revelation revealed in paragraph 1 is so fresh (I'm 36!) when it should be old news, but I'm slow on the uptake and a late bloomer emotionally and otherwise!
So many good points. My initial huge double take was the “can’t wait to meet my new bff”. Setting aside your very valid point as to how appalling it is that she thought up a canned response, why would that be the line? In what world would a parent want to hear that? It’s presumptuous and silly on so many levels.
Hard agree. It feels sarcastic at best and more likely very bitter/cynical.
This summarizes my reflections/reactions so well. To add, there is actually so much more, at least in my personal experience, that shapes friendship dynamics over time because (newsflash) people grow and change in many different ways in response to Other Life Things, like illness, death, relationships, break-ups, jobs, moves, etc. I don't have children myself and am baffled by how some childless people view children at best as an inconvenience in the way of living their best life, and at worst, with disdain and in dehumanizing ways. I also had a reaction to the article that is neither here nor there given what I understand of hegemonic media: the piece is a white heteronormative POV which embodies individualistic/atomized ways of looking at the world focused on maximizing satisfaction and ease for consumption and instant gratification. What would have been more interesting to me is if the piece as a whole examined what those conversations and negotiations and community building efforts (shoehorned in at the very end) look like in practice between people with and without children, in all its messiness and possibilities. But that would have been an entirely different piece and not clickbait to manufacture clicks.
100% to everything you said. I sometimes wonder if adults who dehumanize children were themselves dehumanized, because we were, after all, all children once.
I have to say, I do not think I have ever been interested in discussing poop, and I don’t ever remember any of my parent friends wanting to either. It feels like such a trope, but really, who are these people?
The part where I truly became convinced that the whole piece was trolling for clickbait was where she mentioned dinner and hours of conversation with her friend, and then “rehashing the details of a situationship that had defined my summer” by the pool the next day, and being mad that her friend was cradling and nuzzling her son while listening and giving generic listening sounds; until the writer finally trailed off and went on her phone, wondering who else she could hang out with. I’m sorry, that is, like, several hours in a 24-hour period spent talking with/listening to each other. And this is your example of the woman who isn’t giving enough of herself to you? If you are rehashing details of a situationship that many hours into it having presumably exhausted many other topics already, I daresay it is probably extremely uninteresting stuff, and expecting anyone to sit through it hanging on your every word is the very definition of being a bad, self-absorbed, selfish friend. Sometimes it’s okay to just sit and exist near each other by a pool, and parallel-play together – one person nuzzling a child, one reading or scrolling or swimming, occasionally chatting about situationships and other trivial things, whatever. I cannot imagine anyone writing this with a straight face. I would have faded away from this woman well before I had kids.
Nine of her friends were pregnant at once? And yet surely 100% of her friends were not all pregnant at the same time – so, how large, exactly, is this friend group and just how much must go into keeping it intact and active to these standards (hanging out frequently, hours spent dissecting relationships in-person, jaunting off to concerts on a whim, etc)? What sort of dedicated, focused time and emotional investment is realistic to expect as “friendship?”
Also the part where the woman was mad about going to playgrounds all the time and then said next time she’ll just get a hotel and invite her friends to dinners. That sounds like a great idea! She was, what, crashing with parent friends and being mad that they stayed parents for most of that time? It’s not exactly a thing where you can just clear your calendar, like just block yourself off as busy in Teams for the day and voila. You could get a sitter for five hours and that would just about cover dinner and a Broadway show plus transit; there’s a whole entire day still in there to fill!
And, of course, the “heroic parent archetype” ragebait. It just HAD TO be Coachella. Every year! Even before kids, I would not have the time or money to want repeat trips to Coachella. Would I go once? Sure, I guess? But like, the next year, if I had equal resources, I’d probably like to do something different with that time and money. The implication of going every year is that the resources required to do this are so infinite as to not factor in at all – which, after the last 3.5 years in America, is a real hell of an ideal to put forth as the “hero” in parenting. It is just about impossible for me to believe that this piece is anything but disingenuous trolling, really, and I honestly resent its publication because the last thing any of us need in 2023 is to be deliberately riled up.
OMG it was Coachella but at least it wasn't Burning Man! I also found the characterization of parents only talking about poop or sleep like a real trope of the first few months. Like that's a way of connecting on obviously relatable topics with other new parents they're meeting for the first time maybe???? But I agree, it feels like trolling esp it coming out like 2 days after school starts.
I do not know if I have ever commented before, and I have gross feelings about this piece doing exactly what it was designed to do, ie get me talking about it and engaging. So I want to also take this time to say that I absolutely love this newsletter and it is basically double Christmas for me whenever there's a little recommendation section based on what your kids are reading. All your recs are invariably wonderful, but the kids' books especially are gems I almost never stumble upon anywhere else, and my kids are eternally grateful, though they don't know it.
Thank you!!! My kids' current favorite is The Unfortunate Life of Worms, which I haven't found time to post about yet but is a *gem*! https://bookshop.org/a/30589/9798986640600
I kind of just lost it right there when I read that paragraph. All I needed to know about the author was this—that she considered THIS to be the heroic parent archetype. This screams of privilege to me, plus nobody cares that you're still going to Coachella every year.
The Coachella thing really screams prolonged adolescence.
Loved this analysis! I feel like ten years ago the author might still have written an article about how she doesn't like her friends and they don't like her: Resentment seems central to her understanding and experience of friendship.
THIS
I love all these comments and your critiques and I really disliked the article. I felt (as some say in these comments) that the author actually doesn't really understand friendship much at all, if her only priority in friends is people who "do fun things that she also likes". There will be many times in life that you have a different or difficult divide with a friend - whether it's because of different financial situations, someone losing a parent, someone getting divorced. Sure, kids are a big one but they are not the only part of learning to grow in friendship with someone. This article is about being sad that you are losing your "going out with so much free time friends" not about losing friends who are the ones that will actually grow with you.
Right on. Especially critique #7. This article was saddening because it completely ignored and avoided imagining what it would actually look like to create multi-generational community and friendship. Or perhaps only imagined it with the example of Samin Nostat as if to say that we couldn't possibly all achieve that level of connection. The need to support families of young kids is so well documented that it felt like a huge editorial blindspot not to dive into it more.
I too am trying not to get too riled up by something that seems purposefully trying to agitate parents, but it is hard to see content get published that continues to add pressure to parents and put blame on them for systemic problems and a lack of community support. Especially written from the point of view of someone who is specifically justifying her withholding of community support/mutual aid.
YES! So much opportunity to explore what non-parent and parent friendship looks like and communities of parenting that are outside the nuclear entity. This feels so ... stingy and cynical and the complete lack of acknowledgement of systemic problems just feels ignorant.
Yes! My parents were the only ones of their friends to have kids, and I loved having those adults in my life. They were so good to me, and I learned a lot about how to talk to and act around adults, and make my own fun when we went to visit.
We are taking my three year old camping this weekend with five other people, and he will be the only kid there. Everyone is really excited!
Sadly, I don't think mutual aid/community mindfulness ever crosses the author's mind. That's really too bad for her.